The X2.0 is a sustainable legacy project of X-Europe (ICT-33-2019), and aims to leverage its predecessors' established ecosystem, network, proven innovation action/Startup Europe methodology, and learnings, to generate a next-gen coordination action mechanism. X2.0 project establishes a framework anchored by external service providers, also known in this proposal as industry impact builders. The framework will deliver a trifecta of key impact drivers, namely i) upskill and upscale the future deeptech leaders of Europe, ii) connect and nurture relationships between moderately innovative and highly innovative regions, and iii) reinforce and contribute to the EIC offer. The X2.0 will upskill its beneficiaries by providing need-based, custom, industry-focused growth services, corporate-startup opportunities and pathways to private and public funding. The project will distribute €1.5M in innovation and scaling up services to 50 deep-tech startups to increase their individual capacities and enhance their long-term competitiveness. The project will establish an X2.0 Impact Hub of 350 validated impact builders (external service providers) able to deliver cross-border services and 75 corporations seeking partnerships with startups. Finally, the project will close with a white paper providing insights into the EU deeptech scene. The project will run for 24 months establishing a sustainable collaborative ecosystem across the EU and increasing the delivery of deeptech products to market.

InnoBuyer aims to become a testing ground and benchmark towards the implementation of a demand-driven methodology that brings together procurers and innovation suppliers (notably EIC SMEs) to jointly co-create solutions to a common challenge proposed by the procurer, while also facilitating the procurer adoption and the innovation supplier commercialization of the solution. The project will: * Foster the development of an ecosystem to promote collaborative innovation between the best European public and private procurers and innovation suppliers (in particular, EIC projects/companies). * Launch and validate a support programme to co-create innovation between buyers and suppliers. The programme will be demand-driven and geared to adoption by design. * Demonstrate the increase of efficiency of EU public (but also private) services via piloting 15 innovative solutions, notably the ones from the EIC-funded projects/companies. It will do so by executing four sequential actions: Action 1: Recruitment and aggregation of procurers. Partners will launch a dissemination campaign to recruit unmet needs from procurers and then select the 15 best candidates. Other interested public and private procurers will be aggregated to the selected challenge so they can also acquire knowledge along the project. Action 2: Buyer-SME matching. Partners will support buyers to launch an Open Market Consultation to receive feedback on their challenges. Then, they will recruit and award suppliers to answer to the proposed challenges. Action 3: Pilot co-creation. Procurers and suppliers will jointly co-create solutions to the challenges. The solutions will be tested and evaluated. Suppliers will receive support towards future commercialization of their solutions. Action 4: Terms of Reference delivery. Support the creation of ToRs in collaboration with external experts, as the base for a future tender for the solution by the procurers.

The EU takes significant measures to nurture European startups and scaleups in their growth, especially via the European Innovation Council. One its most impactful instruments, the EIC Accelerator, provides substantial financial support for SMEs, startups, spin-outs and in some cases small mid-caps. Despite the high-quality applications, the success rate is still low with only a minor fraction of applicants receiving funding. In reality, many more startups need support in creating a high-impact innovative product, service or business model. Even applicants who obtain a Seal of Excellence from the EIC Accelerator struggle to secure appropriate alternative funding from other sources. High quality support should be available to many more companies than those selected by the EIC Accelerator. SynergistEIC project is conceptualized by four partners with experience in advising technology startups and running FSTP measures. The project’s long term strategic objective is to help European digital and deep tech startups scale in the EU and globally, contributing towards EU’s autonomy in strategic sectors. This will be achieved by providing tailored, specific and hands-on support to European impact-driven startups, notably in the sector of climate-tech, green-tech, circular economy and agri-food to increase their competitiveness and readiness to succeed in EIC Accelerator. SynergistEIC project will identify and select 30 digital and deep tech startups (10 startups that are Seal of Excellence holders or those who passed Step 1 of EIC Accelerator application, and 20 non-EIC applicants), especially from Widening countries, through two waves of open calls. The team will award them with sub-grants, tailored advisory and acceleration services. It will also raise their awareness of EU funding and procurement opportunities, and will connect them with investors, and national and European innovation ecosystem actors, to boost their scalability and business performance.

The transition from H2020 to HE reflects an ongoing mega-trend in ICT: the convergence of Cloud, Edge, and IoT. This tendency has significant impact in Europe at scientific, technological, socio-economic, and geopolitical levels, as these traditionally separated fields are now converging into a much larger ecosystem now sharing a number of common challenges and key priorities. Upcoming RIAs should integrate and capitalise on ongoing efforts, with a vital aspect for Europe in this whole process being to successfully combine and consolidate the technology priorities defined by EU industry through the European Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge and Cloud and the advancements that the IPCEI-CIS will provide in the coming years. This transition and the move of the whole community of EC-funded projects and related initiatives towards a closer cooperation with industry is what the NexusForum.EU project aims to support and facilitate by focusing on consolidating research and policy along the Cognitive Computing Continuum, something crucial to effectively expand what the ongoing CSAs (particularly EUCloudEdgeIoT) are working on, thus providing a clear, consistent vision for future research and innovation topics in this EU strategic area. NexusForum.EU, through its unique consortium, will be able to effectively undertake a number of crucial activities, such as producing annual research roadmaps and policy recommendations; fostering collaboration between industry and academia; creating solid links with the IPCEI-CIS and the European Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge and Cloud; collaborating with past and present RIAs in order to promote a diverse EU research and innovation community; identifying relevant issues such skills development gaps; analysing the relationship with crucial topics such as Open Source and Open Standards; and engaging with forward-looking research and innovation communities and strategic initiatives outside Europe (starting with Japan & South Korea).

Overcoming the challenge of finding initial customers is a significant obstacle for the commercialization of innovative solutions developed by SMEs, particularly EIC awardees (EICs). This challenge is especially pronounced when the target market involves public administration or large private corporations (Buyers). To mitigate these challenges and broaden the scope of innovation procurement in Europe, InnoMatch will facilitate the co-creation and proof-of-concept demonstration of EIC innovations, focusing on addressing the unmet needs of selected buyers. InnoMatch will achieve this by fostering collaboration between EICs and buyers, with a specific focus on ensuring successful solutions are adopted by the buyer following the pilot phase, which may not always be the case. The offered support includes not just the identification of needs and the facilitation of connections between EICs and buyers for pilot deployment, but also strategies to enhance the likelihood of adoption by buyers and accelerate the commercial advancement of EICs. To fulfil this vision, InnoMatch will invest €2.28M in grants to EICs (76% of project budget), supporting 38 pilots which will be distributed through two types of open calls: OC#1: Call for EIC+Buyer: EICs apply together with pre-identified buyer; OC#2 EICs: EICs apply with a solution to a pre-defined challenge, which has been identified by at least 2 separate and independent buyers. The identification of the Buyers challenges will follow a specific methodology which includes a OC#2 Buyers, capacity building, workshops that aim to aggregate individual needs & expectations into a common challenge definition and, ends up with the signature of a sub-grant agreement. The team -F6S, ICLEI, TBM and CIV- 1) has wide network of buyers; 2) worked with EIC community & corporates; 3) experience in FSTP (+€80m, +180 calls & +7k awardees), 4) Innovation Procurement with +10 EU projects in the domain; 5) delivered business & mentorship programmes.