DigiFed second open call results: 16 projects and 25 European companies receive a total of over 1.3 million euro for their digital innovation ambitions

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The EU funded project “Digital Innovation Hubs Federation For Large Scale adoption of digital technologies by European SMEs” announces the results of its second call for applications: 16 projects of the 75 eligible proposals will receive a total of over 1.3 million euro to develop their smart applications.

In its most recent effort to engage European SMEs and midcaps in its innovation programme, DigiFed is pleased to announce the results of the project’s 2nd Open Call launched on the 22nd of September 2020.

Out of the 75 eligible proposals (see figure 1), 16 were selected involving 25 companies from across Europe (see figure 2) to receive financial, technical and innovation management support for the creation of smart applications that help digitise European Industry.

Figure 1 Country of origin Eligible proposals
Figure 2 Country of origin of selected beneficiaries

In a reverse trend to the first call, most of the selected Application Experiments are “Twin” – 56%, meaning that two partner companies from two different countries applied together and will each receive up to 55 k€ Cascade funding for supporting their project, while DigiFed will support with business innovation expertise.

The remaining 44% of the selected projects applied for the “Single” Application Experiment – meaning that a single applying company will receive, alongside Cascade funding up to 55k€, technical and business expertise from DigiFed to support their project.

Figure 3 Distribution of selected companies per size

Furthermore, the majority of funded of projects were from small SMEs (44%) and Start-Ups (28%) (see figure 3).  The sectors in which the selected projects operate include: Industry 4.0, Energy, IoT, Health and others (see figure 4).

Figure 4 Project sector distribution

All proposals were evaluated in a first phase by the independent experts and in a second phase by the DigiFed team. The winning 16 projects to be carried out by the 25 selected companies are scheduled to start by June 2021.

So far, the overall budget distributed for the second DigiFed open call is 1,3 M €, with the largest share going to companies based in Italy, Spain, German and Slovenia (see Figure 5).

Figure 5 Distribution of funds per country of origin

Considering the 1,1 M € previously distributed in the first open call, approximately 1 M€ in funding remains to be distributed through the various DigiFed innovation pathways.

DigiFed is dedicated to supporting EU industries to digitalise their product & services and reach new markets enabled by Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) & Embedded Systems. It aims to promote a total of 40 projects throughout the project’s lifetime, fostering alliances between SMEs to demonstrate the potential of CPS digital technologies. DigiFed incentivises cooperation among hubs across Europe to make those technologies and know-how available to all European SMEs.

If you are a start-up, SME or Midcap with an interest in developing smart applications, do not miss the 3rd Open Call which will be launched on 16th of March 2020.

Keep an eye out for more information on the DigiFed website and by following DigiFed on Twitter and Linkedin.