RURBANIVE Open Call to provide Financial Support to Third Parties

Purpose and Objectives

• RURBANIVE Open Call encourages technology & service providers to develop and apply their own RUE within the 6 RURBANIVE domains, increasing the number of RUEs available to endusers. To ensure that the RUEs will be tailor-made to meet each rural-urban area’s needs, the Open Call poses requirements for the submission of proposals from consortia of min 2-max 4 parties including at least 1 technology & service provider (e.g. entities such as SMEs and other private for-profit or non-profit organizations, technological spin-offs, research institutions etc.) and at least 1 end-user (e.g. actors from the rural-urban environments, such as Local & Regional Administrations, Civil Society, Cooperatives, Associations, NGOs, Local Action Groups, Chambers and other Trade representative organizations, etc.). The newly developed RUEs will become available in English and in the local language. In addition, during sub-project implementation matchmaking activities between the developed RUE and the RUEs developed by the RURBANIVE consortium will be pursued and the opportunity will be given to develop the RUE in all relevant languages. Lastly, every developed RUE will have to produce a SUMMARY, which will also be available through RURBANIVE’s Community Store, in all languages of RURBANIVE’s consortium.
• The purpose of the Open Call is to provide more solutions for the rural-urban areas, accelerate the expansion of the RURBANIVE innovation ecosystem and ensure an adequate motivation of the end-users. The participants will contribute to the enrichment of the RURBANIVE’s Community Store, which will serve as a one-stop-shop offering enhanced capabilities for searching and accessing digitised solutions and services.
• The selected RUEs will be enhanced by new Business Models through participatory processes with rural and urban communities and relevant good practices. The OC will also enable the transfer of good practices and the creation of RUEs in other European rural-urban territories, facilitating the transferability and the replicability of these innovations to EU areas facing similar conditions.
• Under the framework described above, the OC aims to:
  • Address a wider range of societal and environmental challenges related to the 6 RURBANIVE domains.
  • Harness the potential of using data from multiple sources and make users themselves
  • part of the solution.
  • Enable the transferability and accelerate the uptake and upscale of the RUEs at a pan European level towards sustainable and resilient rural areas.
  • Enhance RURBANIVE’s Community Store by adding at least 6 more RUEs based on
  • the synergies between rural and urban environments across Europe.

Funding Information

• The Open Call will result in at least 6 projects (max 100k euro per project – with the funds dispersed amongst the consortia members, with at least one technology & service provider and at least one end-user). In total, a 600k euro budget will be allocated to financial support to third parties.
• Budget per partner of the consortium: €20,000 – €60,000.

Eligibility Criteria

• RURBANIVE will accept applications, involving consortia of 2-4 parties (≥1 technology & service provider and ≥1 end-user) and proposed solutions must fall within one of the following domains:
  • improving logistics, and shortening value chains
  • ecosystem and biodiversity restoration
  • regional circular bioeconomy development
  • user engagement, empowerment, society and territorial awareness
  • culture, landscape and heritage access and promotion and
  • enhanced mobility
• An automatic filtering to discard non-eligible proposals will be based on the following criteria:
  • Legal entity in eligible country;
  • Uniqueness of the proposal (one proposal per consortium);
  • Each party can participate in only one proposal; If any applicant is found to participate in multiple applications, all such project applications will be rejected.
  • Proposal includes at least one technical party (e.g. entities such as SMEs and other private for-profit or non-profit organizations, technological spin-offs, research institutions etc) and at least one rural community (e.g. actors from the rural-urban environments, such as Local & Regional Administrations, Civil Society, Cooperatives, Associations, NGOs, Local Action Groups, Chambers and other Trade representative organizations, etc.);
  • Proposed solutions fall within one of the six (6) domains: circular economy, ecosystem and biodiversity restoration, improving logistics, and shortening value chains, user engagement, empowerment, society and territorial awareness, culture, landscape and heritage access and promotion & enhanced mobility.
• On top of that, the following eligibility criteria apply:
  • Existing consortium members of the RURBANIVE project and their affiliated entities are not eligible for the OC.
  • Proposals shall only ask for funding for that part of the work that is not yet accomplished and will be carried out once having been selected for funding. Of course, this does not exclude the usage of e.g., results, IP, infrastructures or approaches already held by the applicants.
  • All Applicants must have a valid VAT number and must be active and operational. However, in case having VAT number is not mandatory according to the national legislation of the applicant’s country, a registration number from the respective national authority (National business registry, Commercial court or similar) must be provided.

For more information, visit European Commission.