The Call for Proposal opens on January 19th, 2022. The Deadline for submitting applications is February 28th, 2022, 23:59:59 hours (Sarajevo time). After the Call for Proposal is closed, submitted applications are reviewed and the most promising proposal selected.

NO, the Call for Proposal is designed to be sector- and technology-agnostic, meaning EU4DgitialSME welcomes all constructive applications from any sector, topic or technological focus.

We are looking for organizations, such as, but not limited to,

• Research and/or Technology Organizations (RTOs),
• Technology and/or Innovation Centers,
• Science, Technology and/or Innovation Parks,
• Entrepreneurship Support Organizations (Incubators,
• Accelerators, Investors, etc.),
• Business Support Organizations (Chambers of Commerce, Sectoral Associations, etc.),
• Innovative companies / private Technology Providers, cutting edge technology focused Small and Medium sized enterprises (SMEs),
• Development Agencies and Organizations (Economic, Regional, SME, Industrial and/or Technological Development),
• Technological Development, Research and/or Innovation Foundations/NGOs,
• Universities/faculties and/or university/faculty-based research centers
• Vocational Training Institutes,
• Industrial Clusters, IT-related associations/companies,
• Public or private funding/finance organizations.

Applicants and proposal partners can only be part of one consortium. In case a member is part of two consortia both proposals are automatically excluded from the evaluation process.

EU4DigitalSME is aware that a conflict of interest may occur as a result of economic interests, political or national affinities, family of emotional relationships, or any other common interest. If there is a conflict of interest in at least one of the above categories, the connection needs to be explained to the EU4DigitalSME project.

In the case of a group of applicants (consortium), they must declare that they will, without any delay, inform the Contracting Authority about any situation that might be considered as a conflict of interest or a situation that might lead to it. Also, the consortium must declare that:

The lead applicant and partners are not affiliated institutions/business entities, nor are they directly connected by ownership.
The Partners are not mutually affiliated institutions/business entities, nor are they directly connected by ownership.

Finally, the lead applicant for the consortium confirms that he has signed a form of Partnership Agreement with other partners, in accordance with the instructions set out in this Guide for Applicants.

Additionally, affiliated entities and employees of the EU4DigitalSME project are not permitted to take part in this Call for Proposal.

Applications after the deadline will not be accepted. We strongly encourage applicants not to wait until the last minute to submit their proposals. Failure of meeting the submission deadline for any reason, including extenuating circumstances, will result in the rejection of the proposal.

The proposal evaluation will be performed after the deadline for submission of proposals. The evaluation process is transparent, fair, and equal to all our participants, and will be conducted by external and independent evaluators. The quality of each proposal is assessed against six (6) evaluation criteria, (i) relevance, (ii) capacity, (iii) expertise, (iv) approach, (v) business model, and (vi) public benefit.

More information on the evaluation process you may find in the Guidelines for Applicants.

Applicants will receive feedback after the administrative and the quality check of the evaluation process indicating if they passed or not. A communication will be sent to applicants rejected at the latest two weeks after the evaluation process is completed.