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  1. An institution, body, office or agency established by or based on the Treaty on European Union and the Treaties establishing the European Communities.

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    A research institution is a legal entity established as a non-profit organization whose main objective is to conduct research or technological development. A college/university is a legal entity recognized by its national education system as a university or college or secondary school. It may be a public or private institution.

    A microenterprise, a small or medium-sized enterprise (business) as defined in EU Recommendation 2003/361. To qualify as an SME for EU funding, an enterprise must meet certain conditions, including (a) fewer than 250 employees and (b) an annual turnover not exceeding EUR 50 million and/or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 43 million. These ceilings apply only to the figures for individual companies.

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  1. Governance, partnership: Projects aimed at increasing the application of multilevel and transnational or cross-border governance, designing and testing appropriate governance structures and mechanisms. Also cooperation between public institutions on any theme.

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    Community integration and common identity projects that build identity, create a more cohesive society, promote positive relations through an increased provision of shared spaces and services.

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    This is about the mitigation and management of risks and disasters, and the anticipation and response capacity towards the actors regarding specific risks and management of natural disasters, for example, prevention of flood and drought hazards, forest fire, strong weather conditions, etc.. It is also about risk assessment and safety.

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    Projects about (organised) crime, efficient and secure borders, such as enhancing the effectiveness of the police in the prevention of drug crimes, the development of safety services, or tackling security and organised crime issues.

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    • rural and peripheral development, referring to remote, sparsely populated areas, rural community development, and rural economics, in particular access to remote areas and policies for rural areas.
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Deadline expired

The deadline for this call has expired.

Call key data

AI regulatory sandboxes: EU-level coordination and support

Funding Program

Digital Europe

Call number

DIGITAL-2024-AI-ACT-06-SANDBOX

deadlines

Opening
29.02.2024

Deadline
29.05.2024 17:00

Funding rate

100%

Call budget

€ 2,000,000.00

Estimated EU contribution per project

€ 2,000,000.00

Link to the call

ec.europa.eu

Link to the submission

ec.europa.eu

Call content

short description

This action aims at providing support and coordination at EU level for AI regulatory sandboxes established under the future AI Act.

Call objectives

While the obligation to establish AI regulatory sandboxes lies with the Member States and their national competent authorities, this action will play a critical role in providing technical support, advice, tools and common frameworks for the effective establishment and operation of AI regulatory sandboxes and cross-border cooperation at EU level. Currently, the entry into force of the AI Act is foreseen for Q2 2024, which would imply that the Member States would need to establish the AI regulatory sandboxes and make them fully operational no later than end of Q2 2026. As such, this action should focus on a number of EU-level coordination and support activities to assist Member States in setting up and running the AI regulatory sandboxes in accordance with the relevant provisions of the AI Act.

The action should develop common frameworks, tools and processes to support competent authorities under the AI Act in the practical establishment, implementation, operation and supervision of the AI regulatory sandboxes. It should also propose a framework for coordination at EU level and cross-border cooperation, including, as appropriate, communication channels to facilitate exchanges and sharing of information among the competent authorities and to enable joint sandboxes between multiple Member States This also should include supplementary supporting infrastructure/services such as training, technical and legal support services for the national competent authorities establishing the sandboxes, and their coordination at EU level.

As a next step, together with the competent authorities, the action should organise a pilot testing of the sandbox material, tools and processes produced under this action, as well as the draft compliance material and tools produced by the AI Innovation Accelerator preparatory action to be tested by AI providers in the sandboxes. The testing should be organised under the supervision of national competent authorities and enable the scaling-up of the results observed in the sandbox environment to the wider market. The testing should seek to improve the deliverables and align them more closely to the needs of innovators and in particular SMEs and start-ups.

This action should also gather evidence for the objective of regulatory learning and to further improve the guidance documents and tools referenced in the paragraph above. It should collect best practices and lessons learnt, especially in relation to the wider implementation of the AI Act and contribute, where possible, to the development of guidance and other supporting material to be prepared by the Commission for the implementation of the AI Act and its regular review.

