European Cluster Excellence Programme with ClusterXchange scheme connecting ecosystems and cities

Deadline: Feb 2, 2021  
CALL EXPIRED

The overall objective of this action is to strengthen cluster management excellence and facilitate exchanges and strategic partnering between clusters and specialised eco-systems and cities across Europe, including through implementation of the “ClusterXchange” mobility scheme. As high quality cluster management and strategic connections between clusters are key elements of successful world-class clusters, the action aims to foster SME competitiveness and assist companies to successfully access global markets. 
The specific objective is to enhance the collaboration, networking and learning of cluster organisations and their members towards the professionalization of specialised and customised business support services provided or channelled to SMEs.

Type of activities

The types of expected eligible activities must comprise supporting the development of cluster management skills, new services for cluster members and the organisation of twinning, collaboration, networking and learning activities as well as joint activities for implementing business-to-business (B2B) and cluster-to-cluster (C2C) collaboration projects. It must also include the implementation of “ClusterXchange” by facilitating the promotion, recruitment, matching and follow-up of short-term exchanges from cluster organisations, SMEs, training providers, scaling-up support organisations, large companies and staff from public authorities and innovation agencies that are active in a cluster from a COSME participating country. These are to be further supported by outreach and awareness-raising activities.

Eligibility of applicants

All applicants must:

• be established in EU Member States or countries participating in the COSME programme pursuant to Article 6 of the COSME Regulation.
• be registered or having submitted a registration on the European Cluster Collaboration Platform (ECCP) by the submission deadline of this Call for proposals.

Applicants must be entities with a legal personality. This may include both profit-making or non-for-profit legal entities as well as fully or partly public or private bodies. In the case of private bodies, they must be properly constituted and registered under national law.

Eligible Consortia

To be eligible, a proposal must be submitted by a consortium:

1. composed of at least three different legal entities, which are
2. established in a minimum of three different EU Member States or other countries participating in the COSME programme pursuant to Article 6 of the COSME Regulation and
3. including at least one consortium member representing an organisation established in a region classified as 'less developed' or 'in transition', according to the mapping proposed for Structural Funds eligibility for the period 2014-2020.

Consortia must verify and declare through their coordinator that none of their members participates in another application within this call for proposals. If such a case is detected by the funding body, it will lead to the exclusion of the organisation concerned from all respective proposals. The respective consortia affected by the exclusion of (a) partner(s) must still fulfil the eligibility criteria as stipulated in sections 6.1 and 6.2 of this Call for proposals in order to be considered eligible.

Submission of proposals

The deadline for electronic submission is 2 February 2021, 17:00 hours (Brussels time).
Please refer to the Call for Proposals and Guide for Applicants before commencing the electronic submission.
The link to the submission system is available on the Funding and Tenders Portal.

Partner search

If you have a consortium and you are looking for partners to apply to this call or you are looking for a consortium active in the same domain as you, you may use the European Cluster Collaboration Platform.

Questions/Answers

Potential applicants should address questions related to the content of this call by e-mail to EASME-COSME-CLUSTER-EXCELLENCE@ec.europa.eu. Only questions sent to this functional mailbox will be answered.

Answers will only be published periodically and within a reasonable period of time on this page. Last questions to be answered are those, which will be submitted at least 7 calendar days prior to the closing date of this call.