Insights

Business Finland has recently opened several funding calls to boost the renewal and competitiveness of Finnish industries operating in the areas of sustainability. The funding, worth a total of 150 - 170 M€ in the course of 2021-2023 for sustainable innovation projects meant to accelerate sustainable growth, is a part of the European Union’s Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). This autumn, there are three interesting calls focused to support the EU targets of sustainable growth.

The Eurostars funding instrument is making a comeback with a wider scope, thus offering growth opportunities to a wider group of applying companies and organisations. This time around, not only R&D-performing SMEs, larger companies, research organisations and universities will be eligible to apply for Eurostars funding, but innovative SMEs are also welcome to send in their application as the company to lead an EU funded project with its partners. Get ready, as the first call of the new Eurostars programme will open soon and it is time to act now!  

European Defence Fund (EDF) is the European Commission's initiative to support collaborative defence research and development, and to foster an innovative and competitive defence industrial base. The extensive fund offers remarkable growth and collaboration opportunities to defence industries throughout Europe.

The European Union has proposed to set up ten new European Partnerships with total investments of almost 10 B€ for the green and digital transition. Their goal is to accelerate the transition towards a green, climate neutral and digital Europe and increase the resilience and competitiveness of European industry. In addition to funding research initiatives, the partnerships will also fund industrial investments for pilots, demonstrations and first-of-their-kind flagships.

The European Association of Innovation Consultants published its first collective report to help European Commission in their work to inform the industries on the deployment of Next Generation EU funding instrument, the largest economic stimulus ever funded by the EU. As one of the founding members of EAIC, Spinverse has also contributed to this report, called "A Guide to Next Generation EU for industry to better understand and seize its opportunities".

Patria Land is leading a defence industry consortium that has now been selected as part of the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP), an industrial programme of the EU. As part of the EDIDP, the program focuses on Ground Combat Capabilities (GCC) to develop the next generation armoured platforms and upgrade the current ones. Patria Land acts as the industrial coordinator of the EDIDP-GCC-2020 and has formed a consortium called FAMOUS (European Future Highly Mobile Augmented Armoured Systems) to execute the program. The consortium includes 19 leading European defence companies from different countries. Spinverse supported the planning and preparation of the winning FAMOUS project proposal and will help Patria Land to coordinate the project.

EDIDP is a defence industry development program designed to support the competitiveness and innovation capacity of the Union's defence industry. The EDIDP is the first EU-funded program to develop defence capabilities, with a financial envelope of 500 million euros. The selection for the EDIDP program was made in June 2021 and the actual start of the project will take place in autumn 2021. The GCC project led by Patria will last 24 months.

A new project with 30 participants from eight European countries will pave the way for an emerging new European business and technology ecosystem aimed at tackling various energy-related challenges for the future of mobility. The project accelerates Europe's decarbonization goals for 2050. The project consortium and proposal were built with the help of Spinverse.

Horizon Europe, the landmark research programme for the years 2021-2027, has finally launched with the official opening of its first collaborative calls. The budget of 95.5 B€ for the next seven years will offer strong support for projects related to topics such as health, digitalisation and green transition. Innovative small and mid-sized enterprises will also be able to benefit from the various funding opportunities under the programme.

Urbaser, a global environmental management company, and their subsidiary Socamex, will lead a pan-European CIRCULAR BIOCARBON project, launched in summer 2021. The project aims to build the first biorefinery for municipal solid waste and sewage sludge in Europe. Spinverse supported Urbaser at the project proposal phase. As a result of a successful grant application, the circular biocarbon project will be partially funded by 15 M€ from Bio-based Industries (BBI) Joint Undertaking subsidy provided by the European Commission.

During 2020, Göteborg & Co and Gothenburg won the title European Capital of Smart Tourism. IMCG helped implement the programme during the year and to launch many new local, national and European collaborations – where all of them have a clear link to sustainability and digitalisation. This was to further strengthen Gothenburg's position as a smart destination – open for smart tourism.