EU FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT TIPS

The Digital Single Market Strategy will provide businesses and entrepreneurs with new opportunities to scale up across Europe and grow global. As a driver for growth, digital should also be embraced by SMEs and microenterprises to enable them to innovate and remain competitive.

ICT innovation vouchers are one of the tools regions can implement to support microenterprises and SMEs to maximise the potential offered by the digital economy. ICT innovation vouchers are an effective incentive for SMEs and microenterprises to innovate by investing in digital technologies and online services.

Specific challenge: Public administrations need to address the new challenges posed by the evolution of society. Financial constraints are making this task difficult. At the same time, expectations - in terms of burden reduction and efficiency of public services - are growing.

The take-up of new technologies, such as social media and mobile technologies, leads to increased connectivity.

The availability of open data and open services, in an open government setting support the collaborative forms of service design and delivery and they increase transparency.

Expected impact:

·           Stimulating the creation, delivery and use of new services on a variety of devices, utilising new web technologies, coupled with open public data.

·           More personalised public services that better suit the needs of users.

·           Reducing the administrative burden of citizens and businesses (e.g. collecting information from citizens only once).

·           Increased transparency of and trust in public administrations.

Deadline; 28-05-2015 17:00:00 (Brussels local time)

Specific challenge: Facilitate trans-national co-operation between NCPs within the Transport Challenge with a view to identifying and sharing good practices and raising the general standard of support to programme applicants, taking into account the diversity of actors that make up the constituency of the Transport Challenge.

Scope: Support will be given to a consortium of formally nominated NCPs in the area of Transport. The activities will be tailored according to the nature of the area, and the priorities of the NCPs concerned. Various mechanisms may be included, such as benchmarking, joint workshops, enhanced cross-border brokerage events, specific training linked to the Transport Challenge as well as to gender dimension of Research and Innovation, and twinning schemes. Special attention will be given to enhance the competence of NCPs, including helping less experienced NCPs rapidly acquire the know-how accumulated in other countries.

The focus throughout should be on issues specific to the Transport Challenge, and should not duplicate actions foreseen in the NCP network for quality standards and horizontal issues under ‘Science with and for Society’.

Only NCPs from EU Member States and Associated Countries which have been officially appointed by the relevant national authorities are eligible to participate in and receive funding for this action.

The consortium should have a good representation of experienced and less experienced NCPs.

The objective of the Green Industry Innovation Programme is to increase competitiveness of green enterprises, including greening of existing industries and green innovation and green entrepreneurship.

The following sub-programmes are eligible for funding within this open and single-round call for proposals:

Sub-programme 1:

Reduced production of waste and emissions to air, water and ground waste management and environmental remediation;

 water quality management; air quality.

Sub-programme 2:

More use of environmentally friendly technologies such as

nano-, photo-, and biotechnology, materials, others

Deadline for applications: 14 March 2016

Partners within the EU-funded COMSODE project worked to develop the "Open Data Node" (ODN) platform. It is an open source software platform that provides the user with tools and functions for effective long-term publishing of open data in automated, repeatable and easy-to-use fashion. It supports the entire process of OD publication, management and exchange. The platform also integrates the powerful data transformation tool UnifiedViews, a visualisation tool, a proprietary "Search by Strategy" platform, and  a catalogue. 

Scope:

The action will analyse the potential and the challenges of SSH valorisation at the European level and will develop solutions for advancing the practical application of research results, methods and expertise of SSH into products and services. To reach these goals, the action should develop a platform that will bring together SSH researchers and economic and social actors, including within an interdisciplinary setting. This platform should foster a dialogue between SSH researchers and relevant stakeholders with the aim to identify the structural requirements and conditions that must be created to ensure an effective valorisation of SSH research. In particular this should include such issues as research design, research communication, training of SSH researchers and their employability in the wider economy or any other relevant social field where SSH should be integrated in innovation endeavours, as well as production and use of data.

The action will also develop a valorisation concept for the systematic exchange and dissemination of SSH research results, which will include the earlier and deeper integration of SSH research across the innovation value chain. The developed concept will also need to be tested in a subsequent step.

