Enterprise Ireland has announced a call for expressions of interest to complete a national designation process to identify up to three research performing organisations (RTOs) or Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) or other consortia. The successful applicants will then be invited to apply to a restricted call that the European Commission will issue.
Successful applicants of this second stage process will then be jointly funded by the European Commission and Enterprise Ireland to establish their European Digital Innovation Hubs. While agreement has not yet been reached on the final budget, the Commission currently foresees funding in the form of a grant for a duration of 3 years with the possibility of reapplying at the end of the grant duration for an additional period of 4 years.
The Commission proposes to invest between €0.5 million and €1 million per year in each hub. The Department of Business, Enterprise, Trade and Employment through Enterprise Ireland will then match the Commission’s funding. The amount of grant funding will be contingent on the final agreed Commission budget for the programme.
European Digital Innovation Hubs will support businesses and organisations in their digital transformation and to disseminate the latest advances in cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and High-Performance Computing (HPC).
The EDIHs will be one-stop-shops, with a research and technology organisation (RTO) or higher education institution (HEI) based lab at its core, that help companies (notably SMEs) and public sector organisations become more competitive in their business/production processes, products or services by providing access to research infrastructure, technical expertise and experimentation, so that these organisations can “test before invest”.
The competitive ‘Call for Expression of Interest’ will close at 4pm Irish time on Wednesday 20th January 2021.
Only expressions of interest received before or at this time will be considered.
All expressions of interest should be submitted to edih@enterprise-ireland.com