A Chips JU Innovation Action (IA) primarily consists of activities aiming at technology or method introduction, pilot lines, test beds, demonstrators, innovation pilots and zones of full-scale testing. These activities produce plans and arrangements or designs for new, altered, or improved products, processes, methods and tools or services. For this purpose, they may include prototyping, testing, demonstrating, piloting, large-scale product validation and market replication.

A ‘technology or method introduction’ aims at the development, testing, and implementation of new technologies, tools or methods, which are a critical element of innovative products, which will be created in subsequent projects.

A ‘demonstration or pilot’ aims to validate the technical and economic viability of a new or improved technology, product, process, service or solution in an operational (or nearly operational) environment, whether industrial or otherwise, involving, where appropriate, a larger scale prototype or demonstrator.

A ‘market replication’ aims to support the first application/deployment in the market of an innovation that has already been demonstrated but not yet applied/deployed in the market due to market failures/barriers to uptake. ‘Market replication’ does not cover multiple applications in the market of an innovation that has already been applied successfully once in the market. ‘First’ means new at least to Europe or new at least to the application sector in question. Often such projects involve a validation of technical and economic performance at system level in real life operating conditions provided by the market.

The activities have their centre of gravity at the TRL 5-8. An IA proposal in Chips JU is characterized by one or more of the following:

Execution by an industrial consortium that may consist of large enterprises and SMEs but also including universities, institutes, public organizations

Using innovative technology

Establishment of a new and realistic innovation environment connected with an industrial environment, such as:

a pilot line facility capable of manufacturing

a zone of full-scale testing

a development of new processes or tools and their introduction in several domains

the development of frameworks or platforms together with the usage of these frameworks or platforms in innovative products.

Having a deployment plan leading to short to midterm economic value creation in Europe.

To maximize effective implementation of the Chips JU top-level objectives, the list of IA proposals to be retained for public funding should constitute a balanced portfolio of projects developing innovative technologies (as defined in the ECS SRIA 2024 in the functional technology layers and cross-sectional technologies sections) and applying them in different domains (as defined in the ECS SRIA 2024 in ECS key application areas section). The domains represent the demand side of technologies, and the development of new technologies represents the supply side of technologies.

The size of the proposal is not an evaluation criterion. Chips JU is looking at a balanced portfolio of small and large projects.