In line with the New European Innovation Agenda, this call for proposals seeks to bring together regions at different levels of development and less and more innovative regions, which share an ambition to become Regional Innovation Valleys and reinforce coordination of research and innovation activities towards EU priorities and the most burning challenges facing the EU (namely reducing the reliance on fossil fuels, increasing global food security, mastering the digital transformation including cybersecurity, improving health care and achieving circularity). This call is about accelerating the development and deployment of innovation, including deep tech innovation.

The European Commission dedicated EUR 122 million under Horizon Europe (European Innovation Ecosystems) and under the European Regional Development Fund (Interregional Innovation Investments (I3) Instrument).

Therefore, the European Commission has launched complementary calls for proposals on 17 May 2023 under the Interregional Innovation Investments (I3) Instrument and the European Innovation Ecosystems (EIE) part of Horizon Europe. 

For further information about the Interconnected Innovation Ecosystems call, please visit this page.

Objectives

The overall objective of the Strand 1 call is to provide financial and advisory support for interregional innovation investments in shared and complementary smart specialisation areas along European value chains.

An interregional investment is a combination of assets (time, money, effort, etc.) or items mobilised across borders with the view to generate income and/or to create future value for more than one region. It is a concrete concept to develop innovation and valorise available research results in a specific value chain. The development of the business and investment cases is facilitated by the regional innovation ecosystems with companies in the lead. I3 business investment cases have a minimum TRL 6 and have the ambition to facilitate demonstration and to accelerate market uptake and commercialisation.

The goal is to mobilise tangible and intangible investments in companies, in particular small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

• To enable less developed regions to participate in EU value chains, contributing to cohesion policy objectives.
• To link and align the bottom-up process centred on “entrepreneurial discovery” that involves interactions among quadruple helix actors to identify new regional technological domains and market opportunities with the EU priorities; and to bridge the gap between the supply and demand sides and help innovation ecosystems overcome market failures.
• To provide support for companies (in particular SMEs) in building portfolios of interregional innovation investments in shared or complementary S3 priority areas; and to support the demonstration, market uptake and scaling up of mature innovations to be brought on the market.

Deadline

Deadline to apply is: 17 October 2023, 17:00 CET.

Apply here

Info session

An information session on the calls targeted at eligible applicants will be organised online on 25 May 2023, at 09:30-12:00 CET. 

Register here