EU FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT TIPS

Scope:

This aims to enhance cooperation among innovation agencies of the European innovation ecosystem by establishing a mutual learning process at national and regional level, as well as by developing joint tools and resources to assist start-ups and SMEs to innovate.

The pilot action will create an enhancing, supporting and cooperative environment across EU that will allow national and regional agencies to:

• cooperate, learn from each other and exchange knowledge by using join tools in order to provide high-level services and support high-quality start-ups and SMEs for their innovation projects;
• create and operate national and/or regional support schemes regarding feasibility studies and external expertise, thus ensuring that the most promising high-potential innovation proposals of start-ups / SMEs are supported at their critical stage of development.

In particular, the cooperation that will notably involve the participation of national or regional innovation agencies or similar organisations should focus on:

• Exchange of information and best practices, with focus on:
• Best ways to better identify the specific needs of the start-ups and SMEs in order to allow the customization of the provided services
• The design of programmes at national/regional levels with the view of filling possible gaps in relation to the services provided by the European Innovation Council (EIC), as well as the design of the project proposals and the weight of the criteria
• Internationalisation of evaluation panels. The cooperation shall also enable accesses to respective pools of evaluators in order to set international evaluation panels and facilitate the establishment of minimum set of common evaluation criteria.
• Coaching services and selection of coaches, including access to existing databases of coaches/experts (EU, national, regional) and possible creation of pools of experts. Optionally, design and development of other common tools and resources.
• Identifying ways to continue the exchanges, provided services, tools and resources after the end of the action.
• The established national and/or regional support schemes could include the following:
• Common tools and resources to support, with the respective budgets of the national innovation agencies, highly innovative start-ups and SMEs with a clear commercial ambition and a potential for high growth and internationalisation for their close-to-market activities. The national resources deployed by national innovation agencies, if relevant, will need to comply with State Aid competition rules
• Feasibility study as an outcome of the project (not necessarily the only one)
• International pool of evaluators of the projects
• Short market-oriented project proposal template/form
• Introduction of other supportive services, including coaching services to the beneficiaries
• Follow up of the beneficiaries and advice services concerning other possible instruments on national/regional/EU levels, as well as other ways of private funding for the continuation of a project, in case the feasibility studies demonstrate that it is worth proceeding to the next phase of development.

Scope:

The topic calls for promoting Digital Innovation Hubs in agriculture. It should address the adoption of ICT-based solutions for more productive and sustainable agriculture systems. The focus is on innovative technologies that need to be customized, integrated, tested and validated not only by technology developers but also the farming community before they are placed on the market. Special emphasis is on the strengthening of European start-ups and SMEs by adopting new concepts linked to innovative agri-business and/or service models, and connecting them with actors that can provide access to finance, advanced training skills, knowledge and needs of the farming community.

Deadline: 13/02/2018

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