Fostering Innovative and Compliant Data Ecosystems (IA) (AI, Data and Robotics Partnership)

The European Union is offering a grant opportunity titled "Fostering Innovative and Compliant Data Ecosystems (IA)" under the AI, Data and Robotics Partnership. This initiative aims to enhance compliance with EU legislation while advancing technologies for data handling, focusing particularly on the use of synthetic data. Eligible applicants include a wide range of entities such as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), startups, public and private organizations, universities, research institutions, and non-governmental organizations. The funding type is a grant, specifically categorized under Horizon Europe's Innovation Actions. Collaborative consortia are required, particularly in alignment with the ADRA partnership and other related EU initiatives. Geographically, the initiative targets entities from EU member states, Iceland, Norway, and associated countries. The focus sectors include artificial intelligence, robotics, compliance technologies, and various aspects of big data management, particularly in fields such as healthcare, cybersecurity, and industrial processes. While the specific funding amounts are not concretely detailed in the available information, capable projects under the Horizon Europe framework often have funding ranging from €1 million to €5 million. The application procedure is a single-stage open call, with the deadline set for October 2, 2025. Proposals should demonstrate synergies with existing EU projects and provide substantial support to ease compliance burdens tied to current legislation such as GDPR and the Data Governance Act. The initiative specifically aims to develop advanced compliance technology, facilitate auto-compliance in data transactions, and enhance data generation through synthetic methods, addressing the inherent limitations of real data. Training and support are significant aspects of this call, aiming to ensure the scalability of the proposed solutions in line with evolving regulatory requirements. In summary, the grant aims to address compliance challenges posed by EU legislation by supporting the development of innovative technologies for data management and analysis, encouraging collaboration across multiple sectors, and requiring that proposals align with existing frameworks. The focus lies on generating effective solutions that improve data quality, ethical use, and compliance with established standards while potentially funding around six projects with a total budget of €45 million.

The EU Funding & Tenders Portal presents a Horizon Europe call, specifically HORIZON-CL4, titled "Fostering Innovative and Compliant Data Ecosystems (IA) (AI, Data and Robotics Partnership)". This call aims to ease compliance with EU legislation for businesses and professionals, develop advanced technologies for data handling, and leverage synthetic data while ensuring user training and adherence to FAIR principles.

The call is part of the Horizon Europe (HORIZON) program under the DIGITAL - CNECT (HORIZON-CL4-2025-03) call. It is a HORIZON Innovation Action (HORIZON-IA) with a HORIZON Action Grant Budget-Based [HORIZON-AG] type of Model Grant Agreement (MGA). The deadline model is single-stage, with a planned opening date of 10 June 2025 and a deadline of 02 October 2025 at 17:00:00 Brussels time.

The expected outcomes of the projects are:

1. Easing the compliance process of businesses and professionals with the relevant EU legislation, in particular reporting obligations, and alleviating administrative burdens for businesses and professionals.

2. Developing and integrating advanced technologies for data collection, data sharing and data analytics for simplifying and automating compliance.

3. Generating, managing, and leveraging synthetic data to improve fitness for purpose; addressing limitations of real-world data, enhancing data quality, diversity, and representativeness, while mitigating bias and addressing other ethical issues.

4. Ensuring broad user training and support for rolling out and scaling up “compliance and privacy by design” and the FAIR principles in the constantly evolving regulatory landscape.

The scope of the call addresses the challenges faced by businesses and professionals due to the expanding EU legislation in both digital (GDPR, Open Data Directive (ODD), Data Governance Act, AI Act, Data Act) and non-digital realms (e.g., green deal, due diligence, healthcare, transport). It also tackles the limitations of real-world data by promoting the use of synthetic data.

The call outlines three specific areas:

Area 1:Actions to develop advanced compliance technology integrating AI, cybersecurity, language technologies, and privacy preservation. This includes creating NLP-driven semantic analysis tools, energy-efficient neuromorphic approaches, and machine learning algorithms.

Area 2:Actions to ensure auto-compliance of data transactions and data spaces with applicable regulation. This involves developing automatic or semi-automatic tools that analyse and take into account the specific architecture, governance model, exchange mechanisms, tools, data types, identity management, smart contracting, user policies and other user needs or operational features of the actual data spaces, liaising with and building on other actions working in this area, in particular the Data Spaces Support Centre.

Area 3:Actions to generate, manage and leverage synthetic data in order to improve data quality, availability, representativity, fitness for purpose and compliance. This includes addressing the shortcomings of real-world data, generating synthetic data for sparse domains, integrating synthetic and real data effectively, and advancing technological capabilities in generative models and simulation-based approaches.

