The European Commission has launched a €5 million call for strategic alliances to help the European Union’s small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) maximise their use of new technologies.
This call for proposals aims to contribute to the Commission’s COVID-19 recovery package by establishing strategic alliances between tech-savvy SMEs and the traditional SMEs facing the need to adapt to the post-crisis economic environment, focusing on the benefits of adopting advanced technologies.
For the purpose of this call, traditional and tech-savvy SMEs are defined as follows:
- Traditional SMEs are those that have not yet adopted new technologies and need to adapt to changed value-chains and demand.
- Tech-savvy SMEs are EU companies with innovative business models that develop, produce, or commercialise advanced technology products and applications.
Eligible projects
- explore collaboration opportunities between different types of EU businesses to improve industrial competences, increase resilience and add value to existing industrial sectors
- increase the adoption of advanced technologies in traditional SMEs and help EU tech-savvy SMEs to expand their market potential in the EU
- exploit the potential of dynamic collaboration between the cluster organisations and their technology centres to boost the technological uptake and development of EU SMEs
- develop business collaboration between different clusters from the same industrial ecosystem and create partnerships with other relevant industrial ecosystems
Eligible applicants
Applicants must be legal entities established in an EU Member State or in a country participating in the COSME programme. A non-exhaustive list of potential applicants includes cluster organisations, technology centres and SMEs. Natural persons are not eligible for this call.
Implementation period: 24 months
Deadline: 2 February 2021
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