Interconnected Innovation Ecosystems

Overview

Objectives

Proposals should set out a credible pathway to contributing to interconnected, inclusive and more efficient innovation ecosystems across Europe that draw on the existing strengths of European, national, regional and local ecosystems and pulls in new, less well-represented stakeholders and less advanced in innovation territories, to set, undertake, and achieve collective ambitions towards challenges for the benefit of the society, including green, digital, and social transitions.

Activities/actions supported

Activities funded under this include training and skills development. Moreover, additional measures to be funded could include:

• Networking and coordination structures and tools to facilitate innovation development and access to and sharing of best practices, resources, talents, markets, expertise, services and knowledge;
• Market analysis and development and activities towards better access to new markets and finance for innovative SMEs and start-ups;
• Interconnection of open innovation infrastructures;
• Supportive activities towards the scale up and dissemination of innovative solutions;  
• Social innovators’ and civil society integration, as interlocutors for society and important inputs to the development of innovations and promotion of gender diversity.

Anticipated outcomes

Projects results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Open, efficient inclusive and interconnected innovation ecosystems across Europe
• Enhanced synergies, complementarities and collaboration among all European innovation ecosystems
• Increased innovation capacities in Member States and Associated Countries;-
• Better links between innovation leaders and strong innovators with moderate and modest innovators across the EU and Associated Countries;
• More innovation co-investments, fostering other funding leverages, including national or regional public funds and/or other private funds, to complement Horizon Europe support.

Institution providing the funding

European Innovation Council

Size of funding

€8 million

Conditions

Overview of eligibility criteria

Eligibility criteria include the following:

• Applicants can be any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from nonassociated third countries or international organisations, provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call topic;
• Consortia must have at least three 3 independent legal entities;
• The project duration must be of at least 5 years.

Overview of award criteria

Award criteria include:

• Excellence
• Impact
• Quality and efficiency of the implementation

Procedures

Application procedures

Applicants must submit their proposal via the Funding and Tenders Portal (please see the link to the funding opportunity below). The application form will have two parts:

• Part A (to be filled in directly online) contains administrative information about the applicant organisations (future coordinator and beneficiaries and affiliated entities), the summarised budget for the proposal and call-specific questions; 
• Part B (to be downloaded from the Portal submission system, completed and then assembled and re-uploaded as a PDF in the system) contains the technical description of the project.

Application support available

For additional support, please check the following documents:

• Online Manual providing guidance on the procedures from proposal submission to managing your grant: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/common/guidance/om_en.pdf
• Horizon Europe Programme Guide with  detailed guidance to the structure, budget and political priorities of Horizon Europe: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/guidance/programme-guide_horizon_en.pdf

Link to funding opportunity

Link to the programme for more info