Evidence suggests that the development of entrepreneurship is a fundamental ingredient of endogenous economic growth and a prerequisite for sustainable local and regional development and for social cohesion. The role of education in promoting entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviors is now universally recognized. In other words, in this article, we propose to present the concrete way in which a project, co-financed from European funds, supported entrepreneurship and SMEs in Romania. Specifically, we refer to the 40Ready Interreg Europe project, "Strengthening the capacities of SMEs to engage in Industry 4.0". Within this project, a research tool, a survey was developed and applied, aimed at providing relevant information in the field of Industry 4.0 and also providing thematic solutions (a new support criterion SME digital skills through the OPHC; a new evaluation criterion for the "Digital skills for SME employees" call, intended to support the MA OPHC in the evaluation and, in the respective pledges, to help SMEs to recognize the main I4.0 areas to focus on their digitization path in general and in particular for the development of employees' digital skills). This paper, the result of an exploratory research, aims to present the relevant characteristics and trends in supporting entrepreneurship and SME policy in Romania, with the help of European funds, a topic that generated the need to start and, implicitly, to operationalize such a study. Therefore, in the configuration of the research process, there were no strict rules. Keywords: Industry 4.0; European Projects; Digital Competences; Human Factor; Operational Programme Human Capital 2014-2020; Economic Growth; Sustainable Local and Regional Development; Social Cohesion.