The INGENIOUS (Building resilience and accelerating transition to green and digital economy in Energy Intensive Industries) Eurocluster project fosters SME to implement highly innovative solutions, to penetrate key markets and to attract critical mass of partners via three financial instruments (financial support to third parties). One of them is the INGENIOUS Training Grant, which will serve to expand the knowledge and skills of SME to stay competitive.

In today’s ever-changing business landscape, it’s essential for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to stay ahead of the curve. To help with this, INGENIOUS is offering 100 training grants each worth € 250, to help SMEs improve their digital skills, green transition, resilience preparedness and reskilling and upskilling of the workforce.

The applicants can apply ONLY for one training grant (worth € 250) keeping in mind that the total maximum funding will be €60.000 per SME including all financial support to third parties (Innovation Grant and Internationalisation Grant) within the INGENIOUS project.

INGENIOUS presents the Pool of experts: https://ingenious-eurocluster.eu/pool-of-experts/ where applicants can find specialists for their needed training but they can also choose own training providers. Only trainings within the described topics in Guide for Applicants are available for funding. The main categories are: Concept creation & development, Market development & Business strategy, Internationalisation and Other.

Eligibility criteria (only key points, a more detailed explanation of the eligibility criteria are given in the Training Grant Guide for Applicants)

Eligible participants:

• Applicants must declare their SME status in accordance with the SME definition of the EU
• Applicants need to submit their application via the INGENIOUS website using the template provided in the respective group: Training Grants
• A motivation letter (not exceeding two DIN A4 page) needs to be filled-in in the template provided on INGENIOUS website: https://ingenious-eurocluster.eu/training-grants/
• Applications must be written in English (applications partially written in another language are not eligible)

• Applicants can apply for only one INGENIOUS Training grant, however, a total maximum funding of €60.000 per applicant applies

Overview of the funding conditions

Number of training grants: 100 (until budget is exhausted)

Call:                                   22 May 2023 at 09.00 CEST until 14 February 2025 at 16:00 CET

The consortium retains the option to end the open call ahead of schedule if the budget is exhausted, but it will remain accessible for a minimum period of two months.

Grant amount:                   € 250 (financial support)

INGENIOUS budget:         € 25.000

Participants (SME’s):         1

Submission

The provided template on INGENIOUS website: https://ingenious-eurocluster.eu/training-grants/ need to be used for submitting the application. Before starting the submission process, applicants should read the Guide for Applicants also available on the same website.

Only those proposals fulfilling all eligibility criteria and completing all mandatory fields in the application form will be considered eligible.

Evaluation process

Two neutral INGENIOUS consortium partners will assess submitted applications. To ensure fair treatment of applicants and impartiality, INGENIOUS consortium partners will evaluate applications submitted by applicants established in countries other than theirs. The evaluation process starts with the assessment of the eligibility of the applicant, according to the eligibility criteria (more information in the Guide for Applicants). All eligible applications will be reviewed against the following evaluation criteria: Educational achievement (40 Points), Importance (40 Points), Motivation (20 Points). Based on these criteria the applicant must provide relevant information and descriptions in the application form. To be considered for funding, the application must pass an overall threshold of 70 points out of a maximum score of 100 points. To ensure a consistent minimum quality for all award criteria, each sub-criterion needs to score at least half of the points available for the criteria.

Further information

• Applicants can find complete information about the Training grant in the Guide for Applicants available on: https://ingenious-eurocluster.eu/training-grants/
• INGENIOUS contact for the Training Grant: ku [at] balticnet-plasmatec.org (ku[at]balticnet-plasmatec[dot]org)
• INGENIOUS partnership is organising an Info Day on 31 May 2023 from 16.00 to 17.00 (CEST) to present the Training grant call and answer the questions from attendees Registration form  

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