The European Capital of Innovation Awards: (European Rising Innovative City category)
HORIZON Recognition Prize
Basic Information
- Identifier
- HORIZON-EIC-2022-iCapitalPrize-02
- Programme
- The European Capital of Innovation Awards (iCapital)
- Programme Period
- 2021 - 2027
- Status
- Closed (31094503)
- Opening Date
- March 3, 2022
- Deadline
- June 30, 2022
- Deadline Model
- single-stage
- Budget
- €600,000
Description
The traditional city innovation ecosystem is opening up to new models of innovation engaging citizens. An increasing number of cities are acting as test beds for innovation and run citizens-driven initiatives to find solutions for their relevant societal challenges.
The public domain is particularly challenged with finding effective ways to ensure the mainstreaming of these practices into the ordinary urban development process. Successful practices are particularly crucial to enhance the city's capacity to attract new resources, funds and talents to stimulate the growth of breakthrough innovations. Moreover, collaboration and strengthening synergies among innovation ecosystems boost cities’ development and resilience to tackle urban challenges.
For this reason, the European Capital of Innovation Awards will recognize the cities’ role as catalysers of the local innovation ecosystem and will stimulate new activities aimed at boosting game-changing innovation.
Expected Impact:A European prize to the most innovative cities ecosystems. The award will raise the profile of the cities that have developed and implemented innovative policies; established frameworks that boost breakthrough innovation; enhanced the city attractiveness towards investors, industry, enterprises and talents; helped to open up connections and strengthen links with other cities, promoting the replication of best practices in the innovation field; enhanced citizens' involvement in the decision-making process; and supported cities resilience.
Eligibility & Conditions
1. General conditions
A) Admissibility conditions: described in the rules of contest.
B) Proposal page limits and layout: 30. For further information, please see the rules of contest.
2. Eligibility criteria
- The candidate city must be located in one of the EU Member State or Associated Countries to Horizon Europe. For further information, please see the rules of contest.
- For the European Capital of Innovation category, the candidate city must have a population of minimum 250 000 inhabitants. In countries where there are no such cities, the city coming closest to 250 000 inhabitants is eligible to apply for the European Capital of Innovation category, provided that it has a minimum population of 50 000 inhabitants and that the city did not apply for the European Rising Innovative City category.
- For the European Rising Innovative City category, the candidate city must have a population of 50 000 and up to 249,999 inhabitants.
- Winners of former European Capital of Innovation Awards editions, as well as runners-up of the edition 2021 are not eligible. This does not apply to previous finalist cities.
- Applicants that have already received an EU or Euratom prize cannot receive a second prize for the same activities.
For further information, please see the rules of contest.
3. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion. For further information, please see the rules of contest.
4. Evaluation and award criteria:
If admissible and eligible, the applications will be evaluated and ranked against the following award criteria:
- Experimenting – innovative concepts, processes, tools, and governance models proving the city's commitment to act as a test-bed for innovative practices, while ensuring the mainstreaming of these practices into the ordinary urban development process.
- Escalating – accelerating the growth of highly innovative start-ups and SMEs by establishing an innovation friendly legal framework, creating an environment that stimulates growth, private and public investments, resources, diversity and talents; and driving innovation demand through efficient innovation public procurement. The city is expected to provide details on concrete results of the showcased initiatives
- Ecosystem building – unlocking the city’s potential as local innovation ecosystem facilitators by fostering synergies among different innovation ecosystem players, from public, industry, civil society, citizens to academia, to contribute to the development of an innovation ecosystem within the city.
- Expanding – acting as a role model for other cities by supporting the dissemination and replication of tested solutions that boost the local innovation ecosystem; by promoting mutual learning, knowledge transfer and capacity building; and by enhancing cooperation and synergies between cities that are front-runners in driving the local innovation ecosystem, and those that are still exploring and testing their role as innovation enablers.
- City innovative vision – applicants should demonstrate their long-term strategic vision/plan, highlighting the innovative initiatives that have positively contributed to the transformation of the city and which will further support the development of a sustanaible and resilient innovation ecosystem ensuring the green and digital transition.
For further information on award criteria, scoring and thresholds, please see the rules of contest.
5. Submission and evaluation processes: For further information, please see the rules of contest.
6. Indicative timeline for evaluation: the jury evaluation will take place between July and October 2022. For further information, please see the rules of contest.
7. Legal and financial set-up of the grants. For further information, please see the rules of contest.
Call documents:
Standard application (you will find it once you start filling in your application)
Additional documents:
HE Framework Programme and Rules for Participation Regulation 2021/695
HE Specific Programme Decision 2021/764
Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment
Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual
Support & Resources
Prizes FAQ: here you will find clarifications about the competition and might find the answer to some of your potential questions.
Online Manual is your guide on the procedures from proposal submission to managing your grant.
Horizon Europe Programme Guide contains the detailed guidance to the structure, budget and political priorities of Horizon Europe.
Funding & Tenders Portal FAQ – find the answers to most frequently asked questions on submission of proposals, evaluation and grant management.
Research Enquiry Service – ask questions about any aspect of European research in general and the EU Research Framework Programmes in particular.
National Contact Points (NCPs) – get guidance, practical information and assistance on participation in Horizon Europe. There are also NCPs in many non-EU and non-associated countries (‘third-countries’).
Enterprise Europe Network – contact your EEN national contact for advice to businesses with special focus on SMEs. The support includes guidance on the EU research funding.
IT Helpdesk – contact the Funding & Tenders Portal IT helpdesk for questions such as forgotten passwords, access rights and roles, technical aspects of submission of proposals, etc.
European IPR Helpdesk assists you on intellectual property issues.
CEN-CENELEC Research Helpdesk and ETSI Research Helpdesk – the European Standards Organisations advise you how to tackle standardisation in your project proposal.
The European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for their recruitment – consult the general principles and requirements specifying the roles, responsibilities and entitlements of researchers, employers and funders of researchers.
Partner Search Services help you find a partner organisation for your proposal.
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