18. avg. 2025
The South-West Oltenia Regional Programme 2021–2027 aligns with the European Union’s cohesion policy priorities for the 2021–2027 period, addressing regional needs and challenges through targeted investments that promote competitiveness, innovation and digital transformation, energy efficiency, mobility, and improved connectivity.
In this matter we’ve launched the call `Research, innovation and technology transfer infrastructures with SMEs`, which aims to strengthen research and innovation capacity in priority areas of smart specialization (RIS3), directly contributing to increased regional competitiveness and the development of a functional innovation ecosystem across the region’s five counties: Dolj, Gorj, Mehedinți, Olt, and Vâlcea.
The total financial allocation of this call was 9,544,846.00 euros, of which:
- 8,113,119.00 euro (European Regional Development Fund)
- 1,431,727.00 euro (co-financing from the state budget)
The call was opened between 09th April and 8th July 2025, and eight projects were submitted, with a total requested value of approximately 18 million euros.
The projects address advanced research topics and innovative technological solutions, including:
Implementation of a deep learning and statistical analysis system for fetal morphology;
Environmentally friendly fuel cell-based energy source for airports;
SeismoGuard - integrated platform for monitoring earthquake-critical structures;
SkyScan - analysis system for airport movement areas;
DoneAI – Self-operating applications for inspection and analysis;
SIMIRA – integrated management system with augmented reality and virtual assistant;
Solutions for analyzing vehicle functional safety (ISO 26262);
New generation autonomous aerial and ground monitoring systems.
Projects were submitted in partnership. The partnership had to include at least two SMEs and at least one research organization (lead partner).
The consortium could include several SMEs and research organizations.
Within this call, when applying the quality threshold, if there was any project that held the Seal of Excellence awarded in a European project, it was eligible to proceed directly to the contracting phase.
The Seal of Excellence is a strategic gateway to scale Horizon Europe’s innovation impact at the regional level, particularly in less developed regions like South-West Oltenia. It strengthens the link between EU-level R&I excellence and regional development, making it a cornerstone of programme synergy.
Through this call, South-West Oltenia Regional Development Agency reaffirmed its strategic commitment to strengthening a functional regional innovation ecosystem, where systematic collaboration between academia, research and development institutes, and innovative enterprises in the SWO Region becomes a catalyst for generating applied knowledge, technological validation, and scientific transfer to the market.
Call links (only in Romanian):
Prepared by SW Olteania Team.