As part of Ireland’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan, the Digital Transition Fund will drive transformative digitalisation of enterprise in Ireland, particularly amongst SMEs. The programme will help companies at all stages of their digitalisation journey.
Digital transformation
Embracing digital technologies is crucial for our post pandemic economic recovery. A competitive, innovative and resilient enterprise base is essential to provide high-quality jobs and employment opportunities for people to live and prosper in all regions. Businesses can harness digital technologies in many ways – including to better understand their customers, reduce their costs and improve their products.
Under Measure 2.2 (Digital Transformation of Enterprise) of Ireland’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), €85 million is being made available to accelerate the digitalisation of enterprise, with funding being made available:
- under the Digital Transition Fund for the establishment of a digital portal and for direct to company grants
- to support four European Digital Innovation Hubs with the aim of helping companies (notably SMEs) through access to research infrastructure, technical expertise and experimentation in order that these organisations can 'test before invest'
Ireland’s NRRP was developed by the government so that Ireland can access funding under the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility.
Reasons to digitalise
Digital technologies have the power to transform small businesses, opening up new opportunities that were previously only available to businesses of scale. The COVID-19 crisis has amplified the power of digital in building business resilience. Indeed, there is a substantial risk in companies not engaging with digital – the competitiveness and productivity gap between digitally-enabled firms and businesses with low levels of digital maturity must be addressed.
Digitalisation can deliver:
- reduced costs and increased productivity
- better products and services
- market expansion and diversification
- greater access to strategic resources
- greater access to innovation
- online platform economy
- climate action: digital technologies can support businesses as they work to reduce their climate impact
Help is available for businesses
Through the Digital Transition Fund, we will increase digitalisation of all businesses across products, processes, supply chains and business models. This will bring about productivity gains, access to new markets, increased innovation and improved competitiveness.
The Funding will be used to:
- establish a digital portal that will allow companies to assess how ‘digitally ready’ their business is and receive advice, recommendations and supports that can point towards their next steps to improve their offering through digital technology. Learn more at growdigital.gov.ie.
- provide direct to company grants to help companies at all stages of their digital journey – from the early days of simply going online to digitalisation of products and business processes, to facilitating exporting and to using digital technologies to develop new markets and business models
Further details of the direct to company grants available through the Digital Transition Fund are available at:
Please note, under the eligibility criteria of the Digital Transition Fund, projects selected for direct company grants must comply with relevant EU and national environmental legislation and in particular with the ‘Do no significant harm’ Technical Guidance (2021/C58/01). Specifically, the following projects are not eligible:
- activities related to fossil fuels, including downstream use1
- activities under the EU Emission Trading System (ETS) achieving projected greenhouse gas emissions that are not lower than the relevant benchmarks2
- activities related to waste landfills, incinerators3 and mechanical biological treatment plants4
- activities where the long-term disposal of waste may cause harm to the environment
1 Except projects under this measure in power and/or heat generation, as well as related transmission and distribution infrastructure, using natural gas, that are compliant with the conditions set out in Annex III of the ‘Do no significant harm’ Technical Guidance (2021/C58/01).
2 Where the activity supported achieves projected greenhouse gas emissions that are not substantially lower than the relevant benchmarks an explanation of the reasons why this is not possible should be provided. Benchmarks established for free allocation for activities falling within the scope of the Emissions Trading System, as set out in the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/447.
3 This exclusion does not apply to actions under this measure in plants exclusively dedicated to treating non-recyclable hazardous waste, and to existing plants, where the actions under this measure are for the purpose of increasing energy efficiency, capturing exhaust gases for storage or use or recovering materials from incineration ashes, provided such actions under this measure do not result in an increase of the plants’ waste processing capacity or in an extension of the lifetime of the plants; for which evidence is provided at plant level.
4 This exclusion does not apply to actions under this measure in existing mechanical biological treatment plants, where the actions under this measure are for the purpose of increasing energy efficiency or retrofitting to recycling operations of separated waste to compost bio-waste and anaerobic digestion of bio-waste, provided such actions under this measure do not result in an increase of the plants’ waste processing capacity or in an extension of the lifetime of the plants; for which evidence is provided at plant level.
