O-CEI 1st Open Call for Upscaling Projects

O-CEI’s focus is on accelerating innovative Cloud-Edge-IoT solutions by strengthening Europe’s competitiveness and open strategic autonomy. The themes include orchestrating cross-domain data sharing, minimizing energy footprint, stimulating multi-sided marketplaces, and promoting open standards for virtualization and interoperability. The call targets eight key strategic sectors for real-world pilots: electricity grid, electromobility, software-defined vehicles, agrifood and agriculture, logistics, and urban environments. The unifying thread across these pilots is energy flexibility.

The O-CEI Open Call invites single entities, specifically SMEs and startups located in EU member states, Overseas Countries and Territories, or Horizon Europe Associated countries, to submit proposals for upscaling projects. These projects should focus on testing components and developing edge solutions—such as executable apps and services—that enhance the functionalities of large-scale O-CEI pilots. Applicants are also encouraged to provide added value to these pilots in forms such as new models, data sharing, efficiency improvements, better performance, new utilities, or increased coverage.

Proposals must address one challenge from the eight O-CEI project pilot domains, which cover areas like electricity and heat pumps, energy flexibility involving 5G telco operators, electric vehicle fleet management and charging, electromobility including software-defined vehicles and value-added services, logistic hub efficiency via energy flexibility, farm-to-fork dairy energy tracking, sustainable yield and harvesting, and smart energy city solutions.

The call offers a maximum grant amount of EUR 100,000 per beneficiary under a lump sum funding scheme. The support program will last seven months and consists of three stages: an Individual Mentoring Plan and Inception stage, development of Cloud-Edge-IoT utilities, and release and testing of the solutions. The program supports up to 24 projects with a total budget of EUR 2.4 million.

Applicants must comply with formal requirements including submission deadlines, language (English), data accuracy, completeness, European dimension alignment, conflict of interest checks, financial stability, and protection of intellectual property rights. The evaluation process is transparent and involves multiple phases: initial eligibility checks, scope screening, independent expert evaluations based on criteria of excellence, impact, and implementation, followed by a consensus meeting by the selection committee. Successful applicants will then undergo a formal check before signing a sub-grant agreement.

Payments depend on achieving milestones defined in the mentoring plan and are distributed in three tranches aligned with the stages of the support program. The progress is regularly evaluated by the consortium, with payments contingent on milestone achievement rather than specific expenditure receipts.

Two online webinars are scheduled to assist applicants in understanding the call requirements and procedures, and support is available via an online helpdesk and email contact. The O-CEI project is funded by the European Union and managed by FundingBox Accelerator and consortium partners.

For more information, visit EC.