Call for expressions of interest ”COVID-19 Response and Recovery Partnerships”

This Call is of interest for regional partnerships researching or working on COVID-19 solutions and circular business models for medical products and services.

DG REGIO seeks expressions of interest from transnational partnerships of regional authorities, including ecosystems of regional stakeholders (universities, research centres, clusters, SMEs) willing to pilot interregional innovation partnerships.

Based on the current Commission priorities, the call is open to four new areas for partnerships:

• COVID-19: mobilising regional capacities to accelerate innovation and rapid deployment of new technologies and solutions to address the COVID-19 pandemic;
• Circular Economy in Health for medical products and services (e.g. remanufacturing and refurbishing of medical devices and equipment, circular economy in the context of health safety, management of medical waste);
• Sustainable and Digital Tourism;
• Hydrogen technologies in carbon-intensive regions.

Expression of interests can be submitted by partnerships made up of statutory regional authorities and their regional innovation ecosystems and should be composed of regional authorities from at least four different EU countries.

All eligibility criteria and the application form can be accessed here. Expression of interests must be sent: regio-smart-growth@ec.europa.eu by 7 September 2020.