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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 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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    Activities that protect, promote and enhance cultural and natural heritage, increase the attractiveness through preservation and valorisation of common cultural and natural heritage in a sustainable manner, and improve and develop cultural and natural heritage objects, services and products. Cultural heritage management, art and culture, (maritime) heritage routes, access to cultural and natural heritage. Also all topics on cultural services such as festivals, concerts, art workshops.

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    This deals with the development of health and social services and improved accessibility and efficiency for different groups (elderly, children, etc.). It is also about new healthcare models and medical diagnosis and treatments (dementia, cancer, diabetes, etc.), hospitals, care management, and rare diseases, as well as improving wellbeing and promoting sports.

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    • regional planning and development, such as the implementation of regional development policies/instruments and programmes, sustainable land use management plans, integrated regional action plans, spatial planning, and marine protected area management.
    • 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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Call key data

Creative Innovation Lab

Funding Program

Creative Europe - Cross-Sectoral Strand

Call number

CREA-CROSS-2025-INNOVLAB

deadlines

Opening
24.10.2024

Deadline
24.04.2025 17:00

Funding rate

70%

Call budget

€ 5,001,863.00

Link to the call

ec.europa.eu

Link to the submission

ec.europa.eu

Call content

short description

Within the specific objective to promote policy cooperation and innovative actions supporting all strands of the Programme, promoting a diverse, independent and pluralistic media environment and media literacy, thereby foresting freedom or artistic expression, intercultural dialogue and social inclusion, the priorities of the cross-sectoral strand shall include to encourage innovative approaches to content creation, access, distribution, and promotion across cultural and creative sectors and with other sectors, including by taking into account the digital transition, covering both market and non-market dimensions.

Call objectives

The Cross Sectoral strand shall support the ‘creative innovation lab’, which shall:

  • encourage new forms of creation at the crossroads between different cultural and creative sectors, for example through experimental approaches and the use of innovative technologies;
  • foster innovative cross-sectoral approaches and tools which shall, where possible, encompass multilingual and social dimensions to facilitate the distribution, promotion and monetisation of, and access to, culture and creativity, including cultural heritage.

The Creative Innovation Lab shall incentivise players from different cultural and creative sectors, including audiovisual, to design and test innovative solutions for key challenges, with a potential positive long-term impact on multiple cultural and creative sectors.

Expected effects and impacts

  • Improve the competitiveness of the European audiovisual and other cultural and creative sectors: transparency, data collection and the appropriate use of artificial intelligence/big data, adaptation to the challenges and opportunities driven by the ongoing changes in those sectors;
  • Improve the adaptation of the European audiovisual and other cultural and creative sectors to the opportunities offered by the development of virtual worlds (also called metaverse(s));
  • Improve the production/financing and circulation of European audiovisual and cultural content in the digital age;
  • Increase the visibility, discoverability, availability and diversity of European audiovisual and cultural content in the digital age;
  • Increase the potential audience of European audiovisual and cultural content in the digital age;
  • Accelerate the environmental transition of the European audiovisual, cultural and other creative sectors, in line with the priorities of the European Green Deal and the New European Bauhaus.

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Expected results

The InnovLab support shall support the design, development and/or spread of innovative tools, models or solutions applicable in the audiovisual and other cultural and creative sectors (CCSs) with a high potential of replicability in those sectors.

The objectives of the scheme is to encourage cooperation between the audiovisual sector and other CCSs in order to accompany their environmental transition and/or to improve their competitiveness and/or the circulation, visibility, discoverability, availability, diversity and the audience of European content across borders. The support also aims to enable the European audiovisual sector and other CCSs to better adapt to the opportunities offered by the development of Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Worlds.

