Public waste handling organizations stand at the frontline of the transition to circular economy and a true sustainable society and the EU stands ready with lots of funding to boost and facilitate this dramatic shift. And getting involved in EU R&D proposals and projects as a local municipal organization can be a great way to fund these strategies since they are often costly and with a big element of risk. But how do you attack this big animal as a public entity with limited resources for both developing proposals yourself and paying private consultants to write the proposals for you?

The answer is that many don’t. However, a segment of public waste handling organisations have cracked the code to get going with this. BOFA – Waste handling organization of Bornholm, Denmark – is among them. I invited Project manager David Christensen from BOFA into the virtual podcast studio for a talk about how they are working with EU R&D funding - strategically and practically. As often happens in this podcast it became a long talk so I have divided it into two episodes. Here in the first half we cover how they got going with EU funding and how their EU funding strategy has developed.

The first part offers great strategic advices for other public entities on how to approach the EU funding system in a way that resonates with limited resources for these kind of expenses.

The second half we focus on what kind of strategy is sensible in order to be involved in as many proposals and projects as manageable, thoughts and recommendations in networking strategy, what effect projects can have on real life in terms of improved processes and, finally, one of the most significant challenges for EU project hunters in the public sector: lack of understanding of the added value of EU projects at the political level and from other departments in the organization.