As a horizontal requirement for the implementation of all deliverables, the awarded proposal should collaborate with the EU AI Innovation Accelerator preparatory action. In particular, it should rely on draft tools, metrics and guidelines developed under the AI Innovation Accelerator preparatory action, while testing them in the sandboxes and updating them. It should also publish all information about the AI regulatory sandboxes as well as the deliverables under this action and the material produced in the sandboxes on the ‘single online platform’, which is to be created by the AI Innovation Accelerator preparatory action. The awarded proposal should make itself available to be consulted by the AI Innovation Accelerator during the development of the said platform and closely cooperate and provide all necessary input to fulfil its obligations under this action.

All activities under this action should build on the experience and the deliverables from pilot regulatory sandboxes and best practices in the implementation of other regulatory sandboxes (e.g. finance, energy, data etc.). To build on synergies with other initiatives supported by the EU, this action should establish contacts with TEF, the AI-on-Demand platform, the AI factories, EDIHs, EuroHPC, and EDICs focused on AI to work out which existing resources can be offered jointly to AI innovators and which resources would have to be built in future. Close cooperation should also be pursued with international and European Standardisation Organisations (in particular CEN111 and CENELEC112) to take into account progress in the development of AI standards and use them as a basis for the development of the action.

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Expected effects and impacts

  • foster AI innovation and competitiveness, improve legal certainty for innovators and facilitate regulatory compliance with the AI Act and other relevant Union legislation supervised in the AI regulatory sandboxes;
  • accelerate access to the EU market for innovative AI systems by providing a safe regulatory space for innovation and removing barriers in the sandboxes, with a particular focus on SMEs, including start-ups;
  • promote wide accessibility of the AI regulatory sandboxes across the EU Member States, common approaches and coordination in their implementation, economies of scale and scale up of AI innovation projects at EU level;
  • foster the competent authorities’ oversight capacity and understanding of the opportunities, emerging risks and the impacts of AI use;
  • contribute to evidence-based regulatory learning by analysing the experiences accumulated in the AI regulatory sandboxes and support the collecting and sharing of best practices and lessons learnt and make them widely available.

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Expected results

  • Ideally in the first 10 months, develop common guidelines, frameworks, processes, and tools for the competent authorities that cover all relevant steps in the practical establishment, operation and supervision of the AI regulatory sandboxes in line with all provisions in the AI Act and the implementing rules. These deliverables should be developed in English and be simple, intelligible, clearly communicated to reduce the burden and facilitate the participation of SMEs and start-ups with limited legal and administrative capacities and facilitate the work of competent authorities and strengthen their capacities. They should be provided in a digital format, interoperable, easy to use and, where appropriate, designed in an interactive manner. These deliverables should be prepared in consultation with the national contact points and competent authorities, providers of AI systems, SMEs and start-ups, the EC, and other relevant stakeholders. The needs and the potential challenges foreseen by competent authorities and AI providers, in particular SMEs and start ups, should be collected and taken into account. The deliverables should build on best practices in other sandboxes and lessons learnt from relevant sandbox pilots, while taking due account of the special needs, objectives and all principles and modalities of the AI regulatory sandboxes, as provided in the AI Act. The deliverables should provide flexibility to the Member States, while promoting effective cross-border collaboration and coordination at EU level and ensuring the proposed processes are fit for purpose, not burdensome and streamlined across the Union to avoid fragmentation and ensure that participation in an AI regulatory sandbox is mutually and uniformly recognised across the Union.
  • Provide supplementary supporting infrastructure/services such as training, technical and legal support services for the competent authorities establishing the sandboxes, and their coordination at EU level, including, as appropriate, communication channels to facilitate exchanges.
  • Ideally, in the first 16 months, organise the practical testing of the common guidelines, frameworks, processes, and tools developed by this action as well as those developed by the AI Innovation Accelerator preparatory action to be tested by providers of AI systems under the supervision of competent authorities in the AI regulatory sandboxes (including in a pilot phase) to support their compliance with the AI Act and to update and future proof the deliverables and support regulatory learning.
  • By the end of the action, provide an analysis of the accumulated experience in the sandboxes and take it into account in the update of deliverables and prepare recommendations and lessons learnt for policymakers and practitioners.
  • By the end of the action, publish all developed material and tools on the single online platform developed by the AI Innovation Accelerator action and propose a communication strategy for the long-term promotion of the sandboxes and their results.

