It will fund projects making agri-food businesses more competitive by speeding up the development & uptake of digital innovations.
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On 22nd September Horizon 2020 project SmartAgriHubs launched a new open call SERVICE. SERVICE is an Open call for projects realised by Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs) that aim at services for the support of digital transformation in the agri-food domain. For this call, teams that are coordinated by a Digital Innovation Hub shall develop and/or deliver and validate their function as a service provider, helping agri-food companies and related stakeholders to become more competitive by improving their business, products and/or production processes.
The SERVICE open call makes available up to 3,000,000€ funding.
DIHs shall act as a one-stop-shop, serving agri-food related companies within their region and making agri-food related businesses more competitive by speeding up the development and uptake of digital innovations. They help customers addressing their challenges in a business focused way and with a service model, offering services that would not be readily accessible elsewhere. The funded services available through a DIH shall enable any business to access the latest knowledge, expertise and technology for testing and experimenting with digital innovations relevant to their products, processes or business models.
DIHs usually provide connections with investors, facilitate access to financing for digital transformations, help connect users and suppliers of digital innovations across the value chain, and foster synergies between digital and other key enabling technologies.
The proposed project shall support individual or groups/networks of stakeholders in the DIH’s region or in several regions based on the cooperation of several DIHs proposing a project.
Are you eligible to the SERVICE Open Call?
Projects need to provide a description for publication via the SmartAgriHubs communication channels, specifically explaining the following:
- DIH innovation services provided as well as approach for innovative service delivery and validation
- Innovative aspects of your service provision and lessons learnt
- Involved parties, infrastructure, and places
- Supported stakeholders, networks and communities, also outlining their achievements and added value of the provided DIH(s) services
- Regional challenges, needs and opportunities with respect to digital innovation in the agri-food domain.
The proposal needs to explain a strategy for the exploitation and ownership of the DIH service delivery approach.
Check the SERVICE Open Call fiche for more information
Proposal submission
Proposals can be submitted for evaluation until closure of the open call and will be evaluated in batches at regular points in time. Currently the following dates are planned for evaluating delivered batches of proposals:
- First batch evaluation for the SERVICE open call and another deadline for the EXPAND open call:before November 10th, 2021, 17:00 (Brussels time)
- Further dates for batch evaluations in 2022 will be published a certain time after closing the previous batch evaluation
Matchmaking opportunities
The SAH Portal offers the possibility for potential proposers to connect with different organisations (DIHs, CCs, SMEs, technology providers, NGOs, farmers, etc.) through different functionalities:
- The SAH Network gathers over 500 organisations in the agri-food and other related sectors all over Europe, identified by organisation type, sector and region. Open Call proposers and interested stakeholders are invited to register and navigate the SAH Network in the search for potential collaborators.
- Proposers are invited to check periodically the Open Call Forum to find support from SAH team members on solving doubts and answering questions regarding the Open Call.
Want to know more?
Follow the project’s accounts on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, and keep an eye out for updates on the project website.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 818182