Innowwide call for market feasibility projects

Geographical coverage

The second Innowwide call is global.

Market feasibility projects must:

1. Be led by an innovative SME from a European Union Member State or Iceland, Israel, Norway or Türkiye.
2. include an independent partner entity (main subcontractor for the market feasibility project), legally established in the selected target country.

The first Innowwide call for market feasibility projects will fund 70 projects with partners in Africa, Americas, Asia or Oceania.

Your innovative solution must be from an European Union Member State or Iceland, Israel, Norway or Türkiye. and directed towards your target country outside in Africa, Americas, Asia or Oceania.

What is a market feasibility project?

A market feasibility project is a technical, commercial, legal, and/or socioeconomic validation of an innovative business solution in a new international market as a means of deepening understanding of the target market before launching a new commercial venture.

Your market feasibility project must:

• Have a target country (a pilot market) where you intend to develop and validate your innovative business solution in collaboration with local counterparts. You should consider, where appropriate, frugal innovation.
• Feature product- (or process-, or service-) market development by an innovative SME from a European Union Member State or Iceland, Israel, Norway or Türkiye with one local partner (e.g., a research provider or complementary technology developer, supplier, customer, end user,) in the selected target country, as main subcontractor for the market feasibility project. The expected outcome must have a high impact in the target country (pilot market).
• Include a variety of activities to identify and assess key local technical and market framework conditions in the target country that may favour or impede the effective deployment of your innovation.

Market feasibility projects may:

• Be the preliminary phase of a future international R&I project with local counterparts in the target country that you intend to carry out in the short or medium term. This future cooperation project may be oriented towards the development, improvement or research of new applications for your proposed innovative solution (product, process or service), including frugal innovation.

No minimum Technology Readiness Level (TRL) nor limit are set in this call. However, where further R&I activities are expected, TRL 7 would be the indicative top limit.

After your market feasibility project, you should have a clearer understanding of your target market and be able to make informed business decisions.

Market feasibility projects are not:

• unilateral or
• exclusively business trips, workshops, matchmaking events or promotional activities.

Who can apply?

Innovative SMEs, including young companies and startups from any sector:

• Established in a European Union Member State or Iceland, Israel, Norway or Türkiye
• Engaged in an economic activity (selling products or providing services on the market at a given price)
• Looking to compete and start business in new and emerging markets around the world 
• Meeting eligibility and ethical criteria as specified in our guidelines

Self-employed, branches, departments/centres/offices set-up within or under a parent organisation and not provided with their own legal personality, partnerships and associations or any other entity different from the above mentioned will not be eligible for EU Innowwide funding.

You can only submit one application for your company. You may not submit multiple applications with different project goals or targeting different countries.

Eligibility criteria

1. Complete application

The application is complete. It includes the application form itself and all declarations, including your main subcontractor’s commitment.

2. SME legal status

The applicant SME is a legally constituted SME according to EU recommendation 2003/361, in an eligible country participating in Innowwide (EU members states, Iceland, Israel, Norway or Türkiye).

To be an SME, your company must fit the European Commission definition of an SME  European

3. Commitment signed by the local counterpart

The project includes an independent subcontractor (local counterpart) in the target country.

Your must invite your counterpart to approve the commitment in the application platform.

4. Exclusive focus on civil applications

You must state in your application that your project has an exclusive focus on civil applications (activities intended to be used in military application or aiming to serve military purposes cannot be funded).

5. Declaration of honour

None of the participating organisations have:

• convictions for fraudulent behaviour, other financial irregularities or unethical and illegal business practices;
• is bankrupt or in the process of being declared bankrupt;
• is ‘undertaking in difficulty’ according to the EU definition (Article 2, no. 18 of COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) No 651/2014 of June 2014).

6. Six-month project duration

7. Minimum total project cost of 86,000 euro

The maximum funding rate is 70% of a funding amount fixed at 60,000 euro, so your total eligible project costs must be at least 86,000 euro. 

8. Subcontracting cost above zero euro

Cooperation with a main subcontractor is an important part of your market feasibility project, so you must allocate a reasonable budget to your subcontractor.

9. Combination of eligible activities

To be eligible, your application must include market and technical activities and can include (but not exclusively) business development and promotion activities.

Please read all our guidelines before submitting a project application. If you do not meet all our eligibility criteria, your application will be rejected.

*The United Kingdom and European Commission reached political agreement on 7 September 2023 on the United Kingdom’s association to Horizon Europe. In agreement with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and Innovate UK, within the current Innowwide call (closing October 2023), there are no changes to existing eligibility requirements relating to the United Kingdom.

Funded activities

This is a fixed and exhaustive list of eligible activities that can be funded by Innowwide.

