The impact of EU Cohesion Policy as a growth tool for Italian SMEs

The aim of this paper is to study the application to European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) by entrepreneurial firms in Italy; in the first place, we explore the current italian ecosystem of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), focusing on innovative startups. Then, we examine the different startups funding options available on the market, focusing on the procedure needed to apply the European structural and investment funds managed by Italian governement by means of development agencies such as Invitalia S.p.a. (The National Agency for Inward Investment Promotion and Enterprise Development). Lastly, we make a comparison between entrepreneurial ideas and enterprises which benefit from EU grants and those which did not, in order to analyse the efficiency of each variable involved in the EU funds access procedure. The study will be based on all the data already released by the Agency and on the internal reports produced for stakeholders (Ministry of Economic Development and Ministry of Culture); the level of disclosure needed for this work will be approved by Invitalia S.p.a. (Entrepreneurship Department and Human Resources Department), according to its internal regulations. The final output is to establish a potential qualitative/quantitative improvement with regard to the application to EU grants, not only through the analysis of each variable/index currently used but also considering the introduction of others variables/indexes, so that we can rethink the existing selection process.