VINNOVATE CALL 2025

The VInnovate Call 2025 provides financial support (grants) to stakeholders (SMEs cooperating with other companies and/or research/technology centres or universities) located in the VInnovate 2025 participating regions. Each VInnovate project should be composed of:

• at least one SME (following EC definition available here).
• at least 2 organisations located in at least 2 distinct VInnovate member regions/states (namely East NL (Gelderland and Overijssel provinces), Norte, Lombardy, Noord Brabant, North East Romania, Galicia, Lower Saxony, Emilia-Romagna, Lower Austria, Wales, Basque Country) AND at least 2 distinct countries (namely Italy, Austria, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Wales, Romania, Portugal). Beyond ‘interregional cooperation’, each project must therefore promote international cooperation.

The VInnovate beneficiaries must be all be located in a VInnovate call 2025 member region/country. Every VInnovate applicant will have to comply with requirements of the regional/national instrument to which the beneficiary is applying (available here), as well as with the VInnovate criteria described below. 

The project consortium can be eventually complemented with additional partners (“associated partners”); not funded through instruments activated in VInnovate 2025. Such associated partners should therefore secure other funding sources (private, regional, etc.).

In addition to one or several SMEs, a VInnovate consortium can potentially be composed of Large Companies, Universities, Research/Facility centres or Research and Technology infrastructures.

Each project will aim at developing solution(s) that will support at least one of the following transitions:

1) a smarter industry (namely, the process of integrating advanced technologies, particularly digital technologies, into various industrial processes and value chains, leading to improved efficiency, productivity, and innovation)

2) a more sustainable industry (namely, the move towards a climate-neutral industry, esp. energy efficiency)

3) a more autonomous/less dependent industry (namely, reducing the European dependency on other regions for deep-tech innovations as well as for services of strategic interest)

Eligible VInnovate 2025 projects must be linked (thematically) to at least one of the 8 VI pilots. More information about the scope of each VI pilot is available in the Guide for Applicants here. If applicants have any concerns regarding the linkages between their project idea and the VI pilots’ scope, they are invited to contact the relevant VI pilot leads, whose contact details are available in the Guide for Applicants. 

More information about the eligible and targeted VInnovate Call 2025 projects can be found in the Guide for Applicants here. 

Supported Activities: The VInnovate Call 2025 will support activities at TRL6, TRL7 and/or TRL8; meaning that VInnovate will support post-prototyping activities.