Midway through our survey (and midway through summer), we have almost 60 responses to our survey of how well Regional Development Agencies, Managing Authorities the EU’s Financial Instruments (“FIs”).
META and Eurada (European Association of Regional Development Agencies) launched a short survey in mid-May to study how well Regional Development Agencies, Managing Authorities and others understand the EU’s Financial Instruments (“FIs”).
Please take the survey here. You can also pass this on to those best positioned to benefit from the results, which will be directly comparable with a 2013 EIB study (pdf).
An early preview
A preview of the first 39 responses was unveiled by Luigi Amati at Eurada’s annual event on 31 May – as set out in Improving the use of Europe’s Financial Instruments on LinkedIn, the key early findings.include:
- many Managing Authorities remain poorly informed, particularly concerning the important role equity finance must play if Europe’s knowledge-intensive start-ups are to grow and create high-quality jobs – almost two thirds (64%) of Managing Authorities, their agencies and Regional Development Authorities cannot easily find the information they need;
- nevertheless, the two solutions of greatest interest to respondents remain:
- (1) “Combination of Grants and Financial Instruments”,
- (2) ”Equity instruments”;
- Tailor-made financial instruments are increasingly dominant – 75% of our respondents had done so, compared to a 57% intention to do so in the EIB’s 2013 study;
- The three most important factors driving that decision were (1) “Performance based incentives for managers … help reach targets”, (2) “A professional fund manager with direct experience in business helps reach targets” and (3) “I need an instrument highly specific to my region’s needs”
More: Improving the use of Europe’s Financial Instruments (Luigi Amati, LinkedIn)
Please take the survey
However, some of the above results were based on a small sample size. Since Luigi’s presentation (Slideshare) we have received 20 more responses, but the more the better, so:
- please take the survey and promote it to those best positioned to benefit from the results. You can do it here.
- contact us and we’ll let you know when we have released the data and analyses