Challenge-Driven GenAI4EU Booster (RIA) (AI/Data/Robotics Partnership)

The EU's Horizon Europe program is offering a grant opportunity titled "Challenge-Driven GenAI4EU Booster (RIA) (AI/Data/Robotics Partnership)" under the HORIZON-CL4-2025-03-DIGITAL-EMERGING-09 initiative. This Research and Innovation Action aims to promote the development and adoption of trustworthy Generative AI (GenAI) solutions in key sectors, particularly aerospace, pharmaceuticals, and telecommunications.

Eligible applicants include startups, SMEs, and small teams built around these entities, with a focus on collaboration with user industry companies. The geographic scope includes legal entities from EU Member States and associated countries such as Iceland, Norway, Canada, Israel, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

The funding type consists of grants, with the total budget for this initiative set at EUR 45 million. Stage 1 involves an open challenge where 20 solutions are selected, each receiving EUR 250,000 in funding to further develop their projects. In Stage 2, the top four solutions move on to receive EUR 2 million each to help prepare for a final demonstration.

The application process is a single-stage submission with a deadline scheduled for October 2, 2025. Each project is expected to implement a multi-stage framework that outlines the competition process, including defined targets and evaluation methodologies. The program encourages collaboration among participants to maximize impact and shares best practices, along with a requirement for a clear exploitation plan outlining how the results will be utilized.

The initiative intends to enhance technological advancements while increasing the competitiveness of the European Generative AI community. It also aims to facilitate real-world applications of GenAI, enabling significant strides in the targeted sectors. Each proposal must focus on one of the specified sectors and outline a challenge-driven approach, fostering partnerships and ensuring data provision to support innovation.

Overall, this funding opportunity is designed to invigorate the European AI landscape, encouraging innovative solutions and collaboration to tackle complex challenges within the aerospace, pharmaceutical, and telecommunication sectors.

The EU's Horizon Europe program is offering a funding opportunity, HORIZON-CL4-2025-03-DIGITAL-EMERGING-09, titled "Challenge-Driven GenAI4EU Booster (RIA) (AI/Data/Robotics Partnership)". This Research and Innovation Action (RIA) aims to foster the development and adoption of trustworthy Generative AI (GenAI) solutions within Europe, specifically targeting the aerospace, pharma/drugs, and telecommunication networks sectors. The call has a single-stage deadline model, with a planned opening date of June 10, 2025, and a deadline of October 2, 2025, at 17:00 Brussels time. The total budget allocated to this topic is EUR 45,000,000, with an indicative number of 3 grants to be awarded.

The expected outcomes of this initiative include:

Significant technological advancements and innovation in aerospace, pharma/drug development, and telecommunication networks through a challenge-driven approach.
Increased competitiveness and visibility for the European Generative AI community, showcasing their ability to tackle complex tasks in the targeted sectors.
Greater adoption of Generative AI within these sectors, demonstrated through tangible progress achieved via the challenge-driven process.

The scope of the call focuses on leveraging Generative AI to transform key industry sectors. Examples of potential applications include:

Pharmaceuticals: Accelerating drug design by rapidly creating target-specific molecules, reducing development time, and potentially preventing health crises.
Aerospace: Optimizing aircraft design, streamlining manufacturing, predicting maintenance needs through sensor data analysis, route optimization, and enhancing pilot training with realistic simulations.
Telecommunications: Enabling intelligent and automated telecommunications through network management, optimization, slicing, healing, predictive maintenance, and network mapping.

Each proposal must concentrate on one of the three specified sectors and clearly identify which sector it addresses. The core of each proposal should revolve around defining and organizing a multi-stage competition within the chosen sector, providing support to participating companies/teams, and implementing activities to maximize the action's impact.

Consortia applying for this funding must include user industry companies from the targeted strategic sector as core partners. These companies should demonstrate a genuine interest in the project's results and support the challenge participants. While the expected results are pre-competitive, proposals must include a draft exploitation plan outlining commitments for future exploitation. The consortium will be responsible for managing the various stages of the challenges and providing necessary support resources, including technical assistance, business support, and crucial data for fine-tuning models.

