We’re about to say goodbye to the second decade of the twenty-first century, a decade in which Europe and all the European members have made great efforts to become an innovative society and economy. Yes, we see some countries leading the group and some others that are slower in adopting innovation as a lifestyle for their citizens, but the EU as an institution, is doing its best to provide instruments that can boost this change.
In the next five years, Europe’s will is to become a protagonist in the world digitization, through the creation of new technologies, involving industry and with an eye to the environment.
For this reason, as had happened for the past five years, it has re-proposed a plan, which each member state will then have to rattle off and adapt to its industrial, educational and financial structures.
Here below, we have collected the latest European calls for innovation in many different field:
HORIZON 2020 European Museum Collaboration and Innovation Space: it promotes collaboration and innovation in the museum sector at a European level by offering to small and medium-sized museums the opportunity to adopt new technologies and services to innovate their daily functions and processes, improve their digital presence, offer transformative experiences to the public or test new models of business for their post-crisis recovery. Proposals will have to implement a series of experimental projects in selected small and medium-sized museums, with a good geographical balance across Europe, which will work together and with creative and technological partners in order to apply digital technologies in an innovative way and develop solutions that enhance their digital dimension. Participating museums can choose to experiment in any area they wish, but the variety of areas among the museums involved is encouraged. The proposals should include the use of financial support to third parties to support museums for experimental projects. It is expected that at least 60% of the budget will be dedicated to financial support to third parties and that the maximum amount of such support, in the form of a grant, is equal to 30,000 euros per third party. Deadline: January 21, 2020.
MediaFutures launches its first Open Call to select artists and startups eager to reshape the media value chain through innovative, inclusive and participatory data applications. The Open Call is divided into three tracks:-
- Artists for Media: support independent artists or art companies to develop an innovative artwork concept and production process. For this path, new ideas and experiences should be proposed that critically and materially explore data and technology to question their impact on individuals and society. The focus will be on data relevant to the media value chain, including social media. A maximum grant of 30,000 euros will be awarded to five art projects. One of them will receive an additional prize of 5,000 euros.
- Startups for citizens: this aims to support startups in developing new approaches to make online content more diversified and more transparent creation. The focus will be on areas of public interest: journalism, science education and digital democracy. A maximum grant of 65,000 euros will be awarded to the selected startups
- Startup meet artist: this path will support teams composed of a startup and an artist to collaboratively develop a new concept of data technology and arts. The supported projects will create new experiences that will make data exploration fun and informative, based on the products, services and technologies used or developed by the startup. A maximum contribution of 80,000 euros will be assigned to the selected startups, while a maximum contribution of 40,000 euros will be assigned to the selected artists. For this track, the artist and the startup must apply together
Candidates will also have to choose one of the four proposed challenges. In addition to funding innovative ideas and products, the startups and selected artists will receive technical support, legal support, mentorship and training in pitching, social innovation, data visualization & analytics, public funding, promotion through EU events. Deadline: January 28, 2020.
MARKET4.0 is a European project by Horizon 2020 that aims to develop a digital platform to facilitate the meeting between equipment manufacturers and service providers and European manufacturing companies that have difficulty in purchasing online equipment that is too complex for e-platforms. traditional commerce.
In this context, MARKET4.0 launched the second Open Call aimed at expanding the platform market by facilitating the participation of production equipment suppliers, App and service providers, also by expanding the network to other production areas than the three already covered by the project, namely: processing of metal parts, processing of plastic parts, production of high-tech equipment. The call supports 3 types of projects:
- Type A: projects of production equipment companies that want to become part of the MARKET4.0 platform in one of the three areas envisaged by the project (metal, plastic and high-tech), by installing and configuring IDSm connectors, using domain-specific applications to populate the MARKET4.0 platform with their data. The projects will be financed with fixed lump sums of 100,000 euros.
- Type B: projects offering services in order to extend the functionality of existing production tools for the indicated sectors (metal, plastic and high-tech). The funding per project will be equal to 50,000 euros.
- Type C: projects aimed at demonstrating how the MARKET4.0 platform can be extended to other production sectors. The funding per project will be equal to 250,000 euros. Deadline: January 28, 2021.
The EFPF (European Connected Factory Platform for Agile Manufacturing) project by Horizon 2020, has published the Manufacturing and Industry 4.0 Open Call to develop innovative solutions dedicated to the manufacturing sector and which use digital technologies. In particular, the call is dedicated to manufacturing companies, digital solution providers, software developers and researchers interested in developing, proposing, integrating and validating their innovative solutions through the platform and related services of the EFPF project. Overall, the call allocates € 2.5 million to provide financial support for up to 20 projects. The call will support three types of projects:
- Sub-projects for the development of digital manufacturing applications and services for the EFPF platform (maximum funding of 150,000 euros)
- Sub-projects for validation and / or testing of EFPF platform and services in digital manufacturing domains (maximum funding up to 100,000 euros)
- Sub-projects to improve the EFPF ecosystem by connecting multiple stakeholders through innovative solutions (maximum funding up to 150,000 euros). Deadline19 February 2021.
We invite you to visit the official website of the European Union where all the call for funding and tenders are collected by topic (https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/funding-opportunities/find-calls-funding-topic_en ).
