Euroclusters for Thriving Creative and Cultural Industries - 1st Call for financial support to CCIs SMEs

DEADLINE: 16 May 2023

CREATHRIV-EU Projects will award grants for CCIs SMEs for projects and activities that adress one of the following challenges:

  1. Diversification of products/service/contents based on digital technologies especially in the heritage, archives and libraries CCI sector;
  2. Supporting the green transition of the audiovisual & multimedia sector and in performing arts; 
  3. Bridging the skill-gaps in the CCIs workforce and supporting a bigger participation of women
  4. Increasing business opportunities through internationalisation and synergies along and across value-chains.

The type of grants available are:

1 - Small Scale Projects (5,000 € Lump Sum)

Advisory services that will help CCIs SMEs create the necessary conditions for their competitiveness. SMEs will receive financial support to implement a small scale project together with an external expert that will consist in an in-depth mapping of specific SMEs’ needs and provision of recommendations/action plans in the field of 

  • Risk management and mitigation
  • Digitalisation
  • Green Transition
  • Innovation and technology
  • Internationalisation 
  • Up/Re-Skilling that will help SMEs strengthen their workforce via ad-hoc training and capacity-building activities. SMEs will get financial support to organise/enrol in training activities in the following fields:
  • Digital skills and technologies;
  • Business & Management;
  • CCIs specific domains.

2 - Collaboration Pilot Projects (20,000 € Lump Sum)

This type of grant aims at supporting the green and/or digital transition of the CCIs. SMEs will need to collaborate with at least another organisation to implement a pilot project. The grants will support the implementation of projects for the development and deployment of prototypes having a minimum of level 4 of CRL (Commercial readiness Level) and level 4 of TRL. The activities supported will be as follows: 1.) deployment of emerging technology, 2.) Improvement of existing product/technology

3 - Travel Grants: 

  • Intra-EU Travel Grant (1,500 € Lump Sum) will support SMEs organise business missions and/or attend events inside the EU or in one of the countries associated to the Single Market Programme 
  • Extra-EU Travel Grant (5,000 € Lump Sum) will support SMEs organise business missions and/or attend events outside the EU and countries participating in the SMP

The maximum amount to be granted per SME shall not exceed 38,500 € in total even in the case of multiple granted types of support. Each interested SME can apply to one or several types (companies that want to apply for more than 1 grant, should create a new F6S company profile to reapply for another grant) ) of support in accordance with its needs and request but can only be granted with the maximum financial contribution cumulatively. 

N.B. : In case the number of expected successful applicants cannot be reached the relevant budget can be reserved for a second call for grants or relocated between the different grant categories.

Sector Eligibility

  • Heritage, archives, libraries
  • Audiovisual and multimedia including IT, software & computer services
  • Books & press
  • Visual art
  • Performing arts
  • Education

Territorial eligibility

  • EU member states
  • EU Acceding countries, candidate countries and potential candidates Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein
  • EU-13 countries
  • EU regions CREATHRIV-EU partners had no previous cooperation with: see Guide for Applicants, Annex 2
  • Less-developed regions: GDP per capita < 75% EU-27 average. Please check this link: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/RCI/#?vis=nuts2.economy&lang=en 

For more detailed information, applicants must check Guide for Applicants, Annex 3 Territorial eligibility.

N.B.: 10% of the total financial support (108,000€) will be reserved for SMEs coming from countries other than: Italy, Lithuania, Hungary, Belgium and Greece.

Submission & evaluation process

Submission via https://www.f6s.com/creathrive-eufirstcall/apply

Submitted applications will be assessed by the Application Review Panel consisting of CREATHRIV-EU partners (2 reviewers per application). The assessment period shall take max. 2 months starting from the closing date of the call. The applicants will receive an email about the outcome of the assessment directly after the assessment is finalised along with instructions for the next steps in the case the applicant is awarded. Top ranked proposals will be granted until the budget for the respective financial support type is exhausted. The successful applicants will be requested to sign a formal sub-grant agreement with the CREATHIRIV-EU coordinator within 30 days after the announcement of the results.

Once the applicants have submitted their proposals, the CREATHRIV-EU Evaluation team will proceed to: 

  1. Check eligibility and admissibility and, if successful; 
  2. Initiate the evaluation of the content of the proposals. 
  3. Consensus group of the ranking list

The outcome of the call - including a description of the third party actions, the date of the award, duration, and final recipient legal names and countries - will be published on the ECCP site of the project.

The purpose of the evaluation is to assess the EXCELLENCE, IMPACT and IMPLEMENTATION of each proposal that successfully passed the admissibility and eligibility criteria. The maximum score in each section is 10. The threshold for each individual section will be 5. The overall threshold, applying to the sum of the three individual scores will be 18 points.

At the end of the evaluation process, the proposals will be ranked taking into account the revised scores from the online consensus meeting. The criteria for the ranking of the proposals will be semi-automatic following the rules below:

  1. Rule 1: The proposals will be ranked based on their overall score;
  2. Rule 2: In case following Rule 1 there are proposals in the same position priority will be given to the proposal with higher score in the impact section;
  3. Rule 3: In case following Rule 2 there are proposals in the same position priority will be given to the proposal with higher score in the excellence section;
  4. Rule 4: In case following Rule 3 there are proposals in the same position priority will be given to the proposal involving SMEs from a less-developed region;
  5. Rule 5: In case following Rule 4 there are proposals in the same position priority will be given to the proposal involving SMEs from a EU-13 country;
  6. Rule 6: In case following Rule 5 there are proposals in the same position priority will be given to the proposal involving SMEs from regions CREATHRIV-EU partners had no previous cooperation with, as further detailed in the Annex 3 of the Guide for Applicants

Further information

https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/o…

The Guide for Applicants and Template of Application Form are available at the following link

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zmqm-e-Oc7ZVg1YtkSJV2hNR-WlMNPJ…;

 

 

This call has been created as part of a Euroclusters project, the overall intention of which is to launch a new network of cross-sectoral, interdisciplinary and trans-European strategic initiatives aimed at strengthening Europe’s resilience by connecting actors across countries, sectors and industrial ecosystems.

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