Deadline: 13-Apr-23
The dRural has launched an open call to co-develop and implement a digital solution based on the exploitation of data from existing service platforms that deliver multiple innovative services to rural citizens while creating opportunities for economic growth and quality of life improvements.
Objectives
- The overall goal of the dRural Open Call for Mirror Regions is to boost the innovation and development of rural regions by stimulating, coordinating and engaging new stakeholders to the dRural project that can provide added-value services to citizens and business in the regional demonstrator and at the same time improve the technical capabilities and technology offer provided by dRural platform.
- For this, dRural project has planned an Open Call with the objective of:
- Engaging new external stakeholders into the dRural ecosystem.
- Helping to tune and adjust dRural platform through additional inputs and tests.
- Benefit rural areas (mirror regions) by increasing the services available and meeting the specific needs of rural businesses and rural people. This will create a “networking effect” on the platform, attracting more users and service providers, and maximizing the chances of services sustainability after the project ends.
- Creating new market openings in mirror regions, making it possible for newer and smaller players to enter the market and create value.
- Simplifying future rural solution development for Mirror Regions by bringing together data and analytical functionalities, thus addressing this barrier more completely over time.
- Providing technical requirements to dRural Plaform
- Testing and validating dRural Platform in a large variety of real-life scenarios bringing real benefits to stakeholders and general people located in Mirror Regions.
Funding Information
- The maximum amount of direct funding that a Mirror Region can receive in total via the dRural Open Call for Mirror Region is 60,000€. The maximum funding that a consortium can receive is 120,000€.
- The awarded rural regions will receive their funding of 60,000€ or 120,000€ in 3 installments:
- 1st Payment after receiving a positive assessment regarding their first deliverable from the dRural consortium in M1. The payment will be in M2;
- 2nd Payment after complying to M6 milestone (public deployment of at least 15 Simple Services and 1-2 Complex Service);
- 3rd and Final Payment one month after the end of their project in M9, subject to receiving a positive assessment regarding their final deliverable from the dRural consortium. The payment will be in M10.
- The open call will select a single regional promoter that proposes to develop dRural platform in a specific region and develop the solution ecosystem, marketplace, and business model. This entity will be funded with up to 60K Eur.
- Duration: All projects must plan in their implementation to have fully deployed dRural Platform by M3, their Complex Service(s) and 15 Simple Services by M6 and publicly pilot them during the final 3 months (6 months of piloting for the marketplace).
Type of Support
- Each Mirror Region will receive equity-free funding for setting up dRural in their region, including:
- solution customisation and hosting
- recruitment of service providers
- marketing actions towards of end users
- process for designing a sustainable business model.
- The financial support consists of a lump sum grant amounting €60,000 to fund a regional promoter to replicate (mirror) dRural platform in their own geographies. The proposals are to be deployed along a 9-month period.
- Applications of 2 complementary entities (eg. consortia of regional promoter and SME – IT developer) are also accepted and encouraged. In this case their budget can go up to €120,000 (€60,000 each).
- In addition, selected regions (represented by a regional promoters and IT developers) will receive two types of support:
- Technical support, for deploying and customizing dRural Platform, with access to training resources, manuals and related materials. This task will cater for providing assistance to mirror regions to deploy dRural platform. dRural will share with them the necessary methodology, processes for local adaptation and customization, risk and aspects to consider and as well learnt lessons and evaluation results from the previous deployments. Additional material that will be shared will be all needed evaluation templates and the training elaborated material
- Business support. Business and ecosystem-building coaches will be provided. Workshops and meetups will be deployed to ensure exchange and benchmarking of models to best deploy the dRural concept and create the biggest impact and benefits for the region and its ecosystem. This task will analyse and develop the mirror regions’ ecosystems. Using the scheme for business support developed by the consortium, the business model for each mirror region will be developed with stakeholders and partners in the different regions. At least one business model workshop per mirror region will be organised.
Expected Results
- The winning mirror regions through the open call will replicate (develop and customize) the dRural platform. To address it, the regions will receive training and 1to1 coaching at technical- (including internet coverage boosting), business and ecosystem building levels in order to support the deployment of dRural in their geographical areas. They will also receive funding to do a full-scale implementation in their local language, mimicking the process followed by the dRural demonstrator, while avoiding initial pitfalls via best practices, lessons learnt and success stories.
Language: Applications for dRural Open Call must be done in English and submissions done in other languages will be considered ineligible and will not be evaluated.
Target Applicants
- dRural Open Call for Mirror Regions invites European entities from European Regions to replicate the dRural solution and will serve to collect additional requirements to dRural IT platform and to test and validate it under a large variety of environments and test its capacity to encompass many types of different services.
- Applications are allowed from single regional promoter and consortia of 2 complementary entities (a regional promoter + SME (IT developer)).
Eligible Countries
- Only Applicants (mirror regions, regional promoters and SMEs) established in any of the following countries are eligible:
- The Member States (MS) of the European Union (EU), including their outermost regions
- The Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) linked to the Member States
- H2020 associated countries
- The UK applicants are eligible under the conditions set by the EC for H2020 participation at the time of the deadline of the call.
Eligibility Criteria
- For regions the following grant eligibility criteria include:
- The applicant is a regional promoter located in one of the EU Member States or H2020 Associated Country as defined in H2020 rules for participation.
- The applicant that will compose a consortium is a SME/natural person legally established and based in one of the EU Member States or an H2020 Associated Country as defined in H2020 rules for participation.
- The entities must be based in the European Mirror Region that will replicate dRural Platform and develop a marketplace.
- In case the applicant has access to a data platform, provided by the applicant directly, by a third party through an agreement with the applicant (in which case a letter of commitment must be incorporated to the application) or that is publicly available. This letter is requested in the application form.
- Applicant has not been awarded in previous dRural Open Calls (limitation of €60K per thirdparty)
- Applicant is not a consortium partner.
- The following application eligibility criteria include:
- Each applicant (regional promoter or a consortium) may submit only one (1) application as a mirror region.
- Awarded companies in the Open Call for Regional Demonstrators are not eligible.
- The applicants must demonstrate that there is no risk of double funding.
For more information, visit dRural.