The competition will be structured in three stages:

Stage 1: An open challenge to select the 20 highest-ranked solutions based on predefined criteria. Participants can be single start-ups/SMEs or small teams built around such entities.
Stage 2: The 20 selected solutions receive EUR 250,000 in FSTP (Financial Support to Third Parties) funding to address the challenge set by the consortium. At the end of this stage, the 4 highest-ranked solutions will be selected for the next stage.
Stage 3: The 4 selected solutions join the consortium, receiving EUR 2 million each (as part of the eligible costs of the grant agreement) to prepare for the grand finale. The consortium must define measures to maximize the impact for the winning team and promote the uptake of their solutions, such as partnerships or contracts with leading user industries.

Successful proposals are expected to implement this multi-staged scheme in parallel, each focusing on a different sector. Proposals should define a clear methodology for implementing the approach, including specifications for each stage of the competition, timelines, targets, KPIs, and a robust evaluation methodology. The consortium will be responsible for implementing the evaluation, providing infrastructure and technical support, and ensuring high visibility for the competitions, potentially through sponsorships.

Selected actions are expected to collaborate to achieve economies of scale in sharing best practices, defining challenge processes, ensuring efficient monitoring, and organizing dissemination activities. This collaboration will be formalized through a collaboration agreement after the Grant Agreement signature.

Proposals should incorporate mechanisms for assessing progress, including qualitative and quantitative KPIs, benchmarking, and progress monitoring. Efficiency gains from Generative AI should be considered as part of the KPIs to maximize broader impact.

When possible, proposals should build on and reuse public results from relevant previous funded actions and share communicable results with the European R&D community through the AI-on-demand platform and other relevant digital resource platforms.

This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership on AI, data and robotics (ADRA), and all proposals are expected to allocate tasks for cohesion activities with ADRA and the CSA HORIZON-CL4-2025-03-HUMAN-18: GenAI4EU central Hub.

Proposals should also build on or seek collaboration with relevant projects and develop synergies with other relevant International, European, national or regional initiatives. Synergies should be exploited with projects funded under HORIZON-CL4-2025-03-DATA-08, HORIZON-CL4-2025-03-DATA-09 and HORIZON-CL4-2025-04-DATA-02 for telecommunications; with relevant projects from Cluster 1 and IHI Innovative Health Initiative for pharma/drug development; and with relevant projects from the clean aviation JU and other similar projects/initiatives for aerospace.

Eligible countries for participation are limited to legal entities established in Member States, Iceland, Norway, Canada, Israel, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Entities controlled by non-eligible countries may face restrictions unless they can demonstrate that their participation would not negatively impact the Union’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy, or security.

The call provides templates for application forms and evaluation forms, as well as guidance documents such as the HE Programme Guide and Model Grant Agreements.

In summary, this funding opportunity aims to stimulate the European Generative AI ecosystem by launching a challenge-driven initiative focused on aerospace, pharma/drug development, and telecommunications. Consortia are expected to design and manage multi-stage competitions, providing financial and technical support to participating SMEs and start-ups, with the ultimate goal of fostering innovation and adoption of trustworthy GenAI solutions in these strategic sectors. The program emphasizes collaboration, visibility, and the development of impactful use-cases with clear exploitation plans. The total budget for this initiative is 45 million EUR, and it is expected to fund approximately 3 projects.

This opportunity is about boosting the European Generative AI community by creating a series of competitions in key sectors like aerospace, pharmaceuticals, and telecommunications. The EU wants to encourage innovation and the use of trustworthy AI solutions. They're providing funding for consortia to run these competitions, offering financial support and resources to participating startups and SMEs. The goal is to find and promote new GenAI applications that can make a real difference in these industries, ultimately strengthening Europe's position in the global AI landscape. If you're a major industry player with an interest in GenAI and a desire to support European innovation, this is a chance to lead a challenge and help shape the future of AI in your sector.

