Applications open on Friday 28 June 2024 for Smart Solutions development with funding available for 10 innovative ideas!

What is the scope of the FUTURAL project?

FUTURAL is a project launched in June 2023 funded by the Horizon Europe program aiming to empower rural communities through a network of community-led prototyping, testing, piloting and demonstration activities for social, technological and business innovations, through co-creation in six (6) multi-company pilot areas across the EU, representing different geographical and socio-cultural contexts. For this purpose, a set of eight (8) smart digital solutions will be developed, in five (5) areas, namely: 1. Circular Bioeconomy, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management, 2. Resilience to Crisis, 3. Citizen Participation and Quality of Life, 4. Lifelong education and training, and 5. Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation, to address pressing social, environmental and economic challenges.

What is the Open Call about?

FUTURAL will finance at least ten (10) projects (min. €60k and max. €120k per project / min. €30k and max. €60k per third party, i.e. member of the corporate scheme that will submit a proposal) that will develop their own smart solution (different from the eight smart solutions developed by the FUTURAL project partners), in the five sectors, to be implemented in other rural areas (in at least ten European rural areas other than the areas covered by the pilot areas in the framework of the FUTURAL project) and will be available on the project’s METASEARCH platform, providing financial support to third parties as a mechanism to increase the number of smart solutions available to rural communities and accelerate the expansion of the network.

Who can submit a proposal?

FUTURAL will accept applications from small corporate formations consisting of two (2) to four (4) members, including ≥1 (at least one) technical body (e.g. SMEs, start-ups, research organizations) and ≥1 ( at least one) rural community (eg municipalities, regional authorities, development agencies, etc.) and the proposed solutions must fall into one of the five (5) aforementioned areas.

Timetable

Applications start on 28 June 2024 and the submission period will remain active until 30 September 2024. Successful applicants will be notified in January 2025. The implementation of the sub-projects will be divided into three phases: Design, Development and Validation, with a total duration of 12 months, from June 2025 to May 2026.

How can the proposal be submitted?

Proposals will be submitted electronically via the https://opencallhub.eu platform. Submissions made through any other channel will be automatically rejected.

Interested candidates should visit the FUTURAL website (https://futural-project.eu/futural-open-call/) to find all the details of the Open Call and the FAQ section available on the Open Call Hub (https://opencallhub.eu)..

The evaluation will be done by independent evaluators who will assess the quality of each proposal, including concept and feasibility, technology readiness and innovation development, impact and exploitation of results, as well as organizational capacity and competence of the team. The full evaluation criteria are available in the Open Call Kit documents on the project website.

English is the official language of the Open Call. Applications submitted in any other language will not be evaluated. English is also the only official language throughout the implementation of the FUTURAL project. This means that all required documents must be submitted in English to be eligible.