Digital Innovation Hubs – FED4SAE

Helping pan-European organisations develop smart applications; up to €60K funding, access to industrial platforms and business coaching.

FED4SAE is a pan-European acceleration programme available to organisations looking to lead industry digitisation by adopting Cyber Physical System (CPS) to develop new products and business models. The three-year project is co-funded by the European Commission and is dedicated to European startups, SMEs and midcaps. The project is targeting a number of exciting new ‘smart’ markets including cities, agriculture, food, health and wellbeing, building and transport. Digital Catapult is delighted to support the FED4SAE programme and invite members of our community to take part.

Why you should get involved?

Beneficiaries from the acceleration programme will get access to advanced technologies and testbeds, industrial platforms as well as relevant technical, business and innovation management support to turn their ideas into commercialised products.

This includes:

• Technology access and assistance from industrial platform partners
• Expertise, know-how, coaching and design support from advanced technology and testbed partners
• Business case support and strategy coaching to design to cost
• Customer acquisition support
• Brokerage to access additional partners and funding opportunities beyond the end of the project

Successful applicants will also receive up to €60k grant funding to support their first development. This first-level investment is expected to be further completed beyond the acceleration programme through private and public funding.

Who should apply?

This programme is great if you’re a startup, scaleup or a midcap company and you focus on at least one of the following areas:

• Smart cities
• Smart agriculture
• Smart food
• Smart health and wellbeing
• Smart buildings
• Smart transportation

The FED4SAE project

• Supports experiments with a duration of 9 to 18 months, at a grant funding rate of 70% of the experiment budget
• Expects average funding per applicant to be €50k, with a maximum of €60k available per application experiment
• Supports three types of experiments: a) Software-intensive: Build a system solution using existing industrial platforms and complementary advanced software technologies b) System integration: Build an innovative system solution using existing software and hardware components c) CPS and Embedded System with innovative component: Build an integrated Hardware-Software prototype requiring specific hardware-software components.
• Plans to have three open calls
• Allows applicants to apply for multiple experiments, with a total maximum funding for €100k across experiments throughout the three open calls

Application experiments must utilise at least one of seven industrial platforms, in addition to advanced technologies and testbeds.

Digital Catapult is supporting successful applicants in three key ways:

• Offering technology support and access to our low power wide area network testbed
• Providing product development coaching
• Supporting participants to establish pan-European relationships with suppliers and customers
• Helping participants access further funding via the Digital Catapult investor network

How to apply

If you are interested in the programme and would like to submit your application, please visit the FED4SAE project website for more details including requirements for applications, additional services provided and individual partner competencies.

As a condition of application all proposals must be pre-screened by a project partner. We can answer any questions you may have, and provide feedback on your project’s suitability.

Apply here to register your interest.