The Mechanism for Monitoring, Supporting, Informing and Connecting Businesses with Research Organisations for the Promotion of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Thessaly announces the descriptive statistics of the proposals submitted under Actions PTHESE04 «Developing Smartly in the Region of Thessaly» and PTHESE05 «Doing Business Smartly in the Region of Thessaly», each with a public expenditure budget of €25 million and a submission deadline of 31.3.2026.
It is reminded that the Action «I develop smartly in the Region of Thessaly» aims to support investment plans existing small and medium-sized enterprises in the Region of Thessaly, in sectors and priorities that emerged from the Entrepreneurial Discovery Process of the Region of Thessaly for the 2021-2027 period and are detailed in the Regional Specialisation of the RIS3 for the Region of Thessaly. Similarly, the Action «I trade smartly in the Region of Thessaly» aims to support investment projects of new and nascent SMEs in the same sectors and priorities.
A total were submitted 1546 sentences from an equal number of businesses, with total investment of €209.4 million and requested funding (=public expenditure) of 489 million euros., exceeding the available public funding under the Call by a factor of 5.58. The average percentage of funding requested stands at 57.1% for both actions. The Table 1 provides the details per action.
Table 1: Summary data of submissions by action.
Across all the actions, 80% of the requested funding (public expenditure) related, in descending order, to the priorities of Tourism-Culture-Creative Industries, Materials and Construction, and Industry, and Life Sciences, Health and Pharmaceuticals.
Nevertheless, significant differences are noted across the various actions. In particular, for the action ’Smart Business in the Region of Thessaly«, which concerned new and start-up businesses, the share allocated to the »Tourism–Culture–Creative Industries’ priority reached 60 % of the total funding requested.
It is noted that the percentage of investment projects that did not concern investments in any of the priorities of RIS3Thessaly It was very low, amounting to 0.84% of the requested funding.
Ο Table 2 it gives the breakdown of the requested funding (public expenditure) by priority and action.
Table 2: Breakdown of requested public expenditure by RIS3Thessaly Priority.
At the level of the activity in which the investment is being made (second-level investment NACE code), 80 % of the funding requested comes from 11 sectors (see. Table 3). Accommodation ranks first overall and among new & start-up businesses. In contrast, in existing businesses, the food industry appears to be the sector with the highest demand for financing, sitting marginally above accommodation.
Table 3: Breakdown of requested public expenditure by secondary NACE code and Action (amounts in € million).
As regards the size of the potential beneficiary enterprises, there is, evidently due to the specific focus of each measure, significant variation. In the measure for existing enterprises, 63.35 % of the funding requested related to very small enterprises, whilst in the measure for new enterprises this proportion rose to 94.67 %.
Table 4: Breakdown of requested public expenditure by enterprise size.
Finally, regarding the geographical allocation of investments, the Prefecture of Magnesia (Regional Unit of Magnesia & Sporades) is in first place in both actions (see. Table 5).
The data shows that there is activity across all municipalities of Thessaly except for the Municipality of Argithea (see. Figure 1). Nevertheless, the municipalities in the prefectural capitals are the recipients of 60 % of the requested funding.
Table 5: Breakdown of requested public expenditure by investment location prefecture.
Figure 1: Distribution of requested funding by Municipality for existing (PTESE04, top) and new businesses (PTESE05, bottom).
The conclusion from the above is that the Entrepreneurial Discovery Process in spring 2024 successfully captured investment needs within its priorities RIS3Thessaly and to mobilise a very significant level of investment that exceeds by more than 5 times the available budget of the Thessaly 2021-2028 Programme.
It is noted that the two actions provide significant opportunities for access to development capital for micro and small enterprises that find it difficult to benefit from alternative sources of financing other than their shareholders' equity.
Compared with the previous programming period, the two corresponding calls of the Thessaly ROP 2014-2020 issued in 2019 («Enhancement of existing SMEs for the improvement of their productive activity and/or for the development of new products and services» & «Enhancement of new, start-up and under-formation enterprises for the exploitation of patents and/or innovations, as well as supporting services for the improvement of their productive activity and/or for the development of new products and services») had a total of 664 submissions and requested funding of EUR 91 million, without setting thematic targeting restrictions on priorities RIS3.