Europe opening for new funding opportunities

Published 01.07.2021
Horizon Europe, the new seven-year program for research and innovation in Europe, was launched on 22 June and opens for many new opportunities for the cluster and its members.

There are two main opportunities for the cluster and its members – cooperation projects and the EIC Accelerator.

The cooperation projects are typically projects where you are invited to solve small and big challenges that the European Commission identifies. Or you are invited to use existing knowledge and technology with great potential in new sectors or areas.

The European Commission has signaled that it wants Europe to develop its own robust solutions and adoption of AI across SMEs, public administration etc. It has also signaled that it wants Europe to take the lead on extended reality. Some of the projects we have looked at is therefore related to extended reality, such as:

- XR teleconferencing
- Using XR for education
- Innovation in the media, including XR
- Development of a European VR Medialab

 The Commission continues to focus on projects to help get the continent out of the covid crisis, its Green deal, blue oceans, democracy and fake news, etc.

On the latter, Media City Bergen together with MediaFutures are currently working on a proposal on fighting disinformation with the help of AI, with a particular focus on deep fakes.

The calls and their focus are too many to list here, so you are invited to have a look here to do a quick search yourself, or give us a call if you would like help.

Before you get carried away when finding a call that suits your interests and expertise, it is useful to know that:

- Cooperation projects require typically at least three partners from three countries, where one will be the leader (coordinator)
- Your involvement is remunerated at 70% of costs to employ those involved (100% if you are a non for profit, research institution or a public body), with an additional 25% overhead

There are about 800 pages of annotated contracts if you feel so inclined, but if you are curious to know more about getting involved, do give us a call.

Let us also remind you of the EIC Accelerator is a great opportunity for startups/scaleups that have developed groundbreaking solutions to pitch to a panel of experts, with a pot of 25MNOK. The accelerator also offers a unique network of experts and other resources. And for the selected few, there is also an opportunity to get an extra 150MNOK in investment in cases where the startup/scaleup project is deemed to be too risky for conventional investors.

Our cluster is working closely with Innovation Norway to help candidates through the application for the EIC Accelerator.

If you would like to know more, please contact our EU Advisor: Kristoffer Hammer, [email protected]