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Eligibility Criteria

Regions / countries for funding

EU Member States, Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT)
Moldova (Moldova), Albania (Shqipëria), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosna i Hercegovina / Босна и Херцеговина), Iceland (Ísland), Kosovo (Kosova/Kosovë / Косово), Liechtenstein, Montenegro (Црна Гора), North Macedonia (Северна Македонија), Norway (Norge), Serbia (Srbija/Сpбија), Türkiye, Ukraine (Україна)

eligible entities

Education and training institution, Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) / Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Other, Private institution, incl. private company (private for profit), Public Body (national, regional and local; incl. EGTCs), Research Institution incl. University, Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME)

Mandatory partnership

No

Project Partnership

To be eligible for funding, applicants must be:

  • legal entities (public or private bodies)
  • established in one of the eligible countries:
    • EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))
    • EEA countries (Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein)
    • other countries associated to the Digital Europe Programme (list of participating countries)

Specific cases:

Natural persons are NOT eligible (with the exception of self-employed persons, i.e. sole traders, where the company does not have legal personality separate from that of the natural person).

International organisations — International organisations are not eligible, unless they are International organisations of European Interest within the meaning of Article 2 of the Digital Europe Regulation (i.e. international organisations the majority of whose members are Member States or whose headquarters are in a Member State).

EU bodies — EU bodies (with the exception of the European Commission Joint Research Centre) can NOT be part of the consortium.

Entities without legal personality — Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees for the protection of the EU financial interests equivalent to that offered by legal persons.

Associations and interest groupings — Entities composed of members may participate as ‘sole beneficiaries’ or ‘beneficiaries without legal personality’.

other eligibility criteria

Geographic location (target countries) Due to restrictions due to security: − the proposals must relate to activities taking place in the eligible countries (see above).

Projects involving EU classified information must undergo security scrutiny to authorise funding and may be made subject to specific security rules (detailed in a security aspects letter (SAL) which is annexed to the Grant Agreement).

Financial support to third parties is not allowed.

Additional information

Topics

Digitalisation, Digital Society, ICT, 
Justice, Safety & Security

Relevance for EU Macro-Region

EUSAIR - EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region, EUSALP - EU Strategy for the Alpine Space, EUSBSR - EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, EUSDR - EU Strategy for the Danube Region

UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs)

project duration

24 months

Additional Information

Proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System (accessible via the Topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section. Paper submissions are NOT possible.

Proposals must be complete and contain all the requested information and all required annexes and supporting documents:

  • Application Form Part A — contains administrative information about the participants (future coordinator, beneficiaries and affiliated entities) and the summarised budget for the project (to be filled in directly online)
  • Application Form Part B — contains the technical description of the project (to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed and then assembled and re-uploaded)
  • Mandatory annexes and supporting documents (to be uploaded):
    • detailed budget table/calculator: not applicable
    • CVs of core project team: not applicable
    • activity reports of last year: not applicable
    • list of previous projects (key projects for the last 4 years) (template available in Part B): applicable
    • ownership control declarations (including for associated partners and subcontractors): applicable

Proposals are limited to maximum 50 pages (Part B).

Call documents

DIGITAL-2024-AI-ACT-06 Call documentDIGITAL-2024-AI-ACT-06 Call document(676kB)

Contact

European Commission, Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology
Website

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