Eligible Applicant Types: The eligible applicant types for this opportunity are consortia involving user industry companies, startups, SMEs, and major industry players. The focus is on attracting developers from the EU and associated countries, particularly SMEs and startups, either alone or within a team.

Funding Type: The funding type is primarily a grant, with financial support to third parties (FSTP) also in the form of grants.

Consortium Requirement: The opportunity requires a consortium of multiple applicants. User industry companies should be core partners. Third parties, such as startups and SMEs, compete in the initial stages and may later be invited to join the consortium as full beneficiaries.

Beneficiary Scope (Geographic Eligibility): The geographic eligibility is limited to legal entities established in Member States, Iceland, Norway, Canada, Israel, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Target Sector: The program targets the following sectors: aerospace, pharma/drug development, and telecommunication networks. It focuses on the application of Generative AI (GenAI) within these sectors.

Mentioned Countries: Iceland, Norway, Canada, Israel, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Project Stage: The project stage encompasses development, validation, and demonstration. The program aims to foster innovation and adoption of GenAI solutions, implying a move from research to practical application.

Funding Amount: The funding opportunity includes: EUR 5 million to be distributed among the winners of stage 1 in the form of FSTP grants, up to EUR 250,000 per competing solution. EUR 8 million reserved for stage 3 of the challenge, to be distributed equally among the 4 winning teams of stage 2 (EUR 2 million each). The overall budget for the HORIZON-CL4-2025-03-DIGITAL-EMERGING-09 topic is EUR 45,000,000.

Application Type: The application type is an open call with a single-stage submission process.

Nature of Support: Beneficiaries will receive money in the form of grants. Third parties participating in the challenges will also receive financial support in the form of grants (FSTP).

Application Stages: The application process involves a multi-stage competition: Stage 1: Open challenge to select the top 20 solutions. Stage 2: The 20 selected solutions receive funding to further develop their solutions. Stage 3: The top 4 solutions from stage 2 are invited to join the consortium and receive additional funding to prepare for a grand finale.

Success Rates: The success rates are not explicitly mentioned, but the structure of the competition indicates a progressive narrowing of participants, with 20 solutions selected for stage 2 and 4 for stage 3.

Co-funding Requirement: The text does not explicitly mention a co-funding requirement for the initial consortium applicants. However, the consortium is encouraged to seek sponsorships to increase the visibility and prestige of the challenge.

Summary:

This Horizon Europe call, HORIZON-CL4-2025-03-DIGITAL-EMERGING-09, focuses on "Challenge-Driven GenAI4EU Booster (RIA) (AI/Data/Robotics Partnership)". It aims to stimulate the European developer community and promote the use of trustworthy Generative AI (GenAI) solutions in aerospace, pharma/drug development, and telecommunication networks. The initiative involves a multi-stage competition where consortia define challenges for startups and SMEs to address using GenAI. The process is structured in three stages. In stage 1, a challenge is open to all, and the 20 highest-ranked solutions are selected to move to stage 2. In stage 2, each of the 20 selected solutions receives EUR 250,000 in FSTP funding to further develop their solutions. At the end of stage 2, the top 4 solutions are selected to move to stage 3. In stage 3, the 4 selected solutions are invited to join the consortium and receive EUR 2 million each to prepare for the grand finale. The call encourages collaboration among selected projects and emphasizes the importance of industry involvement, data provision, and exploitation plans. The total budget for the topic is EUR 45 million, with EUR 5 million allocated for stage 1 winners and EUR 8 million reserved for stage 3. The call is open to legal entities from EU Member States, Iceland, Norway, and associated countries like Canada, Israel, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The application process is a single-stage submission, and the call is planned to open on June 10, 2025, with a deadline of October 2, 2025. The program seeks to foster innovation, increase the competitiveness of the European AI community, and promote the adoption of GenAI in key strategic sectors.