Up to €300,000 in Equity-free Funding available for Food Startups, SMEs & Researchers

DRG4Food Open Calls

• The primary objective of the two DRG4Food Open Calls is to encourage, inspire, and actively support pilot projects guided by the Digital Responsibility Goals. These projects are carefully designed to address the needs of end-users and consumers while demonstrating significant market potential, thereby delivering substantial benefits to the European economy and society.
• These Open Calls resonate with DRG4Food’s core goals, which encompass various objectives:
  • Objective 1: Creating a roadmap for a novel data-driven food system grounded in principles of openness, sovereignty, fairness, and trust.
  • Objective 2: Pioneering a new paradigm for successful data-driven food applications rooted in principles of openness, user-centricity, sovereignty, and trust, spanning from ideation to operation.
  • Objective 3: Crafting human-centric, decentralized, and trustworthy electronic food system technology enablers, consisting of baseline technologies.
  • Objective 4: Demonstrating innovative services and applications within a virtual food system.
• These objectives collectively drive DRG4Food’s mission to promote innovation and the development of responsible data-driven solutions in critical food industry domains, such as Food Tracking, Targeted Nutrition, and Consumers’ Food Choices.

Funding Information

• The budget allocated for Open Call #1 is €950,000. Any remaining budget will be utilized for Open Call 2.
• The project budget can be between €150,000 and must not exceed €300,000.

What are the expected impacts?

• Pre-empting negative effects of digitalisation
  • By underpinning the design process and development of digital solutions with guidance based on the DRGs, the project aims to pre-empt any negative consequences. This follows the logical assumption that as soon as a technology is already on the market and established, it becomes exponentially harder to ‘repair’ any potentially damaging qualities. For example, Facebook, founded in 2004, continues to pose challenges in 2023 as they try to mitigate its negative effects (e.g., misinformation, harm to the mental health of teenagers, privacy infringements, etc.).
• Responsible technology as a viable business model
  • Demand for digital technology that can be ‘trusted’ is on the rise. DRG4FOOD can serve as an incubator for a prototypical business model for trusted technology—not only for participants in the project’s open call but potentially also for a trustworthy digital ecosystem beyond the food sector.
• Higher adoption of digital technology for the benefit of citizens
  • Data shows that there is a correlation between trust in technology and adoption It can be reasonably assumed that digital technology that is verifiably trustworthy creates lower hurdles for adoption, especially when sensitive data, e.g. consumer health data, is involved.

Eligible Countries

• Eligibility is limited to applicants legally established in the following countries:
  • The Member States (MS) of the European Union (EU), including their outermost regions.
  • The Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) linked to the Member States;
  • Countries associated with Horizon Europe.
• UK applicants are eligible based on the conditions established by the European Commission for participation in Horizon Europe.

Who is it for?

• The open call invites multidisciplinary consortia comprising 2-3 entities, including startups, SMEs, research organizations, universities, technology adopters, and users in the food sector, with a focus on NGOs and consumer associations. Consortia must demonstrate the capacity to develop data-driven solutions aligned with Digital Responsibility Goals and actively engage with end-users to shape technical requirements and improve pilot activities. Specific consortium conditions are in place.
• DRG4Food – Open Call #1 seeks to support projects developed by a consortium consisting of 2 to 3 partners,
  • Micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), including startups, developing data-driven solutions in the areas of Food Tracking, Personalised Nutrition, and Consumers’ Food Choices.
  • Research and technology organisations (RTOs) and universities, and other non-profit research organizations, working on advancing the state-of-the-art and addressing challenges—rooted in principles such as openness, user-centricity, sovereignty, and trust
• Together, they must demonstrate their ability to engage users and contribute to the central mission of advancing digital transformation and data-driven innovation, with a particular emphasis on data rights and Digital Responsibility Goals. This is achieved through concise research cycles aimed at identifying and nurturing the most promising ideas.

For more information, visit DRG4Food.