Topic: Capitalising the full potential of online collaboration for SME innovation

Specific challenge: Identifying suitable partners for innovation activities is recognised as a major barrier to SME innovation. Innovation support services are addressing this challenge traditionally by two interventions that are often combined: (a) the provision of networking space for personal meetings either as one-off meeting (‘brokerage events’) or as more stable networks (‘clusters’) often with a limited geographic reach; and (b) the definition of ‘cooperation profiles’ (‘technology offers’, ‘partner search profile’ etc.) that are distributed through networks of intermediaries. To a different degree intermediaries become active in establishing the partnership (‘brokerage’). Social media and other web-based services challenge these existing approaches and ask for their revision.

Scope: To address the described gaps proposals should address one or more of the following aspects:

• develop and test new service designs for ‘assistance to online collaboration for innovation’ for SMEs in diverse sectors;
• make such new services accessible for enterprises in sectors that are typically not yet benefitting from innovation support;

·         develop and test a qualification profile, curriculum and training courses for staff currently providing brokerage services in established networks or SME agencies.

Service designs and qualification profiles shall be formulated independently from a particular collaboration or social media platform. Tests of services shall be undertaken on platforms that are open and bring together already a critical mass of enterprises and innovation stakeholders. Establishing such platforms will not be supported.

The nature of the topic – online collaboration – suggests that the training modules are established as web-based self- or collaborative learning modules that are supported by case studies in the form of videos. The qualification profiles and training modules shall be published under a creative commons license.

Projects proposing new service designs for ‘assistance to online collaboration for innovation’ should indicate on which platform(s) the new service would be tested and in how far the newly developed service could be scaled-up.

Deadline Date 10-03-2015 17:00:00

Specific Challenge: To remain competitive, limit environmental degradation and optimise the efficient use of resources, the development of more resource-efficient and sustainable food production and processing, throughout the food system, at all scales of business, in a competitive and innovative way is required. Current food production and processing systems, especially in the SME sector, need to be revised and optimised with the aim of achieving a significant reduction in water and energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and waste generation, while at the same time improving the efficiency in the use of raw materials, increasing climate resilience and ensuring or improving shelf life, food safety and quality. New competitive eco-innovative processes should be developed, within the framework of a transition towards a more resource-efficient, sustainable circular economy.

Scope: The SME instrument consists of three separate phases and a coaching and mentoring service for beneficiaries. Participants can apply to phase 1 with a view to applying to phase 2 at a later date, or directly to phase 2.

In phase 1, a feasibility study shall be developed verifying the technological/practical as well as economic viability of an innovation idea/concept with considerable novelty to the industry sector in which it is presented (new products, processes, design, services and technologies or new market applications of existing technologies). The activities could, for example, comprise risk assessment, market study, user involvement, Intellectual Property (IP) management, innovation strategy development, partner search, feasibility of concept and the like to establish a solid high-potential innovation project aligned to the enterprise strategy and with a European dimension. Bottlenecks in the ability to increase profitability of the enterprise through innovation shall be detected and analysed during phase 1 and addressed during phase 2 to increase the return in investment in innovation activities. The proposal should contain an initial business plan based on the proposed idea/concept.

The proposal should give the specifications of the elaborated business plan, which is to be the outcome of the project and the criteria for success. Funding will be provided in the form of a lump sum of EUR 50,000. Projects should last around 6 months.

In phase 2, innovation projects will be supported that address the specific challenge of Sustainable Food Security and that demonstrate high potential in terms of company competitiveness and growth underpinned by a strategic business plan. Activities should focus on innovation activities such as demonstration, testing, prototyping, piloting, scaling-up, miniaturisation, design, market replication and the like aiming to bring an innovation idea (product, process, service etc.) to industrial readiness and maturity for market introduction, but may also include some research.

Deadline Date16-12-2015 17:00:00 (Brussels local time)Intermediate deadlines(s)18-03-2015 17:00:00 (Brussels local time)17-06-2015 17:00:00 (Brussels local time)17-09-2015 17:00:00 (Brussels local time)