Under this Call, DG REGIO seeks expressions of interest from transnational partnerships of regional authorities, including ecosystems of regional stakeholders (universities, research centres, clusters, SMEs, etc.) willing to pilot interregional innovation partnerships. The objective is to incentivise business investment projects accelerating commercialisation and scale-up of inter-regional innovation.

Based on current Commission priorities, four new areas are proposed for cooperation in the framework of the interregional innovation partnerships (one partnership per topic):

• COVID-19: mobilising regional capacities to accelerate innovation and rapid deployment of new technologies and solutions to address the COVID-19 pandemic; development of the medical value chain (e.g. medical products, devices to tackle COVID-19).
• Circular Economy in Health: circular business models for medical products and services (e.g. remanufacturing and refurbishing of medical devices and equipment, circular economy in the context of health safety, management of medical waste).
• Sustainable and Digital Tourism: innovative solutions for the recovery and the development of tourism (including climate neutral and cultural tourism) through new technologies, service concepts and business models. Partnerships covering both the private sector (including start-ups), the public sector and public-private partnerships (e.g. responsible, innovative and smart tourism across different value chains, applying circular business models and resource efficiency, use and management of natural resources, use of public spaces, services and infrastructures, uptake of new technologies, data collection, management and sharing).
• Hydrogen technologies in carbon-intensive regions: innovative solutions based on hydrogen technology, which (a) respond to the specific challenges of carbon-intensive regions; and/or (b) capitalise on the specific strengths of carbon-intensive regions in the creation of a European value chain for FCH (e.g. through the conversion of existing coal mines, smelters or production facilities, particularly as regards raw materials).

An Expression of Interest can be submitted by a partnership made up of statutory regional authorities and their regional innovation ecosystems. Partnerships should be composed of regional authorities from at least four different EU countries and represent to the extent possible the whole value chain involving representatives of the “quadruple helix”: research, business, public administration and end-users from different countries.

Deadline for submission of expression of interest: 7 September 2020

Find out how to apply HERE.