DigiFed offers grants of up to €50 000 as well as technical and business support for the development of smart applications in Europe!

The EU-funded project “Digital Innovation Hubs Federation For Large Scale adoption of digital technologies by European SMEs” has just opened its third call for applications.

Operating within the framework of the Smart Anything Everywhere Initiative, DigiFed seeks to boost the adoption of advanced digital technologies, or cyber-physical systems (CPS), by EU SMEs with a focus on non-digital businesses.

It will help applicants implement business plans for the sustainability of the federation of Digital Innovation Hubs designated by the European Commission, while providing key support mechanisms for both individual companies and groups of SMEs to foster the introduction of digital technologies in their product-and-service offerings.

If you are:

• Developing novel and innovative smart solutions worthy of market leaders.
• Bridging the physical and virtual worlds with advanced technologies and industrialized solutions.
• Interested in using premium resources and competencies to speed up development.
• Wishing to access a unique European ecosystem composed of leading industrial companies, world-class research organizations, innovation accelerators and private investors.

DigiFed offers you:

• Access to industrial platforms in the domain of cyber-physical and embedded systems (CPS).
• Product support aimed at bringing your innovations to target markets.
• Up to € 50k in funding per applicant SME – representing 70% of your project’s total declared budget.
• Access to high-level technical expertise pooled from research centers across Europe.
• Innovation management support focusing on sustainable business development – to bring your innovation to market via DigiFed and the Smart Anything Everywhere ecosystem.
• Digital Innovation Hub (DIH) services to identify technical partners, commercial opportunities in Europe and receive tailored support, webinars, and boot camps through the DigiFed project.

Application Experiments (AEs) are the core activity of DigiFed. This pathway directly supports SMEs and Midcaps with different levels of digital maturity:

• For SMEs with low digital maturity, it offers the capacity for SMEs to catch up and upgrade their skills and existing products with dedicated services, tools, and solutions.
• For SMEs with higher digital maturity, it offers further innovative technology integration as well as access to potential customers including larger industrial stakeholders.

The third open call presents three types of Application Experiment:

1. Single AE: involves one European SME and one DigiFed Technical partner which provides support and expertise.
2. Twin AE: involves two European SMEs with complementary expertise and legally based in two different countries (cross-border condition).
3. Twin AE with one low-digitalized company: involves two SMEs cooperating cross-border, of which at least one with a low digital maturity level. In this configuration, Twin applicants can request the additional optional support of a DigiFed Technical partner.