Eureka Clusters Sustainability Call
The Eureka programme, launched in 1985, is a pan-European initiative for promoting near-market collaborative research in advanced technology. Eureka aims to improve Europe’s competitiveness in global markets for civil applications of new technology through its support to businesses, research centres and universities that carry out pan-European projects to develop innovative products, processes and services.
Eureka ‘Clusters’ are long-term, strategically significant research initiatives, focusing on specific fields of technology research, that aim to bring together large companies, SMEs, research institutes and universities – from countries participating in the Eureka programme and other international partner countries – in order to foster innovation to develop and commercially exploit new technologies to help European industry maintain a leading position in the world market.
Five of the Eureka Clusters – CELTIC-NEXT, EUROGIA, ITEA, SMART and Xecs – and the Eureka Public Authorities of Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Spain, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Turkey, and the UK have implemented a joint €25 million Call for RD&I projects in support of Sustainable Industry.
Proposals are invited from consortia including at least two companies from different Eureka participating countries. Research institutes and universities may form part of a consortium according to the regulations of the national funding agencies of the participating countries. Projects should involve the development of a new product, industrial process, industry standard or service that is innovative and involves a significant element of technological risk.
Potential technical fields or strategic application domains that are of specific interest for the Eureka Clusters Sustainability Call include:
- Environmental monitoring and disaster management
- New approaches for the energy sector, e.g. storage technologies and materials
- Power electronics and power management
- High-performance engineering for personalised products
- Industry 4.0 for food production
- Environmental protection and measurement
- Decentralised technical intelligence
- Marine and agricultural robotics
- Digital twins for sustainable manufacturing
- AI assisted training and assistance systems
- Autonomous shipping
- Management systems for lifecycle monitoring and operations
- ICT architectures, platforms and standards for industry and logistics 4.0
- High-performance manufacturing systems
- Sustainable, secure and resilient interconnection of all stakeholders and systems
- Cyber-physical production and logistics systems
- Integrated sensor and secure communication systems
- Technologies supporting the balance of sustainable energy generation, consumption and storage
- Sustainable smart factories through future connectivity
- Utilisation and integration of various observation systems
- Components, systems and architectures for distributed intelligence and low power data transmission
- Space-earth-ocean sensing and data collection systems
Two target challenges of specific interest identified by the national funding bodies supporting the call include ‘Green ICT’ and ‘space-earth-ocean integrated systems for better observation and data exploitation’.
Following a successful project approval, project partners will submit applications to their respective national funding agencies with a recommendation for support through an appropriate programme or funding mechanism. National funding agencies may allocate a dedicated budget for approved projects, or operate fast-track application processes for projects approved through the EUREKA clusters mechanism, or administer approved project applications alongside other applications to the respective national funding programme. The various national funding agencies participating in the Eureka Clusters Sustainability Call have outlined their potential budget contribution and any country-specific criteria.
Applications should be submitted to the relevant cluster. The specific technological domains of the participating Eureka Clusters include:
- CELTIC-NEXT: next-generation telecommunications and ICT
- EUROGIA: low-carbon energy technologies
- ITEA: software innovation and digital transition
- SMART: advanced manufacturing and production technologies
- Xecs: electronic components and systems
The Sustainability Call website has a brokerage area to aid with sharing project ideas and finding project partners and a project area to allow approved consortium members to work on a project. The website will also host a brokerage event on 23 March for interested participants.
Project outlines should be submitted by the deadline on 2 May 2022.
Full proposals for selected applicants must be submitted by 20 September 2022.