Call for proposals for Mission 4, Component 2, Investment 1.1 of the national recovery and resilience plan

Subject: Call for proposals for Mission 4, Component 2, Investment 1.1 of the national recovery and resilience plan

The Ministry of Universities and Research (MUR) has published the call for proposals for Mission 4, Component 2, Investment 1.1 of the national recovery and resilience plan (NRRP). This which concerns funding for ‘projects of significant national interest’ (PRIN – Progetti di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale), for which there is an envelope of EUR 1.8 billion on the table. The aim is to finance 5 350 projects between now and 20261.

The PRIN 2022 call for proposals draws on national funds as well as the NRRP envelope. As reported in the press, MUR has cut funding for southern Italy from 40 % to 29 %2.

The call for proposals dated 31 January 2022 provided for two budget lines: a main one and one for southern Italy. Under the latter southern Italy would receive 40 % of the funding (EUR 296.7 million), while the budget for young researchers would be split between the main line (60 %) and the one for the southern Italy (40 %).

In the call for proposals dated 2 February 2022 however, while the amount earmarked for young researchers has not changed, being still EUR 222 million, the budget for southern Italy has been cut to EUR 218 million. It would seem that the latter is less than the young researchers’ budget because the 40 % for the south only applies to funding from the NRRP.

Can the Commission say whether, in its view:

1. Calculation of southern Italy’s 40 % share of the funding should be based on the whole of the call for proposals, given that all the projects have to achieve NRRP objectives?

2. Should Italy concentrate the investment in research in southern Italy, thereby following up on the recommendations made in 20203?

1 https://www.mur.gov.it/it/atti-e-normativa/decreto-direttoriale-n-104-del-02-02-2022


https://www.ilmessaggero.it/economia/news/recovery_plan_pnrr_centro_sud_investimento_ricerca_univ ersita_sceso_29_il_meccanismo_ultime_notizie-6483566.html

3 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1591720698631&uri=CELEX%3A52020DC0512

Answer given by Executive Vice-President Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission (12 May 2022)

The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) is a performance-based instrument under which payment of support is conditioned on the satisfactory fulfilment of milestones and targets, as specified in the Council Implementing Decision (CID) on the approval of the assessment of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) for Italy adopted by the Council on 13 July 2021.

Concerning the abovementioned Investment 1.1, the CID envisages the award of at least 5 350 ‘Progetti di Ricerca di Interesse Nazionale’ (PRIN) aligned with the priorities of the National Research Programme and the hiring of at least 900 new fixed-term researchers.

More specifically, the CID requires that the PRIN projects cover the six major areas of intervention of the PNR National Research Programme, but does not require an ex-ante specification of their geographical distribution.

Article 4 of Regulation (EU) 241/2021 establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility states that reducing territorial disparities and strengthening social cohesion are key objectives of the RRP.

The Member State is to determine how to address territorial disparities in its RRP. In the case of Italy, the RRP allocates at least 40% of investment with a specific territorial destination to Southern regions.

Yet, considering the bottom-up nature of the PRIN projects, it was not deemed appropriate for the milestones and targets of this specific measure to contain a strict condition to earmark 40% of funding to projects from Southern Italy.

⋅1∙ https://www.mur.gov.it/it/atti-e-normativa/decreto-direttoriale-n-104-del-02-02-2022

⋅2∙ https://www.ilmessaggero.it/economia/news/recovery_plan_pnrr_centro_sud_investimento_ricerca_universita_sceso_29_il_meccanismo_ultime_notizie-

6483566.html

⋅3∙ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1591720698631&uri=CELEX%3A52020DC0512