The European Commission is launching a new set of around 16 cross-sectoral, interdisciplinary and trans-European strategic Joint Cluster Initiatives to be called ‘Euroclusters’. Euroclusters will contribute to the implementation of the European Commission’s New Industrial Strategy for Europe as well as to its updated Strategy that was published in May 2021 and the SME Strategy for a sustainable and digital Europe adopted in March 2020 by building resilience and accelerating the transition to a green and digital economy. Euroclusters will also support the implementation of the Green Deal Industrial Plan for the Net-Zero Age and its initiatives (Critical Raw Materials and Net-Zero Industry Acts), and the European Economic Security Strategy to ensure the security of the EU value chains.

Euroclusters must monitor the results of their activities and elaborate a comprehensive set of indicators, benchmarks and targets to do so.

Please consult call document pages 19-21 for mandatory KPIs, reporting requirements and deliverables.

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

Proposals must be submitted by a consortium of at least three applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities), which complies with the following conditions:

• minimum three cluster organisations (as defined above) or cluster networks from at least three different EU Member States; 
• at least half of the partners in each consortium (Eurocluster) must be cluster organisations or cluster networks registered or having submitted a registration on the ECCP by the submission deadline of this call for proposals; in this sense, it is requested that all applicants fill in Annex 5 to Part B - Eligibility checklist by providing:
  • For cluster organisations and cluster networks already registered in the European Cluster Collaboration Platform: the link to the completed cluster organisation profile for each applicant registered on the Platform must be provided; or
  • For cluster organisations and cluster networks not yet registered in the European Cluster Collaboration Platform: for each applicant, a declaration on their honour that they represent a cluster organisation or a business network organisation offering or channelling innovative support services to businesses (in compliance with the definition of ‘innovation clusters’), together with a proof that a cluster profile has been submitted to the ECCP for registration, with the respective information included in the descriptive form.
• the applicant consortium must include at least one partner established in a less advanced region of an EU Member State (as defined and applied in the Cohesion policy regulation 2021-2027: GDP per capita <75%). The name of the less advanced region needs to be indicated in Annex 5 to Part B - Eligibility  checklist. The name of this region must be coherent with the region that appears in the legal address (as per provided PIC number) of this partner.

It is recalled that individual applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) cannot participate in more than one Eurocluster proposal under this call for proposals. Each Eurocluster is responsible to verify that their individual consortium partners (applicants and affiliated entities) are NOT participating in proposals of another Eurocluster. This applies also to clusters without legal personality: if the same cluster organisation (even if represented in different consortia by different legal entities) participates in more than one proposal, all concerned proposals will be considered ineligible under this call.

Similarly, one Eurocluster (consortium of applicants and affiliated entities) cannot submit more than one proposal under this call for proposals.

If any such case is detected by the funding body, it will lead to the ineligibility of all concerned proposals submitted by the concerned consortia under this call.

---

In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must: 

• be legal entities (public or private bodies)

• be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:

  • EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))

  • non-EU countries: listed EEA countries and countries associated to the Single Market Programme (list of participating countries)

• be or represent a cluster organisation (see definition below), a Single Market Programme (SMP) cluster network, or other types of organisations supporting green and digital transitions and building EU resilience. For the purpose of this call for proposals, cluster organisations are understood as the legal entities that support the strengthening of collaboration, networking and learning in innovation clusters and act as innovation support providers by providing or channelling specialised and customised business support services to stimulate innovation activities, especially in SMEs. They are usually the actors that facilitate strategic partnering across clusters.

---

Specific cases:

Exceptional funding — Entities from other countries (not listed above) are exceptionally eligible, if the granting authority considers their participation essential for the implementation of the action.

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 are eligible. The rules on eligible countries do not apply to them.

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. 

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

Entities composed of members may participate as ‘sole beneficiaries’ or ‘beneficiaries without legal personality’. Please note that if the action will be implemented by the members, they should also participate (either as beneficiaries or as affiliated entities, otherwise their costs will NOT be eligible). 

Beneficiaries from countries with ongoing negotiations (see above) may participate in the call and can sign grants if the negotiations are concluded before grant signature (with retroactive effect, if provided in the agreement).

Financial support to third parties:

At least 75% of the grant must be directed by the Eurocluster as financial support to third parties, the SMEs, via cascade funding by means of open calls fulfilling the conditions described below.

Financial support to third parties can only cover activities directly focused to address the main objective “Innovation and adoption of new processes and advanced technologies for strategic autonomy, to build capacity in the most critical areas of their ecosystems, and to reinforce transformation into a greener, more digital, and resilient economy” (see Section 2). Please note that:

• Financial support to third parties requires a direct financial transaction between the beneficiaries of this call, the Eurocluster, and the “third parties” (SME beneficiaries of the cascading calls launched by the Eurocluster). Therefore, support provided “indirectly”, e.g. via voucher schemes or services, will not count as “financial support to third parties” in the meaning of this call.
• The support to third parties cannot be provided through services offered by the consortium directly.
• The financial support that the Eurocluster grant beneficiaries of this call will provide to the third parties must be matched by the third parties/recipients of the financial support with a certain percentage of other private financial sources (in form of debt or own financial resources), thus crowding in private capital into the projects.

