How to Participate

Submitting a Successful Proposal

Proposals should primarily target taking Artificial Intelligence technologies beyond the State-of-the-Art in whichever targeted application domains are addressed. Innovative projects targeting Communications, Electronic Components and Systems, and Software that enable AI applications are also welcomed in the Call. The topics suggested in this document should be considered as indicative and not exclusive. New ideas are always welcome.

The Call is looking for projects that will form innovative ecosystems, with AI at their core, that will enable advances in the State-of-the-Art and result in opportunities for commercial and/or societal impact in the application areas addressed. The intent is to bring together partners from across the broad AI adopters Community of all types (Large Enterprise, SME’s, Research & Technology Organisations and Universities) into collaborative teams that will be able to demonstrate a high impact in the chosen application area at the end of the project.

“Mid-size” projects with eligible costs in the range of 3-15 million euro are expected, though project proposals outside this range may also be submitted for evaluation. Proposals should show that they do address the Eureka ideals of broad international cooperation and strong technical ambitions for such a collaborative research project.

As always, it is essential that project partners hold in depth meetings with the representatives of the Public Authorities in the countries from which they wish to gain support, to understand detailed eligibility requirements.

Eligibility Criteria for Project Proposals

Proposals must meet the following criteria:

The consortium should include at least two companies from different EUREKA participating countries. The participation of research institutes/universities is welcome according to each country’s funding regulations.
The project partners must express their willingness to cooperate, on a win-win/fair basis in the development of a new product, industrial process Industry standard or service.
The product, process or service must be innovative and there must be a technological risk involved.
The project should benefit all involved partners in a well-balanced consortium. SME’s are explicitly encouraged to participate in the proposals.
The project should generate an obvious advantage and added value resulting from the technologic cooperation between the participants (new technologies, standardisation, prototyping, field trials, new or improves products, increased knowledge, access to R&D infrastructure etc.).
Economic and Societal benefits to be obtained (where relevant) must be highlighted in the project proposal.
A project consortium or cooperation agreement (PCA) must be signed between the project partners as soon as possible after the project starts. PCA templates are available for use if required.

Any organisation whose collaborative industrial research and innovation project is consistent with the above criteria can apply to the Call and funding could be provided by each funding agency afterwards in accordance with their national participation procedures, and subject to budgetary availability.

Each participating funding body may apply additional eligibility criteria based on their national regulations. Applicants are strongly advised to contact their funding body, prior to submitting their application, to discuss their project idea and check the national eligibility criteria which would apply to their participation in the project.

Partners from other Eureka countries or countries outside of Eureka can also participate, but funding must be secured within these countries.

How to Submit Your AI Project

The Eureka Clusters AI Call 2021 is using a one-step submission process where a Full Project proposal should be submitted by the 28 June 2021. Proposals may be submitted via the Submission Portal.

Submitting a proposal will be a simple procedure of registering on the portal where the key characteristics of the proposal may be submitted through online forms and the document version of the detailed work descriptions, as requested in the proposal template, can be uploaded.

Each proposal submitted will be reviewed for quality, technical ambition, relevance and innovation and, if it is deemed to be of suitable quality it will be labelled as suitable for funding. Each individual participant will also have to make a national application for funding for their participation in the project.

We strongly recommend that each project participant should also contact their national funding agency (as early in the process as possible) and follow their advice regarding national funding applications in parallel to the proposal submission.

Identifying your focus areas with the Clusters competence profiles

On submission of a proposal, Project Leaders will have the option of indicating which of the participating Clusters they would like to support them through the project submission, evaluation and subsequent monitoring process.

Proposals should select the Cluster best aligned to the key technology focus area(s) in their proposal as this will allow the appropriate Cluster to provide the best level of technological support and knowledge to look after the proposal. The participating Clusters have aligned their processes and procedures to support this Call so that there is no operational advantage or disadvantage when choosing a supporting Cluster.

If a Proposal team considers that their project idea addresses two areas of Cluster expertise, they may select a second Cluster to jointly oversee their proposal. In this case the both Clusters will share the responsibility for the proposal through evaluation and through its operational life as required. There is no advantage or disadvantage in terms of success rate by selecting two Clusters. This facility is to ensure the appropriate technical competence is always on hand to evaluate and support the proposals.

Project teams who are unsure of which route to follow can receive impartial advice via the contact link on the Call webpage, and/or from their National Public Authority. The respective Cluster websites can also be consulted for further information on the areas of expertise that they can support.