PNRR C7 I19 — the nine funded domains and why not a single leu reaches a software supplier

On checking on 30 July 2026, the project's official page on adr.gov.ro publishes no open enrolment window. The call is described as an open call with a submission deadline, allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, and support requests were evaluated by ADR on the same principle. The project implementation period, declared on the same page, is December 2022 to December 2025.

On the same day the e-learning platform digital4all.gov.ro was online and still described the training programmes available to employees of small and medium-sized companies. The two facts do not contradict each other, but they are not the same thing either: an active platform is not an open enrolment session.

We have removed from this page an enrolment closing date we previously published, because we could not locate it in an official document. The rule we apply to dates is the one we apply to amounts: if we have not read it at the source, we do not publish it. Any reopening would be announced exclusively by ADR.

The official enumeration covers Internet of Things, cloud technologies, big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence, robotic process automation, blockchain, cyber-physical systems and additive manufacturing. The platform descriptions go further: the big data course covers frameworks for processing large volumes and the tools to analyse them, the artificial intelligence course goes through tools such as TensorFlow and PyTorch and through cloud deployment, and the cyber-physical systems course deals with integrating and controlling devices and processes.

Cybersecurity does not appear on the list. The confusion comes from the shared prefix with cyber-physical systems, and the consequence is concrete: a company that enrolled expecting security training received something else. If the real need is security, it is covered from other lines and, in any case, through technical measures rather than a course alone.

The target group consists of employees with an individual employment contract, full-time or part-time, coming from small and medium-sized companies. Not administrators without a contract, not contractors, not staff of a large firm.

The wording on the official page leaves no opening: de minimis aid of at most EUR 17,000 is granted exclusively in the form of training programmes across the nine domains. The company receives no money in its account, settles no invoices and cannot redirect the sum towards licences, development or equipment. What it receives is the value of the courses its employees attend, recorded as de minimis aid against the company's ceiling.

For us that means zero access to this programme's budget, and we say so explicitly precisely because many suppliers do not. A vendor tying a software offer to I19 is selling outside the scheme.

There is, however, a consequence worth tracking: being de minimis aid, the value of the courses counts against the single undertaking's de minimis ceiling. Annex 5 of the application file required exactly the declaration on de minimis aid received over the last 3 calendar years, assessed on a rolling basis. A company planning another de minimis scheme needs to know how much of the ceiling was consumed here.

The de minimis aid scheme for upskilling and reskilling employees in companies, associated with PNRR pillar II, component C7, investment 19, was approved by Order no. 20953/22.07.2022 of the minister of research, innovation and digitalization, with subsequent amendments. The project beneficiary is ADR, and the financing contract is worth RON 177,102,000 excluding VAT, the equivalent of EUR 36 million from PNRR, plus RON 33,649,380 representing non-eligible VAT.

The documents required at enrolment were six declarations plus company records: classification as an SME, avoidance of double financing, eligibility for de minimis aid, absence of conflicts of interest, de minimis aid received by the single undertaking over the last 3 calendar years, and other aid received for the same eligible costs. To those were added a certificate for each employee proposed for training, a mandate for the representative, tax clearance certificates for the main and secondary establishments, and the legal representative's criminal record certificate.

The list is still useful today as a checklist: almost every de minimis scheme in Romania asks for the same combination, and preparing it in advance shortens reaction time to a new session by weeks.

An employee who finished a cloud course does not move the company's infrastructure alone, and an artificial intelligence course does not produce a customer assistant. Between skill and outcome sits a project: analysis, development, configuration, testing, go-live. The difference between a company that used the training and one that merely ticked it shows in which system is running a year later.

That is our place, and it is distinct from the programme's. Northdan Soft is a software supplier: we build the automations, internal applications, integrations and infrastructure the trained team operates. We do not organise courses, we are not a training provider and we do not write funding applications.