Tag Archives: SIF

LEP Challenge Sessions

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You may have seen a previous blog about the Stoke on Trent & Staffordshire LEP area being given an indicative allocation of €161.6m for the next EU funding phase 2014 – 2020.  This allocation is to cover ERDF (European Regional Development Fund), ESF (European Social Fund) and EAFRD (European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development) priorities. Over the next few weeks the LEP is running a series of stakeholder challenge sessions to explore and define key elements to be included in their preparing a European Structural and Investment Fund Strategy, which will plan for how the €161.6m will be spent here in Staffordshire.

The following sessions have been arranged to date:

  • Business Development – Wednesday 7th August, 3:30 pm Staffordshire University
  • Sectors & Innovation – Friday 9th August, 9:30 am Keele Sustainability Hub
  • Inward Investment – Friday 16th August, 2:00 pm Staffordshire place 1
  • Skills – Monday 9th September, 9:30 am Rodbaston College
  • Quality of Life / Sites & Infrastructure – Wednesday 11th September, 2:00 pm CoRE

We are keen to get appropriate unviersity representation at these events, please contact externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk if you would like to attend.

News of funding for Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire LEP

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This week has been an important week for preparation for the next generation of EU funding programmes for External Projects Team and also bought news of our local EU funding allocation. Our LEP has been given a notional allocation of €161.6m (£137m) of Structural Investment Funds 2014-2020, which equates to the 14th highest allocation out of the 39 LEP’s.

IMG00019-20130626-1500SIFIS socio economic framework meeting 250613

The Structural Investment Funds, formerly known as the Common Strategic Framework (CSF), bring together ERDF (European Regional Development Fund), ESF (European Social Fund) the Cohesion Fund, EAFRD (European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development) and the EMFF (European Maritime and Fisheries Fund). Emma Davies presented at the first Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire LEP EU Investment Strategy Working Group meeting on Monday. This group will be leading the preparation of the LEP’s Structural Investment Fund and Investment Strategy (SIFIS). It was agreed that a series of challenge groups over the summer will be run to allow stakeholders to input into prioritisation for the draft strategy required for Autumn.  Further information will be circulated on how university colleagues can input into this process.  Tuesday followed up with a review of the West Midlands Socio-Economic Framework, prepared by West Midlands European Service.  This will form part of the evidence base for our local SIFIS. 

Wednesday was the Universities UK conference Europe: at the heart of internationalisation. This conference was focussed on the opportunities and policy drivers the EU presented for internationalisation of UK HEIs, considering the Bologna Process and funding opportunities for research and teaching.  It was announced at this event that the Erasmus for All programme will be changing its name to Erasmus Plus!

For further information please contact externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk.  Details of the Structural Investment Funds and the West Midlands Socio Economic Framework can be found at http://www.wmemployers.org.uk/wmescsf.  Presentations from the UUK conference can be found at http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/events/Pages/EuropePresentations.aspx.