AFIR (The Agency for Financing Rural Investments) announces the extension of the application submission period for funding to improve the infrastructure of high schools with a predominantly agricultural profile until December 22, 2023.

As the implementing agency for PNRR (National Recovery and Resilience Plan) projects based on the agreement with the Ministry of Education, AFIR has published the conditions for accessing European funds available through the PNRR to finance the infrastructure of high schools with a predominantly agricultural profile.

The applicant's guide and related annexes for improving the infrastructure of high schools with a predominantly agricultural profile are available on the website www.afir.ro, in the Financing section, by accessing the link "Improving the infrastructure of agricultural high schools - NEW AFIR Portal - PS PAC information, Online Submission." These documents are published to prepare the documentation for submitting funding applications.

It should be noted that clarifications have been made in the Applicant's Guide, specifically on page 14, maintaining the condition that 90% of the costs related to infrastructure improvement must be dedicated to renovating/modernizing buildings to improve energy efficiency. For new constructions, energy efficiency conditions according to current legislation will be respected.

Additionally, the guide has been updated on page 16, giving agricultural high schools the opportunity to access Component III while adhering to the principle of double funding. In other words, a high school that has obtained funding in the PNRR call "Equipping with furniture, teaching materials, and digital equipment for pre-university education units" is eligible to obtain funding through this call for construction and rehabilitation works, as well as for types of equipment that were not eligible in the call "Equipping with furniture, teaching materials, and digital equipment for pre-university education units."

Consequently, Annex 1 Funding Application and Annex 11 Eligibility Assessment Grid for the Applicant and Project have been modified.

Projects under this call are exclusively submitted online through the dedicated PNRR electronic platform available at https://proiecte.pnrr.gov.ro/#/home.

The initially communicated deadline for submitting projects (November 21, 2023, at 23:59) has been extended until December 22, 2023, at 23:59.

The total financial allocation is 43 million euros, an eligible amount from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

The assumed target for this funding line is a minimum of 57 agricultural high schools that will benefit from non-repayable financial support. The maximum eligible value of a project is 650,000 euros, and each beneficiary can submit only one project. The funding rate provided by PNRR is 100% of the eligible project costs, excluding VAT.

This call funded by Investment 7 of the PNRR is a complex one, integrating three components:

Component I: New constructions;

Component II: Interventions in existing constructions through infrastructure rehabilitation/renovation, especially to ensure increased energy performance;

Component III: Equipping with materials, furniture, digital equipment specific to educational and practical activities for eligible high schools.

Eligible applicants who can submit funding applications under this call are:

State-accredited high schools, of a technological profile, with over 10% classes of an agricultural profile, including those with a silvicultural profile found in the List of eligible educational units (Annex 14).

Local administrative units at the municipality, city, commune level, for an educational unit described in point 1, which is under its administration.

The purpose of this funding line is to increase the attractiveness of agricultural vocational education by financing the improvement of infrastructure and the provision of specific teaching materials for the training of future entrepreneur farmers and employees in agriculture and related fields.

Buildings, classrooms, laboratories, and equipment, respectively, educational infrastructure, constitute vital elements of the learning environments in schools as they have effects on improving teaching, students' academic results, and reducing school dropout rates.

To ensure the successful completion of the investment, it should be noted that the training of teaching staff in agricultural high schools will be carried out through a separate measure from this project call, by the Ministry of Education.