On March 9th Green Synergy Cluster organized a presentation in support of its project RE-CENTRE, where the financing opportunity granted by the project was introduced to the attendees.
RE-CENTRE aims to develop new business models and innovation projects between the 3 target sectors – furniture/interiors, IT and Energy – thus creating strong relationships and active business collaborations among them, bringing a strategic element for guaranteeing competitiveness and resilience.
As part of its strategic plan, the RE-CENTRE consortium holds an open call for Vouchers for collaborative innovation projects. The funding sum comes to EUR 1’040’000, meant to support 20 projects with EUR 52’000 each. The proposals must be submitted by consortia of minimum 2 partners representing different sectors among any 2 of the traditional furniture and living sector, the IT sector, the green/circular economy sector.
Scope of possible activities:
- Innovation feasibility studies
- Prototyping, testing and/or validating innovations
- Digital maturity assessments
- Digital transformation strategies
- Developing road maps for energy transformation
- Developing new circular products or solutions derived from waste raw materials
Proposals need to increase the TRL of the focus technology at least 2 levels
Eligible innovations include introducing innovations in business processes, digital technologies or green/circular technologies
At least one of the partners members must be registered in a project partner country (Bulgaria, Romania, Spain, Italy) and there have to be representatives from at least 2 of the 3 sectors – furniture, IT, green/circular technologies.
The implementation period is set between 6-12 months.
The eligible costs are divided into two categories – direct and subcontracting costs: the first being direct staff costs (costs of the beneficiary’s staff hours devoted to actual work on the project) and other direct costs (additional direct costs incurred may be claimed for travel, depreciation costs of equipment and supplies), and the latter – costs for expert services, research, etc. Subcontracting costs are limited to a maximum of 30% of the total project budget.
Once submitted, the proposals will be evaluated based on 3 main criteria groups:
- Excellence of intended innovation (business models, digital and/or green/circular technology – maximum 5 points
- Relevance and reliability of the objectives with the scope of the invitation
- Clarity and credibility of the proposed indicators for measuring results
- Specificity of the purpose of the partnership
- Innovativeness of the proposal
- Potential of quality and efficiency of implementation – maximum 5 points
- Justification of the proposed work plan, tasks and schedule of activities
- Consistency of the partnership with the proposed objectives: team experience, complementarity of partners, completeness of the consortium
- Operational capacity: the technical capacity of the consortium in relation to the proposed work
- International Market: Intentions to Exploit to Other Countries
- Cost-effectiveness of the proposed work plan: efficiency of assigned resources, relationship to objectives and results
- Potential impact – maximum 5 points
- Business and market relevance
- Reliability of business KPI targets
- Expected impact on the environment
- Market opportunity, expected exploitation, intellectual property rights
- Cross-border partnership between different countries – bonus 1 point
If approved, the projects will receive their funding in 3 parts: advance transfer of 40%, interring payment of 30%, and final payment of 30% of the grant after validation of the results.
The open call is active between 18th April and 27th June.
More information on the Application process and criteria you can find on the RE-CENTRE Grant Platform: https://recentre.grantplatform.com/
