To involve additional SMEs in ELISE, we allocate a part of our budget as Financial Support for Third Parties (“cascade funding”) towards SMEs. This budget will be used to initiate micro-projects for developing novel services and applications of AI to the challenges defined by the project stakeholders. The proposal submission and selection procedure for these micro-projects will be done through the ‘FundingBox Platform’, fundingbox.com.

The management will be done in an efficient and rapid way that is transparent, free of conflicts of interest, confidential and non-discriminatory, in order to ensure equal treatment of all participants. ELISE academic partners will mentor the participating SMEs. The results of the micro-projects, each with a budget of at most 60 000 €, will be reviewed at the end, after which the validated micro-projects will receive the budgeted funding.

Further information concerning the program, timeline and application process will be added soon. Stay tuned!