EU Call for Proposals: Innovation for Inclusive Growth and Job Creation

Deadline: 18 December 2018

The European Union (EU) is seeking proposals for its program entitled “Innovation for Inclusive Growth and Job Creation” to promote systemic change in the enterprise ecosystem supporting the inclusive economic development potential of Egypt and its private sector.

Through addressing market failures and promoting innovative and sustainable private sector development, it aims to increase the opportunity for employment and income generation and enhance the capacity of SMEs and entrepreneurs to innovate.

Objectives

The specific objective(s) of this call for proposals are:

For Lot 1
- Competitiveness of Egyptian SMEs and entrepreneurs, in high potential industry sectors improved, by accessing enhanced innovation development services, research facilities, technical expertise, and financing for innovation enabling activities, delivered through specialized centres of excellence.
For Lot 2
- The access to innovation enabling resources for Egyptian innovators, entrepreneurs and growth SMEs to the knowledge, technologies, linkages and innovative solutions, required to acquire, and/or build appropriate innovative products or processes, is improved, supported and financed, through an innovation resource portal, which will also assist in securing or building technical and managerial skills, initiating business and collaborative research linkages and matching partners.
- Support the enterprise sector in improving quality and service attributes of product and service offerings to internationally accredited standards to enable them to exploit international markets and trade agreements.
For Lot 3
- Improve the competitiveness, cost base and productivity of Egyptian MSMEs, through promoting, supporting and financing, innovation activities that improve their energy consumption, resource utilization and production efficiency.

Priorities

The key priorities of this call for proposals are:
- The innovation ecosystem, through this intervention, is supporting the emergence of exemplar success stories that will foster the innovation culture to enhance MSME competitiveness and growth solutions;
- Investment, and engagement by the private sector, in innovative activities, is increased as sector confidence and recognition of innovation, as the driver of competitive advantage and growth, is enhanced;
- Businesses supported, by the programme, create more, better paid, jobs, particularly for youth and demonstrate the importance of innovative growth businesses in creating employment;
Sustainable, private sector led, innovation focussed, business development services are available to support enterprise in Egypt.

Funding Information

Lot 1
- Minimum amount: EUR 1,000,000.
- Maximum amount: EUR 1,000,000.
Lot 2
- Minimum amount: EUR 1,000,000.
- Maximum amount: EUR 1,000,000
Lot 3
- Minimum amount: EUR 500,000.
- Maximum amount: EUR 1,000,000

Eligibility Criteria

Lead applicant
- In order to be eligible for a grant, the lead applicant must:
  - be a legal person and;
  - be a specific type of organisation such as: Civil Society Organisations and other Non-State Actors; private sector and economic operators such as incubators/accelerators, micro, small, medium enterprises (MSMEs); public actors/operators and State Agencies that exist as legal entities in the field of innovation/research or provision of BDSs; academic or research Institutions; local and regional authority; international (inter-governmental) organisation as defined by Article 156 of the EU Financial Regulation1 and
  - For lot 1 and Lot 2, the lead applicant must be an entity registered under Egyptian law or bilateral agreement between the organisation and the Government of Egypt. For lot 3, the lead applicant must be effectively be established in an eligible country as defined for the European Neighbourhood Instrument : the Member States of the European Union, the partner countries benefiting from the European Neighbourhood Instrument (Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Moldova, Morocco, Palestinian Authority of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Syria, Tunisia, Ukraine), the contracting parties to the Agreement on the European Economic Area (Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway), the Developing countries and territories, as included in the list of ODA recipients published by the OECD-DAC, which are not members of the G-20 group, the overseas countries and territories covered by Council Decision 2001/822/EC, or in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro or Serbia, including Kosovo. For British applicants: Please be aware that eligibility criteria must be complied with for the entire duration of the grant. Unless sector-specific eligibility rules provide otherwise, if the United Kingdom withdraws from the EU during the grant period without concluding an agreement with the EU ensuring in particular that British applicants continue to be eligible, applicants will cease to receive EU funding (while continuing, where possible to participate) or be required to leave the project on the basis of Article 12.2 of the general conditions to the grant agreement. This obligation does not apply to international organizations and;
  - be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action with the co-applicant(s) and affiliated entity(ies), not acting as an intermediary and
- Other eligible criteria:
  - For all lots, at least one of the members of the consortium falls under the category of MSME, economic operators or Civil Society Organisation.
Co-applicant(s)
- The lead applicant must act with at least (1) co-applicant for all lots.
- Co-applicants participate in designing and implementing the action, and the costs they incur are eligible in the same way as those incurred by the lead applicant.
- Co-applicants must satisfy the eligibility criteria as applicable to the lead applicant himself.
Affiliated entities
- The lead applicant and its co-applicant(s) may act with affiliated entity(ies).
- Only the following entities may be considered as affiliated entities to the lead applicant and/or to co-applicant(s):
  - Only entities having a structural link with the applicants (i.e. the lead applicant or a co-applicant), in particular a legal or capital link.
- This structural link encompasses mainly two notions:
  - Control, as defined in Directive 2013/34/EU on the annual financial statements, consolidated financial statements and related reports of certain types of undertakings:
    - Entities affiliated to an applicant may hence be:
      - Entities directly or indirectly controlled by the applicant (daughter companies or first-tier subsidiaries). They may also be entities controlled by an entity controlled by the applicant (granddaughter companies or second-tier subsidiaries) and the same applies to further tiers of control;
      - Entities directly or indirectly controlling the applicant (parent companies). Likewise, they may be entities controlling an entity controlling the applicant;
      - Entities under the same direct or indirect control as the applicant (sister companies).
  - Membership, i.e. the applicant is legally defined as a e.g. network, federation, association in which the proposed affiliated entities also participate, or the applicant participates in the same entity (e.g. network, federation, association) as the proposed affiliated entities.