The first leg of the call will be open until 3rd June 

SmartAgriHubs

The SmartAgriHubs Open Call for proposals has as a key objective to expand the existing SmartAgriHubs community network with additional stakeholders and promoting the realization of new innovation experiments. The collaboration with new and existing Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs) and Competence Centres (CCs) shall result in a joint effort of an active community that creates knowledge and practical experience that will facilitate and disseminate digital innovation in the agri-food domain.

The current COVID-19 crisis and its impact on the agri-food economy has pushed the SmartAgriHubs team to redesign the originally planned Open Call approach to give response to the needs of the sector in these critical times. In accordance to the current COVID-19 related situation and the importance of the food system’s resilience, it is foreseen to use a maximum of 900,000 € funding for two individual open calls as an immediate RESPOND to the crisis. This shall be followed later by the RESTART and EXPAND open calls that will address the agri-food economy on the medium term. SmartAgriHubs will assign up to 5,000,000 € funding to the RESTART and EXPAND open calls, addressing Digital Innovation Hubs that are supporting diverse stakeholders in the agri-food economy and specifically SMEs as drivers for digital innovation.

Who can send in a PROPOSAL?

The RESPOND Open Call is open between the 12th of May and 3rd of June 2020. If you want to participate in this open call, there are two possibilities, either for DIHs or SMEs: 

For Digital Innovation Hubs: 
Proposals must include at least one DIH. SmartAgriHubs considers that proposals requesting a contribution from 10,000 to 30,000 Euro would allow to support the realization of activities appropriately. More information HERE.

For Small and Medium Enterprises, including Startups: 
Proposals are submitted by SMEs/Startups aiming at direct realization of digital innovations mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in the agri-food sector. SmartAgriHubs considers that proposals requesting a contribution from 30,000 to 50,000 Euro would allow to support the realization of activities appropriately. More information HERE.

Call for evaluators

SmartAgriHubs is looking for evaluators who are able to assess the quality of the proposals. Evaluators should have the following competencies:

  • experts in the fields of innovation and digitisation;
  • previous experience in the business domain of agri-food; and
  • preferably have prior experience in evaluating proposals.

Evaluators can be members of SmartAgriHubs beneficiaries or also other organisations not member of the SmartAgriHubs project. However, an evaluator shall not work for any organisation that aims to submit a proposal in the SmartAgriHubs Open Call or have any another relation that could cause a conflict of interest. Since evaluators have to sign to prevent any situation where the impartial and objective implementation of the action is compromised for reasons involving economic interest, political or national affinity, family or emotional ties or any other shared interest (‘conflict of interests’).

The evaluation will take place in June 2020 for the first two RESPOND open calls. Registered evaluators could also be asked for evaluation in the RESTART and EXPAND open calls, if they agree. 

In the RESPOND open calls, evaluators would be asked to evaluate proposals of the following size:

  • RESPOND to the COVID-19 Crisis: Textual proposal with ca. 6 pages;
  • RESPOND2: SAH2SMEs: Pitch presentation with ca. 10 slides.

Evaluators application and selection

If you are interest in applying as an evaluator, please send your short CV to email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. preferably by June 1st, 2020. SmartAgriHubs will select evaluators based on their competences stated above. A number of evaluators required to cover the number of submitted proposals will be contacted by June 5th, 2020.

 

Want to know more?

You can find all the information on the open call on the project website. Check also a dedicated page in the special edition newsletter. You can also have a look at the Q&A webinar on the call, which starts with an explanation of the basic characteristics of the Open Call and is a good way to get familiar with it.


EU flag

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 818182