1. Co-creation and technology uptake preparatory work (innovation and technology transfer services)

• Frugal innovation and the preparatory phase of a future international R&I project with the local strategic subcontractor
• Analysis of the IP environment: Identification and assessment of the legal (and related technical and financial) IP environment in the target country, legal, technical (certification and alike) and commercial (royalties or duties) constraints or advantages for IP registration and defence 
• Technology scouting and novelty verification: Inventory and study of legal, technical and commercial situation of existing, registered and potentially legally conflictive technologies in the target market 
• Technology valuation: Technology market value calculation by experts (valuation and pricing through discounted cash flow, market comparison, benchmarking, rating and ranking, etc.) 
• Technology legal situation analysis: Due diligence of the technology legal situation in the target country (legal evaluation and actions to ensure overall technology freedom to operate and legal protection in the target country) 
• Technology protection and valorisation strategy design: Design, planning and preliminary implementation of measures to valorise existing technologies (licensing, venturing or partnering) 
• Certification and homologation compliance verification: Compulsory regulatory technical certification, testing and benchmarking activities 
• Technology partnership matchmaking 
• Small-scale proof of concept (trial and assimilation, further R&I preparatory work)

2. Market research (desk and field studies

• Business opportunities early survey detection (pre-conceptualisation) 
• Qualitative analysis (consumer analysis: segments, preferences, patterns, motivations, opinions, attitudes, values, culture, etc.) 
• Product commercial research (local customer experience oriented: concept, design, supply, use, etc.) 
• Market quantitative analysis (real, potential or tendencies)
• Competition analysis (market share, positioning, value propositions, value chains, etc.)
• Analysis of potential partners for distribution and marketing 
• Analysis of potential suppliers
• PESTLE (political, economic, sociological, technological, legal and environmental issues) and market barriers analysis

3. Compliance verification

• Administrative and legal freedom to operate or due diligence verification
• Business related social and cultural best practices identification and implementation planning

4. Business prospection trips – limited and justifiable within your market feasibility project

• Trade fairs, conferences, info days or networking and matchmaking events 
• Joint workshops or meetings with potential partners 
• Workshops with partners to prepare international R&I projects

5. Specific promotional technical material preparation (technology valorisation-oriented) – limited and justifiable within your market feasibility project

To be eligible, your application must include elements from sections 1, 2 and 3 (market and technical activities) and can include (but not exclusively) elements from sections 4 and 5 (business development and promotion).

How will applications be evaluated?

Complete and eligible applications are evaluated by three remote experts (one of them acting as rapporteur, responsible for drafting a consensus report), according to three criteria: excellence, impact and quality and efficiency of the implementation.

Your application is given points out of 100.

Applications below any of these thresholds will be discarded:

• Excellence: 18 points
• Impact: 24 points
• Quality and efficiency of implementation: 18 points

The top 105 proposals (one and a half times the total number of projects to be funded) from remote evaluation that score above threshold, progress to the independent evaluation panel and ethics review. If some proposals have tied scores with the 105th proposal, those also progress to the independent evaluation panel and ethics review.

For proposals below threshold or not in the top 105, the outcome of the consensus phase will constitute the final result of the evaluation, and there will be no panel review.

An ethics panel review the list of applications that received a successful evaluation, discarding those that do not comply with relevant ethics requirements.

An independent evaluation panel will decide a ranking list based on evaluation results.

Each applicant will receive a single evaluation report, including qualitative feedback and scores based on the conclusions of the expert’s assessments.

The final independent evaluation panel ranking list and the ethics scrutiny will include:

• a ‘selection list’ with applications that might receive funding;
• a ‘reserve list’ with applications that may in the end get funding if one or more applications in the selection list cannot sign a grant agreement.

Funding will be awarded on the basis of this ranking, subject to the call availability budget.

Funding

Call budget

• 4.2 million euro to fund 70 projects
• 60,000 euro per market feasibility project

To be considered for funding, your application must score above the set threshold for each individual award criterion and be ranked in the top 70 projects (above the budget-threshold).

Funding will be allocated to applications ranked over the budget-threshold, ethically viable, according to the ranking list until the call available budget is exhausted.

Innowwide financial support rate is up to 70% of minimum eligible costs of 86,000 euro. Each successful market feasibility project will receive a fixed grant of 60,000 euro.

The funding to each SME market feasibility project coordinator will be processed as follows:

• An advance payment of 70% (42,000 euro) provided at the beginning of project implementation;
• The remaining 30% (18,000 euro) transferred at the end of the market feasibility project, upon delivery and acceptance of a complete Final Report.

How to apply

Applications must be completed and submitted on our SmartSimple platform by someone legally authorised to represent the SME based in the EU Member State, Iceland, Israel, Norway or Türkiye.

Submission steps:

1. Register on https://eureka.smartsimple.ie/. After registering, you will receive an email with the login details. If you have already registered, you can use your login details to access the application form.
2. Complete the application form in English. The online application form allows you to save the draft application so you can return to it later.
• All the application form fields are mandatory.
• After you fill in the project description section, you will be able to invite your counterpart (main subcontractor) to sign a commitment on the platform. Your application won't be complete until your counterpart has not agreed to the terms set in the commitment and declaration of honour in the SmartSimple platform. Please note that accepting the invitation via email is not sufficient.
• Your application cannot exceed a maximum character length: Each question in the application form will display the maximum number of characters allowed.

3. Upload your workplan
4. Submit your completed application form electronically before the call deadline.

Once you have submitted your application, you will receive a confirmation email and we will be notified automatically.

You can only submit one application for your company. You may not submit multiple applications with different project goals or targeting different countries.

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