Call for Proposals: Business Experiments addressing the uptake of HPC by SMEs

The resulting sub-projects will perform “business experiments that should demonstrate to the broader European SME ecosystem that HPC uptake solves business challenges and leads to positive business impact (including but not limited to increased innovation potential and competitiveness) through the use and deployment of HPC-based computational methods (modelling and simulation, data analytics, Al, etc.). Thus, their key outputs are success stories that promote, communicate, and disseminate the business impact of HPC uptake to the SME ecosystem. The development of the innovation potential of the participating SMEs is also directly targeted and an important objective for the proposed business experiments.

The call targets highest quality experiments involving innovative, agile SMEs with work plans built around innovation targets arising from the use of advanced HPC services. Proposals are sought that address business challenges from European SMEs from varied application domains, whereby SMEs whose adoption of advanced HPC services will create the highest business impact will be prioritized. SMEs with an academic focus, for example with business models around R&D services based on HPC software, or activities with a potential impact only in the long term, such as fundamental research, are not within the scope of the call.

Funding Information

• The total indicative funding budget for Call 2 sub-projects executing business experiments addressing the uptake of HPC by SMEs is € 4 million.
• The maximum duration of the experiments is 15 months, with a maximum funding budget of 200 K€. The maximum funding per organisation is 150 K€. For supporting participants, the maximum funding applies to all business experiments, for all FFplus calls, in which they participate.

Eligibility Criteria

• The following funding conditions and eligibility criteria for participation apply:
  • The experiments should address the business challenges of an SME new to the use of HPC and that SME may participate in only one experiment as main participant.
  • A main participant is an SME or a startup and supporting participants are organisations supporting the main participant in the technical work needed to achieve the objectives defined for the experiment.
  • Applications are to be submitted by one or more main participants sharing a business case/challenge and optionally one or more supporting participants. Each consortium partner4 needs to have a clearly defined role.
  • The total number of consortium partners (main participants and supporting participants) is limited to five (5).
  • Only organisations established in
    • an EU Member State or
    • (non-EU countries:) listed EEA countries and countries associated to the Digital Europe Programme where the agreement entered into force before 01/05/2024 are eligible to receive funding. Natural persons (individuals) are not eligible to receive funding.
  • SME participation in the FFplus innovation studies for generative AI development and in the business experiments covered by this open call are mutually exclusive. That is, for the SMEs whose business challenge defines the business experiment or innovation study, funding may only be provided for one type of action (Type 1 or Type 2 subproject). This will be considered during the evaluation and selection process.
  • FFplus beneficiaries are ineligible to participate as either main or supporting participants.
  • In principle, at least 50% of the funding applied for should be allocated to the main participants. Any deviations from this principle must be duly justified.
  • For supporting participants, only engineering/technical activities are eligible for funding. Activities such as business consultancy, marketing initiatives, administrative tasks, and other non-engineering/non-technical activities are not eligible for funding.

For more information, visit Fortissimo Plus.