Cooperation Projects
With the cooperation projects, you are either invited to solve small and big challenges that are identified by the European Commission or to use existing knowledge and technology with great potential in new sectors or areas.

The European Commission has also signaled that it wants Europe to develop its own robust solutions and adoption of AI across SMEs and public administration, as well as take the lead in the realm of extended reality.

Help us find the perfect project for your company
There is a strand of Next Generation Internet calls that are relevant for our sector. The challenge is to find the right ones that we could advise our members. The involvement of fintech in these calls is rarely explicit, and more often to be included as a part of the concept to be proposed to the European Commission. Therefore, our members are invited to talk to us about new and old solutions you could be interested in proposing through a Horizon Europe project, and jointly develop a better understating of which calls might be the most relevant.

A rare exception to the rule is the current call to develop secure digital identities. We advised Signicat of this opportunity and have jointly developed a European consortium to develop a proposal for the October deadline.

Focus on AI through The Norwegian Cognitive Center
Finance Innovation is also working on AI and fintech through a call on European Digital Innovation Hubs. The Norwegian Cognitive Center which we are founding partners of is working on a proposal to lead the AI component of the European Digital Innovation Hub. The Oceanopolis consortium is, as the name suggests, focusing on the ocean and coastal regions – but with media and fintech heavily involved, we are extending our reach to multiple sectors.

The calls and their focus are too many to list here, so you are invited to have a look here to do a quick search yourself, or give us a call if you would like help.

Things you should know
Before you get carried away when finding a call that suits your interests and expertise, it is useful to know that:

• Cooperation projects require typically at least three partners from three countries, where one will be the leader (coordinator)
• Your involvement is remunerated at 70% of costs to employ those involved (100% if you are a non for profit, research institution, or a public body), with an additional 25% overhead

There are about 800 pages of the annotated contract if you feel so inclined, but if you are curious to know more about getting involved, do give us a call.

Pitch for the EIC Accelerator
The EIC (European Innovation Council) Accelerator is a great opportunity for startups/scaleups that have developed groundbreaking solutions to pitch to a panel of experts, with a pot of 25MNOK. The accelerator also offers a unique network of experts and other resources. And for the selected few, there is also an opportunity to get an extra 150MNOK in investment in cases where the startup/scaleup project is deemed to be too risky for conventional investors.

Want to know more? Get in touch!
NCE Finance Innovation works closely with Innovation Norway to help candidates through the application for the EIC Accelerator.

Contact person:

Kristoffer Hammer
EU Advisor in NCE Finance Innovation
kristoffer@financeinnovation.no / +47 484 09 308