POCIDIF Action 2.4 (EDIH): a call closed in 2023, that no company could ever apply to

Under Action 2.4 the applicant was the hub, and the company is a final beneficiary. The distinction is not semantic: the hub files the application, signs the contract with the managing authority and answers for the indicators, while the company signs with the hub a contract granting non-financial state aid for the services received.

The managing authority published a dedicated instruction precisely on verifying these non-financial aid contracts granted to SMEs within Action 2.4 projects. The practical consequence for a company: the value of the services received is booked as aid and counts towards its own aid ceilings, even though not a single leu passes through the company's account.

The same call produced Order MIPE no. 665 of 4 March 2024, amending the specific conditions of call 1, Instruction no. 2 on reconstituting the call inside the MySMIS2021/SMIS2021+ system, and Instruction no. 4, clarifying which expenses count as indirect costs. All are listed in the POCIDIF guide register.

The list of contracted POCIDIF projects, in its July 2024 version, contains exactly seven projects under Action 2.4, all marked at the time as under implementation, totalling RON 63.39 million of granted funding from the ERDF and the national budget. The document is two years old at our verification date, so it is a 2024 snapshot, not a live status: we cannot confirm what stage each project is at today, and network consolidation has meanwhile moved to Action 6.1.

The declared implementation areas, as they appear in that list: Transilvania Digital Innovation Hub, through Asociatia Transilvania IT, in the North-West region, county of Cluj; DIGIVEST, through ADR Vest, in the West region, county of Timis; Digital Innovation Zone, through the Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iasi, in the North-East, covering Iasi and Neamt; DIH4Society, through Asociatia Cluj IT, in the North-West, covering Bihor, Bistrita-Nasaud, Cluj, Maramures, Satu Mare and Salaj.

The rest of the coverage: CiTyInnoHub, through Ovidius University of Constanta, in Bucharest-Ilfov and the South-East, covering Bucharest, Braila, Buzau, Constanta, Galati, Tulcea and Vrancea; FIT EDIH, through Iceberg Plus, in Bucharest-Ilfov and the Centre, covering Bucharest, Alba, Brasov, Covasna, Mures, Sibiu and Cluj; Wallachia eHub, through Spiru Haret University, in Bucharest-Ilfov, the North-East and South-Muntenia, covering Bucharest, Vaslui, Prahova and Teleorman.

The guide register marks as active the call for Action 6.1, „SME digitalization delivered through European Digital Innovation Hubs in Romania (EDIH) with the STEP sovereignty seal”, with submissions between 30 April 2026 at 12:00 and 30 December 2026 at 17:00, national coverage and an allocation of EUR 20,918,624.37. The guide was amended by Order of the Minister of Investments and European Projects no. 1098 of 9 July 2026.

The applicants remain the hubs, not the companies: those approved by the European Commission as Seal of STEP in the DIGITAL-2025-EDIH-EU-EEA-08-CONSOLIDATION-STEP competition, with their declared consortium leaders — FIT EDIH through Iceberg Plus, DIH4Society through Asociatia Cluj IT, CiTyInnoHub through Ovidius University of Constanta, Digital Innovation Zone through the Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iasi, Wallachia eHub through Spiru Haret University, Transilvania Digital Innovation Hub through Asociatia Transilvania IT and DIGIVEST through ADR Vest.

The aid scheme covering both actions was extended by Order MIPE no. 440 of 25 March 2026, which amends Order MIPE no. 3151/2023 and adds small mid-cap enterprises to its title, and for Action 6.1 also public administration institutions. For a company the address stays the same: the hub in its region.

It does not give you money. It does not reimburse licences, subscriptions or software development invoices. It does not write your funding application for another programme and it does not issue price offers you can attach to a dossier. The support is in kind, assessed and reported as non-financial state aid.

Nor does it build your production system. Test-before-invest means exactly what it says: you try a technology on a real scenario, with the hub specialists, before signing a purchase. The outcome is a better-informed decision and usually a requirements list — not a working ERP and not a model in production.

And one point that costs us: if all you need is the test-before-invest journey or team training, the hub is the right address and we have nothing to sell you at that stage. We are not an EDIH hub, we do not deliver the services funded by the call, and we do not present ourselves as any hub's accredited partner.

We take the hub technical conclusions and turn them into something that works: specifications, architecture, development, integration with existing systems, data migration, testing and technical documentation. The same documentation serves later if the investment enters a funding dossier.

As orders of magnitude, indicative and excluding VAT: a simple web application starts at EUR 5,000 and climbs to EUR 15,000-50,000 once it has integrations and approval flows; implementing an off-the-shelf ERP falls within EUR 5,000-20,000, and a custom management core within EUR 10,000-15,000. The firm figure comes only after an analysis discussion, and our price guides explain what moves it.

What we do not do, stated once: we do not write funding applications, we do not assess your company's eligibility for any programme and we do not promise approvals. We are the software vendor; the dossier stays with you or with the consultant you work with.