Grants to support Innovation and Internationalisation of European SMEs

The project “Level 1 Accelerator for Defence Sector” (hereinafter LEVIATAD) aims at creating the 1st Eurocluster of excellence on naval defence. The plan to achieve such an ambitious result consists of three steps.

• Obtain a mapping of the naval and aero-naval defence sector’s value chain post COVID-19 crisis to better understand the European ecosystem’s structure as well as potential transnational synergies and complementarities. This will allow the project’s consortium to draw the lesson concerning disruptions and dependencies and manage a more efficient industrial strategy (including green and digital transition) to increase the resilience and boost the competitiveness of a long-term European strategic approach.
• Put in place actions to support SMEs in their up-skilling towards strategic technological innovation that will provide the basis for their path towards resilience and autonomy, ultimately boosting European sovereignty in the defence sector.
• Go-to-international, the third and final step, consists of further supporting measures that will help SMEs to acquire skills in third countries’ markets as well as to achieve internationalisation to foster synergies and create new business lines in non-EU countries.

The activities carried out within LEVIATAD will enhance the European position in the value chain of naval and aero-naval defence sector. The same activities will support resilience by fostering innovation processes, and will help SMEs in joining forces and better cooperate with both major public and private groups in European and international markets. For these reasons all the activities will have a strong focus on resilience and synergy.

Objectives

• This call will finance projects that contribute to the following objectives:
  • fostering innovation as well as green and digital transition of SMEs;
  • increasing presence of European SMEs in the international value chains (internationalization).
• The objective of the project is to put in place actions to support SMEs in their up-skilling towards strategic technological innovation, a process that will serve as the basis for their path towards resilience and autonomy, with a view to strengthen European sovereignty in the naval, aero-naval, and defence sectors.
• For the overall purpose of the programme into which LEVIATAD is developed, particular attention will be dedicated to projects coming from EU-13 countries as well as EU regions which Eurocluster’s partners had no previous cooperation with.

Priorities

• Following the activities carried out during the implementation phase of the project, such as the mapping of the ecosystems, reporting on SMEs needs and opportunities, LEVIATAD has identified specific investment priorities:
  • autonomous ships and drones;
  • communication, cyber security and electronic warfare;
  • on-board equipment: development, performance improvement;
  • predictive maintenance;
  • weapon systems improvement;
  • decarbonization of ships.

Funding Information

• LEVIATAD’s open call will select up to 50 projects (at least 40 project applications coming from LEVIATAD countries).
• The total available budget is €1.013.071, 52, with a maximum grant amounting to €20.000 per project.

Duration

• The duration of a project shall be maximum 8 months and not exceeding August 1st, 2024.

Eligibility Criteria

• Being a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME);
• Be registered in a LEVIATAD’s partner country, or an EU-13 country.
• Applicants must be registered in:
  • A LEVIATAD’s partner country (Belgium, Croatia, France, Italy); or
  • One of the EU-13 countries except Croatia (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia).
• Be a member of an organization that promotes defence value chain in Europe;
• Being not considered an undertaking in difficulty nor falling in any of the other defined situations;
• Having a turnover from economic activity equal to the grant requested or higher;
• Having at least one person employed;
• Application in English language;
• Application submitted to the official email address;
• Requested grant amount respecting the thresholds of the call;
• Only one project application per SME;
• Project that presupposes at least two activities.

For more information, visit ECCP.