This Training/Services Open call consist of three different strands: the two first ones will allow European SMEs to pursue trainings/services related to Green Transition and Internationalisation and the third one - the International mission support scheme - will help SMEs in attending the PIMAP4Sustainability Japan mission that will take place in June 2024.

1/ Any support services increasing the resilience and boosting the green transition - 5000€ :

• Eco-innovation consultancy
• Feasibility studies
• Design draft of equipment
• ICT consultancy
• APP’s development
• Technical, economic, and environmental assessments
• Evaluation of the environmental benefits.
• Development of green business models.
• Software development

2/ Training / Support/consultancy services for increasing the resilience and boosting internationalisation - 10000€ :

• Recruitment strategy.
• Defining the go-to-market strategy
• Business and management.
• Pitching session Market analysis etc.
• Training

All the above-listed activities activities might be eligible to receive a grant if they are following the two themes of this Open Call: Green Transition and Internationalisation. This list is indicative and activities that are not within it might be funded. In all cases you will have to deposit a request to get a grant from our support scheme, which will be evaluated by PIMAP4Sustainability that will assess the concordance of the service with PIMAP4Sustainability objectives to make SMEs more resilient.

3/ Support to attend a PIMAP4Sustainability international mission - 2000€ :

Within the framework of the organisation of its international mission in Japan PIMAP4Sustainability will support SMEs willing to attend the mission by supporting them up to 2000€. Only accommodation and travel costs associated with the International Mission organised by PIMAP4Sustainability are eligible. The mission will take place in Japan in 2024 from the 17 June to 21 June and build up around the Manufacturing World Tokyo Event 2024, the leading trade show on smart manufacturing in Japan. “Manufacturing World Japan consists of 10 specialised shows, and focus on digital transformation services for manufacturers, factory automation, additive manufacturing, various mechanical components, measuring products and other factory facilities. Major visitors are from design, development, production engineering, purchasing and information system divisions of automotive, heavy industry, electric, machinery and precision equipment manufacturers in the world”[1] The aim of the mission will be to help SMEs to explore the Japanese market and opportunities through the Manufacturing World Japan Event. The PIMAP4Sustainability will also organise next to the event additional activities such as meet up with Japanese companies, clusters or structures that can help European SMEs willing to develop their activities on the Japanese soil.

Eligibility :

To apply to this Open Call and be considered as beneficiary you must be :

• An SME as understood by the EU regulation Being located in the European Union or in an associated country to the SMP-COSME programme
• Being in the thematic scope of PIMAP4Sustainability (Photonics, Advanced Materials, Advanced Manufacturing, Aerospace, Metalworking, Industrial Production meaning activities covered by the NACE code 2 classification)
• The training or service you want to pursue must end before 30 June 2024

The application to this Open Call will be open from the 10 November 2023 CET BRUSSEL TIME until 10 May 2024 CET BRUSSELS TIME or until the complete distribution of the budget dedicated to this Call (270 000 euros ). The application process goes only through an EU Survey form that you will have to complete, find the link here :

https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/PIMAP4Sustainability

You will be asked to complete several information and provide documents, a brochure of the training/service with the price appearing and a description of actions, or if it is a personalised service a quotation of the training/service with a date and your bank details.

If you want to consult the information needed to apply you can also consult the word template of the application form available here. Your proposal must be duly completed with all mandatory information and documents, if there is any missing information your proposal will be rejected. After the closing of this Open Call, we cannot receive any additional documents from your side.

Evaluation process

The evaluation of the proposals under PIMAP4Sustainability will be done under a grid of 20 points with an eligibility threshold of 15 points out of these 20 and an individual threshold for each criterion of 4/8 pts for the two first criteria and 2/4 pts for the last (implementation) one.

For the two first call strands Green Transition and Internationalisation, the evaluation grid is divided into 3 categories:

• Expected Impacts of your project - 8 pts
• Long-term Strategy - 8 pts
• Implementation - 4 pts

For the third call strand (support to international mission to Japan), the evaluation grid is divided into 3 categories:

• Expected Impacts of the international mission - 8 pts
• Long-term Strategy - 8 pts points
• Implementation - 4 pts

To learn more about the evaluation criteria please consult our documentation available here.

The evaluation will be done in two phases:

Eligibility Check

The first phase will consist of an administrative eligibility check. We will lock to the conformity of your documents, as described above. If there is any missing information your proposal will be rejected. If your proposal passes the eligibility check, you will receive a confirmation email of the reception of your proposal.

Evaluation

All eligible proposals will be evaluated by PIMAP4Sustainability. The evaluation will be carried out using the evaluation forms available here. Three PIMAP4Sustainability partners will, without discussing it with another partner, score your proposal and give it a note. Partners that are from the same country as the applicant of the proposal will not evaluate the proposal to avoid any risk of conflict of interests. Each partner has internally a strong expertise regarding themes and KETs under PIMAP4Sustainability and will, when necessary, mobilise internal expertise within its own organisation. The final score of your proposal will then be the average score of the three partner's evaluation.

The process will be divided into 3 cutoff dates. After each cutoff date partners will gather and evaluate all the proposals submitted during the past two months following the evaluation grid.

• 10 January 2024 - 1st Cutoff date at 23:59 (Brussels time)
• 10 March 2024 - 2nd Cutoff date at 23:59 (Brussels time)
• 10 May 2024 - 3rd Cutoff date at 23:59 (Brussels time)

The consortium has flexibility to tailor the distribution and cutoff dates further depending on the number of applications or in case the budget is not completely exhausted.

Results communication

You will receive an email also containing the decision to fund/not to fund your proposal. If you are selected to benefit from a training/service/mission support grant, you will then enter in the Sub Grant Agreement signature phase which will be the contract that links you to PIMAP4Sustainability.

You can consult here the Guidelines of this Open Call. For further information you can contact our helpdesk to this email address [email protected] or consult our LinkedIn page.