The European DIVA project has opened a new call for projects aimed at SMEs that incorporate digital technologies to the agri-food, environmental and forestry sectors.
The call is open from November 26th to January 31st and the proposals must be submitted through an online platform accessible from the DIVA project website (projectdiva.eu).
AMETIC and CTA are the Spanish partners of this project that is led by the French cluster Agri-Sud Ouest Innovation, and which integrates 7 other expert entities from 6 European countries: France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece and Ireland. DIVA is funded by the H2020 Programme of the European Commission.
In the first DIVA call, 141 eligible proposals were submitted and a total of 66 projects were selected, with a total budget of 1.32 million.
Proposals
1. Maturation Instrument
- Business maturation voucher: aims to finance activities to mature a business model supported by innovative products, processes, services and technologies related to the digitalisation of the agri-food, environmental or forestry sector. The type of activities funded would be mainly consulting, coaching or mentoring services in matters such as strategy and maturation of business and commercialisation plans, patents and intellectual property, monitoring of the state of the art, regulation and certification, market studies, competition or viability of the product, among others.
- Technology maturation voucher: aims to finance activities of technological maturation of products or services already developed that require testing, integration or prototyping activities in the laboratory, as a previous step to piloting and demonstration tests in real or almost real environments.
The vouchers have an amount of €10,000.
2. Demonstration Instrument
This instrument is aimed at financing demonstrator startup activities in real-world operating environments, both on a small scale (addressing a specific part of the value chain) and on a large scale (covering the value chain end to end). The objective is to technically and functionally validate new innovative products or services based on digital technologies, or test integration with other technologies or environments in the sectors covered by the DIVA project.
The vouchers are €25,000 for small-scale demonstrators and €60,000 for large-scale demonstrators.
3. Internationalisation Instrument
Its objective is to finance activities to promote the SMEs internationalisation with a proven value chain, with the aim of catalyzing their development, facilitating access to an international network of high-level experts and consultants, which allows them to improve the value proposition and therefore guarantee its success internationally.
Internationalisation support vouchers are €30,000.