Projects must therefore focus on one (or several) of the below topics:

  • Virtual Worlds as a new environment for the promotion of European content, audience renewal and competitiveness of European content industries;
  • Innovative Business Tools for production, financing, distribution or promotion enabled or enhanced by new technology (AI, big data, blockchain, Virtual Worlds, NFT, etc.), in particular:
    • Rights’ management and monetisation (including innovative bundled subscription offers to access diverse European cultural content from various existing European platforms), at the same time ensuring transparency and fair remuneration for creators and artists;
    • Data collection and analysis, with particular emphasis on prediction for content creation and audience development (including innovative cross-sectoral tools to improve the quality of the subscriber service and a better valorisation of European content offered by European online platforms);
  • “Greener” practices in order to lower the impact on the environment of the audiovisual and other cultural sectors in line with the Commission’s Green Deal and the New Bauhaus initiative.

Cross-sectoral cooperation between the audiovisual and other cultural and creative sectors is at the heart of the Call. Therefore, applications must clearly demonstrate the extent of the cross-sectoral approach, the conditions for its implementation and the expected benefits for the sectors covered.

Applications should present adequate strategies to ensure more sustainable and more environmentally-respectful industry and to ensure gender balance, inclusion, diversity and representativeness.

A wide spectrum of organisations will be invited to participate, including private and public entities, tech companies and start-ups, audiovisual, cultural and creative organisations. The participation of business incubators and accelerators shall be encouraged, to provide space and time for creative ideas to be shaped.

Content development and/or production costs can only be supported if they are clearly linked to the development of innovative tools or models proposed by the project. They must be proportionate and limited.

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Eligibility Criteria

Regions / countries for funding

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

eligible entities

Education and training institution, International organization, 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

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.:
    • Creative Europe Participating Countries:
      • EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories) 
      • non-EU countries (listed EEA countries and countries associated to the Creative Europe Programme (list of participating countries)
  • be established in one of the countries participating in the Creative Europe Programme and owned directly or indirectly, wholly or by majority participation, by nationals from such countries. When a company is publicly listed, the location of the stock exchange will in principle determine its nationality.

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 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 — 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). 

The host organisations of Creative Europe Desks are eligible as coordinator or beneficiary in open calls, if they have procedures to segregate the project management and the information provision functions and if they are able to demonstrate cost separation (i.e., that their project grants do not cover any costs which are covered by their other grant). This requires the following: 

  • use of analytical accounting which allows for a cost accounting management with cost allocation keys and cost accounting codes AND application of these keys and codes to identify and separate the costs (i.e., to allocate them to either one of the two grants)
  • recording of all real costs incurred for the activities that are covered by the two grants (including the indirect costs)
  • allocation of the costs in a way that leads to a fair, objective and realistic result. 

Beneficiaries from countries with ongoing negotiations (see list 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).

other eligibility criteria

Applications by single applicants are allowed (single beneficiaries; affiliated entities are allowed, if needed), as well as proposals submitted by a consortium of at least two applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities).

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

  • the calls must be open, published widely and conform to EU standards concerning transparency, equal treatment, conflict of interest and confidentiality;
  • the calls must remain open for at least two months;
  • the outcome of the call must be published on the participants’ websites, including a description of the selected projects, award dates, project durations, and final recipient legal names and countries;
  • the calls must have a clear European dimension. 
  • Financial support to third parties will be accepted in projects which are submitted by an applicant having recent proven experience in the award and management of grants or funds.
  • Your project application must clearly specify why financial support to third parties is needed, how it will be managed and provide a list of the different types of activities for which a third party may receive financial support. The proposal must also clearly describe the results to be obtained.

Additional information

Topics

Arts & Culture, Cultural Heritage, Tourism, 
Digitalisation, Digital Society, ICT, 
Education & Training, Children & Youth, Media

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 before the call deadline. 

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)
  • Part C — contains additional project data and the project’s contribution to EU programme key performance indicators (to be filled in directly online)
  • mandatory annexes and supporting documents (templates available to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed, assembled and re-uploaded):
    • Information on Independence and Ownership Control

Page limit - part B: 70 pages

Call documents

CREA-CROSS-2025-INNOVLAB call documentCREA-CROSS-2025-INNOVLAB call document(865kB)

Contact

European Education and Culture Executive Agency
Website

Creative Europe Desks
Website

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