This is possible, thanks to the funding provided by the Better Factory project. Better Factory is an EU-funded project which counts with a budget to run its own open calls.
Better Factory belongs to the so called cascade funding schemes we introduced in our earlier post.
About Better Factory
Better Factory is a Horizon 2020 project whose vision is “providing a methodology for manufacturing SMEs to collaborate with artists to develop new and personalized products. At the same time, it supplies technology for SMEs to become cyber-physical systems, transforming them into Lean-agile production facilities capable of manufacturing new and personalised products along with existing ones“. Check the official information at their website.
Better Factory open call, in a nutshell
The second open call by Better factory will support the so-called Knowledget Transfer Experiments (KTEs) which are comprised by small consortium of an industry, a SME and an artist (design company or alike). The goal of the open call is facilitating the manufacturing companies the creation of a portfolio of products more personalized and enhancing their services capabilities.
Details about the open call
Consortium
At least 3 partners which belong to the following categories:
- Manufacturing company: can be a SME or a mid-cap.
- Technology supplier: a SME.
- Artist: understanding the artist as an individual or as an industrial design company.
Expression of Interest (EoI) stage
The open call is not yet ready as such. Better Factory has decided to organise a previous step to the open call under which manufacturing companies, technology suppliers and artists express their interest to join forces in a consortium. This prior Expression of Interest stage is not compulsory but highly advisable by the consortium partners. This prior stage is understood as a match-making process for the industry.
The submission of the EoI is done at Funding Box platform in the following links. The request for information, at this stage, is mainly providing information about the companies, statistical information and standard permissions for data processing.
The EoI stage closes next 25th of June
Funding
16 experiments will be selected with a total funding of 200.000€ per selected experiment. The participation in the EoI stage does not grant any sort of funding. Only the open call, which will open in September until November will provide access to equity free funding. The foreseen division of the budget is as follows:
- Manufacturing company 50.000€
- Technology supplier 100.000€
- Artist 50.000€
Calendar
- EoI on 25th of June 2022
- Call opening on 1st of September 2022
- Call closure on 15th of November 2022
Payments for the experiments are not yet disclosed. Once the call is open a new post will be published with additional information.
Overall conclussions and important elements
This is a wonderful opportunity for factories in their digitisation process. The funding is interesting and schedule probably a bit long in time, which includes multiple steps since the EoI and the final execution of the experiments.
It is a wise move to include mid-caps, as factories do many times belong to larger groups, which make them not being a SME as defined by the EC, but operate as one in practical terms.
IMPORTANT: There is a hard constrain on the use of the industrial market place RAMP. RAMP is an interesting attempt by different related projects to build an industrial marketplace to promote the commercialization of industrial solutions accross the EU. They count with several modules already available and a public source code repository at GitHub.
Earlier funded experiments
You can find the list of the Experiments funded in the first open call on the Better Factory website.
If you need assistance in the proposal writing preparation, finding the right partners for the call or even having a double-check on what you are currently preparing, do not hesitate to contact us
If you are, on the other hand, managing a cascade grant and want us to promote your call and do a review of this nature, feel free to contact, we can definitely address the topic and help with dissemination within our networks.