There are lots of possibilities for municipalities and local public authorities in the EU funding system to attract external funding for local initiatives and activities. However, many municipalities shy away from getting engaged and getting involved.

And it’s not like you can’t understand why: the system seems immense to dig into, the rules are different and often more complex from national funding schemes and human resources in the municipalities are often overburdened with core activities. Nonetheless, there are a wonderful world of opportunities at the other side for the municipalities that invest in building up knowledge and capacities on working with EU funding schemes.

One of the core stakeholders I support in my daytime job is Vejle Municipality – a municipality at the shores of Southeast Denmark. Over the last 6-7 years their business support unit has built up capacities and experience attracting EU funding to ram up impact of their activities supporting local SMEs and industry.

I invited Business Consultant Maibrit Lajgaard Pedersen into the virtual podcast studio to carve out why they do it and how they do it. It became a wonderful conversation about conditions and approaches for municipalities within the field of EU funding. A must-listen for all municipality stakeholders to get insights on how this work and how you can get started.

Time codes:

00:02:10 Introduction

00:04:40 Fly in

00:14:44 Vejle Municipality and EU funding

00:32:11 Organisation

00:55:10 Finding proposals

00:57:23 Implementation

01:05:12 Challenges for public organisations in EU funding

01:10:26 The toughest challenge