At the heart of FI4INN, this flagship strategy offers a comprehensive roadmap for policymakers to diversify and modernise financing instruments for SMEs across Central Europe. It shows how regions can move beyond traditional grant-based systems towards a more balanced mix of financial tools, including loans, guarantees, equity, and blended finance models. Drawing on project analysis, stakeholder engagement, and pilot experiences, the strategy identifies key weaknesses in current financing ecosystems and proposes practical ways to improve accessibility, effectiveness, and alignment with business needs. It also builds on knowledge gathered through the FI4INN Virtual Knowledge Centre and regional exchange. A key supporting document, “Lessons Learned: Building a Diversified Finance Ecosystem”, captures the main insights generated throughout the project and translates them into practical recommendations for future use and replication.

Seven pilot actions across Central Europe form the practical backbone of FI4INN, allowing partners to test and co-design innovative financing approaches for SMEs and startups in real regional contexts. These pilots explore both the creation of new financial instruments and the improvement of existing ones, always in close cooperation with local stakeholders and end-users. The process combines experimentation on the ground with transnational peer review, ensuring that solutions are not only locally relevant but also transferable across regions. The main reference document, “Regional Pilot Designs: Concepts, Timelines and Expected Results”, brings together the seven pilot concepts in a structured way, outlining their objectives, implementation pathways, and expected impact.

Emerging directly from FI4INN’s pilot phase, this output brings together seven validated regional financing solutions designed to improve access to finance for SMEs and startups across Central Europe. Developed through transnational co-creation, stakeholder engagement and peer review, the solutions respond to real challenges identified in seven pilot regions: Friuli Venezia Giulia, Piemonte, Slovenia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Carinthia and Silesia. The Solutions are described under the document "Regional Financing Solutions". The portfolio includes a diverse set of financial instruments, governance models and methodological tools, ranging from modular business plan frameworks and programme redesign methodologies to blended finance, basket bonds, co-investment incubation models, hybrid financing frameworks and Smart Money ecosystem approaches. Together, they offer practical models for making financial instruments more transparent, coordinated, responsive and usable for SMEs and startups. Each solution was validated in terms of relevance, feasibility and scalability, confirming their overall robustness, transferability and potential for uptake in different regional contexts. While some solutions require further operational refinement, the portfolio provides a concrete basis for future adaptation, policy integration and replication across Central Europe

A stronger financing ecosystem also requires better understanding of results. That is the role of this strategy: to provide a practical framework for monitoring and evaluating financial instruments supporting SMEs and startups. The strategy sets out how to assess not only financial performance, but also economic, social, and environmental impact, while keeping monitoring systems efficient and proportionate. It addresses common challenges such as data availability, indicator selection, and stakeholder alignment, helping policymakers and fund managers make more informed decisions. Its most practical component is the “M&E Toolkit for Financial Instruments", which translates the strategy into operational guidance through tools, indicators, and templates that can be directly applied in practice.

This output consists of four Regional Action Plans (RAPs) jointly developed by the FI4INN partner regions to strengthen the evaluation, monitoring, and performance management of financial instruments. Building on the common monitoring and evaluation framework developed within the project, each roadmap translates shared methodologies and recommendations into a region-specific action plan. The four Regional Action Plans reflect the distinct governance structures, institutional capacities, policy priorities, and financial instrument ecosystems of the participating regions. Rather than applying a uniform approach, they provide tailored pathways for improving accountability, effectiveness, and evidence-based decision-making in the management of the selected public financial instruments. Each roadmap outlines concrete actions, kpis, responsibilities, timelines, and implementation priorities to support the adoption of more robust evaluation practices. Together, the four plans demonstrate how a common transnational framework can be adapted to local contexts while maintaining a shared commitment to transparency, performance measurement, and continuous improvement. The public deliverable Regional Action Plans Description provides an overview of the four roadmaps and their main objectives, actions, and expected results. The version published on the project website excludes confidential annexes containing region-specific internal information.