Note: Although cluster organisations might be (and often are) “SMEs”, in the spirit of this call, “Euroclusters” will have to target SMEs which are not clusters or any other intermediary organisations, unless this is proven to be necessary for the implementation of the project.

Proposals must clearly detail:

• the definition of the entities (SMEs) which may receive financial support, the ‘third parties’,
• the type of proposed support,
• the objectives and results to be obtained,
• the conditions for participation,
• a fixed and exhaustive list of the different types of activities for which a third party may receive financial support,
• the criteria for awarding financial support,
• the criteria for calculating the exact amount of the financial support,
• the maximum amount to be granted to each third party (which may not exceed EUR 60 000 for each third party, unless where achieving the objectives of the actions would otherwise be impossible or overly difficult and this is duly justified in the Application form) and the criteria for determining it,
• the reasons why financial support to third parties is needed and how it will be managed,
• a strategy to leverage on EU funding crowding in private capitals,
• a strategy on how to reach SMEs, including through effective collaboration with the EEN and other support networks.

Further conditions regarding the above-listed elements or other elements may be laid down in the calls for proposals that the Euroclusters, as EU grants beneficiaries, must publish in order to award the financial support to the targeted third parties.

Financial support to third parties is allowed for grants or similar forms of support and prizes under the following conditions:

• Euroclusters must publish widely their open calls and conform to EU standards concerning the respect of transparency, equal treatment, conflict of interest and confidentiality. All calls for financial support to third parties must be published at least on each of the following platforms:
  • European Cluster Collaboration Platform,
  • Enterprise Europe Network,
  • Funding and Tenders Portal,
  • Euroclusters’ own website (if it exists; if it does not, the calls must be published on the websites of the consortium partners. Please note that costs for the development of a new website are not eligible under this call), and
  • Euroclusters’ social media channels, tagging at least EISMEA, the Commission’s Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW), and the European Cluster Collaboration Platform.
• The calls must remain open for at least two months. If call deadlines are changed, an update must immediately be published on the call page on the Funding and Tenders portal, as well as on all the websites and platforms where the call announcement was published, and all registered applicants must be informed of the change;
• Without delay, Euroclusters must publish the outcome of the call, including a short description of each third-party funded action, the date of the award, the duration of the action, and the final recipients’ legal names and countries;
• The calls must have a clear EU dimension;
• At least 10% of the supported third parties, the SMEs, shall come from EU regions different from the countries of individual Euroclusters’ partners;
• In each call, specific attention needs to be paid to EU-13 countries and to those EU regions with which the Euroclusters’ partners had no previous cooperation. The calls shall focus on engaging actors from regions with different levels of economic

development.

The Eurocluster, as beneficiary of the EU grant, must ensure that the recipients of the financial support allow the Agency, the Commission, the European Anti-fraud Office (OLAF) and the Court of Auditors to exercise their powers of control on documents, information, even stored on electronic media, or on the final recipient's premises.

---

Proposals must relate to activities taking place in the eligible EU and non-EU countries associated to the Single Market Programme (see above), and targeted third countries for the purpose of internationalisation activities.

The costs will be reimbursed at the funding rates fixed in the Grant Agreement (100% for the costs for providing financial support to third parties and 90% for all other cost categories).

The budget of each Eurocluster’s proposal must be split in the following way:

• Up to 25% will cover joint activities between cluster organisations and other Eurocluster partners, to finance e.g., design of support measures for SMEs, coordination of actions, networking, training and internationalisation activities/services, as well as joint communication.
• At least 75% will be directed to SMEs in the form of financial support to third parties (FSTP), to directly finance services to support their resilience, green and digital transformation only related to the main objective (“Innovation and adoption of new processes and advanced technologies”) of this call for proposals.

• 
• 
• 
• 

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 (including annexes and supporting documents) must be submitted using the forms provided inside the Submission System ( NOT the documents available on the Topic page — they are only for information).

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 (templates available to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed, assembled and re-uploaded):

  • Annex 1 to Part B - Detailed budget table/calculator (template available in the Submission System: file ‘Tpl Detailed Budget Table (SMP COSME GFS 90)’);

  • Annex 2 to Part B - CVs of core project team: not applicable. However, a description of the profiles (qualifications and experience) of the staff responsible for managing and implementing the project, and a description of the members of the consortium, are required in the application form part B and must be duly filled.

  • Annex 3 to Part B - Activity reports of last year: not applicable

  • Annex 4 to Part B - List of previous projects (key projects for the last 4 years) (template available in Part B)

  • Annex 5 to Part B - Eligibility checklist (available from EISMEA’s page here).

Your application must be readable, accessible and printable. Proposals are limited to maximum 50 pages (Part B). Evaluators will not consider any additional pages.

SMP-COSME
EISMEA-SMP-COSME-ENQUIRIES@ec.europa.eu
Website