GEMSTONE Financial Support for Exploration (EXPLORE) for SMEs

Deadline: 31 December 2024

Gemstone is inviting applications is offering a financial support to facilitate SMEs internationalisation strategy by supporting their participation to business fairs and other international event deemed interesting for their activities, in targeted countries and in relation to Green Manufacturing.

GEMSTONE aims to mobilise manufacturing companies, in particular innovative SMEs, on the challenges of “Green Manufacturing” by developing a dedicated joint service offer and operational and financial support tools around the 3 pillars “Train, Innovate, Explore” to encourage and empower manufacturing companies in their environmental and digital transition process.

The project aims to define, deepen and apply a common methodology on issues related to Green Manufacturing in 5 identified industrial sectors: Aeronautics/Defence, Energy, Mobility, Agriculture/Agri-food, Materials. This ambition is driven by the thoughtful association of European clusters with complementary ecosystems both in terms of expertise and priority targets, bringing together organizations and people facilitating innovation.

Funding Information

The total EU funding available for the Call EXPLORE is €48.000,00.
The maximum financial support per financial support for Exploration (EXPLORE) is €1.500 in the form of a lump sum.
8 cut-offs will be organised by GEMSTONE in order to provide opportunities to SMEs until early 2025.

Eligible Activities

Each selected SME in this call will receive a financial support of €1.500 (lumpsum) to be used to support:
- Participation in trade fairs/international event for companies providing services, technologies, solutions linked to green transition and green manufacturing:
  - Market exploration;
  - Branding, sales and marketing of company;
  - Demonstrate their solutions/technologies (e.g., booth visitations and exhibitions);
  - Sharing knowledge, experience and information in Green Manufacturing specific areas;
- Participation in trade fairs/international event, study visits or learning mission having a specific focus on Green manufacturing:
  - To gain knowledges, explore Green Manufacturing existing solutions;
  - To attend B2B events,
  - To do networking activities, identification of new partners and creation of new business opportunities;
  - To support project development, innovation and research and development;

Who can apply?

Maximum one application will be granted per SME.
Cluster organisations/networks are not eligible.
To be eligible, applicants must meet all the following conditions:
- Be a legal entity;
- Be a small or medium sized enterprise (SME): Companies must declare their SME status in accordance with the SME definition of the European Union as part of the application;
- Apply as an individual organization;
- Be located in one of the Single Market Programme (SMP) associated countries
  - EU Member States
  - Other countries which participate in SMP Work Programmes 2022 and 2023.
- Do not have a conflict of interest5 with the partners in GEMSTONE project.