Smart solutions for smart rural communities: empowering rural communities and smart villages to innovate for societal change
Resilient, inclusive, healthy and green rural, coastal and urban communities · HORIZON-IA · TRL 6–7 · Needs partners
What this call funds
This call funds large-scale pilot projects that bring smart, digital and social innovations to rural communities and villages across Europe. It supports testing and scaling practical solutions to challenges like access to services, health, mobility, energy and climate adaptation, especially for women, youth and vulnerable groups. The aim is to help rural areas become more resilient, innovative and better connected while working toward climate neutrality.
smart cities · social innovation · civil society democracy · climate adaptation · regional development · energy efficiency
Who wins this
A multi-disciplinary consortium of researchers, rural community organisations and social innovation networks with proven experience running community-led, multi-actor rural innovation pilots across several EU countries.
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The call in detail
- Indicative grant size
- €7M
- Funding model
- Budget-based — reimbursement of actual eligible costs
- Submission
- Two-stage submission (short outline first, full proposal if invited)
- Partners
- Required. The call asks for a consortium — a group applying together, typically 3+ organisations from 3+ countries.
- Eligible applicants
- research organisation, rural community organisations, action groups or networks, SMEs
- Support to third parties
- Grants only, maximum EUR 60,000 per third party, with a maximum of 20% of EU funding allocated to this purpose.
- Also required
- Proposals must implement the multi-actor approach, bringing together scientists and rural community organisations with demonstrated ability to connect to many local communities.
- Sectors
- AgriTech · Circular Economy
- Eligible countries (45)
- Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, United Kingdom, IL, TR, UA, RS, MK, ME, AL, BA, XK, GE, AM, MD, TN, NZ
Read the full conditions from the official call ›
General conditions General conditions 1. Admissibility conditions: described in Annex A and Annex E of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System 2. Eligible countries: described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide. If projects use satellite-based Earth observation, positioning, navigation and/or related timing data and services, beneficiaries must make use of Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS (other data and services may additionally be used). The following additional eligibility criteria apply: The proposals must use the multi-actor approach. See definition of the multi-actor approach in the introduction to this work programme part. 3. Other eligibility conditions: described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes 4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion: described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes Award criteria, scoring and thresholds are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes Submission and evaluation processes are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement: described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes Beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties. The support to third parties can only be provided in the form of grants. The maximum amount to be granted to each third party is EUR 60 000. Maximum 20% of the EU funding can be allocated to this purpose. 6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants: described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes Specific conditions 7. Specific conditions: described in the topic conditions
Who has won calls like this
Organisations that most often win this call family · 10 past winners