The call implements the co-programmed European Partnership on AI, Data and Robotics. Projects are expected to develop synergies with Digital Europe programme topics implementing Common European Data Spaces, especially the Data Spaces Support Centre (DSSC), and ensure complementarities with projects funded under topics HORIZON-CL4-2024-DATA-01-01 and HORIZON-CL4-2021-DATA-01-01. The integration of the gender dimension is not a mandatory requirement.

General conditions for participation include:

1. Admissibility Conditions:Proposal page limit and layout as described in Annex A and Annex E of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes and Part B of the Application Form.

2. Eligible Countries as described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes, with specific provisions for non-EU/non-Associated Countries as detailed in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide. Participation is limited to legal entities established in Member States, Iceland and Norway, associated countries and OECD countries, excluding entities directly or indirectly controlled by a non-eligible country or entity.

3. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion as described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes.

4. Evaluation and award:Award criteria, scoring and thresholds as described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes.

5. Evaluation and award:Submission and evaluation processes as described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual.

6. Evaluation and award:Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement as described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes.

7. Legal and financial set-up of the grants as described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes.

Specific conditions are described in the specific topic of the Work Programme.

Application and evaluation forms and model grant agreement (MGA) include:

Application form templates available in the Submission System (Standard application form (HE RIA, IA)).

Evaluation form templates (Standard evaluation form (HE RIA, IA)).

Guidance:HE Programme Guide.

Model Grant Agreements (MGA):HE MGA.

Call-specific instructions:Ownership Control Declaration.

Additional documents include:

HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 1. General Introduction

HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 7. Digital, Industry and Space

HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 14. General Annexes

HE Programme Guide

HE Framework Programme 2021/695

HE Specific Programme Decision 2021/764

EU Financial Regulation 2024/2509

Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment

EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement

Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual

Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions

Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement

The budget overview lists several topics with their respective budget, stage, opening date, deadline, contributions, and indicative number of grants. The HORIZON-CL4 topic has a budget of €45,000,000, is a single-stage action, opens on 2025-06-10, closes on 2025-10-02, and has contributions ranging from 7,000,000 to €9,000,000 with an indicative number of 6 grants.

There are 14 partner search announcements available. LEARs, Account Administrators, and self-registrants can publish partner requests. The submission system is planned to open on the date stated in the topic header.

The call provides links to various support resources, including the Online Manual, Horizon Europe Programme Guide, Funding & Tenders Portal FAQ, Research Enquiry Service, National Contact Points (NCPs), Enterprise Europe Network, IT Helpdesk, European IPR Helpdesk, CEN-CENELEC Research Helpdesk, ETSI Research Helpdesk, the European Charter for Researchers, and Partner Search.

In summary, this Horizon Europe call focuses on fostering innovative and compliant data ecosystems by addressing the challenges of EU legislative compliance, promoting advanced data technologies, and leveraging synthetic data. It encourages projects that develop AI-driven tools, ensure auto-compliance in data spaces, and improve the quality and availability of data through synthetic data generation. The call is structured around three main areas, and proposals should clearly indicate which area they address. The call aims to ease the burden of compliance for businesses and professionals, enhance data quality and representativeness, and promote the adoption of FAIR principles in the evolving regulatory landscape. The total budget for the HORIZON-CL4 topic is €45 million, and it is expected to fund approximately 6 projects.

Eligible Applicant Types:Legal entities established in Member States, Iceland, Norway, associated countries and OECD countries are eligible. Entities directly or indirectly controlled by a non-eligible country or entity are not eligible. The specific types of legal entities (e.g., SME, large enterprise, research institute, university) are not explicitly mentioned, implying a broad range of legal entities can apply as long as they meet the established criteria.

Funding Type:The funding type is a grant, specifically HORIZON Innovation Actions (HORIZON-IA) and HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions (HORIZON-RIA) and HORIZON Coordination and Support Actions (HORIZON-CSA) under the Horizon Europe Programme.

Consortium Requirement:The information does not explicitly state whether a single applicant or a consortium is required. However, given the scope and nature of Horizon Europe projects, consortia are often preferred or even necessary to address the multifaceted challenges outlined in the topics. Partner Search Announcements are available.

Beneficiary Scope (Geographic Eligibility):Eligible countries include EU Member States, Iceland, Norway, associated countries, and OECD countries. There are restrictions for entities controlled by non-eligible countries.

Target Sector:The program targets the digital sector, with a focus on AI, data, and robotics. Specific areas include:

* Compliance technology

* Cybersecurity

* Language technologies

* Privacy preservation

* Data collection

* Data sharing

* Data analytics

* Synthetic data generation and management

* Common European Data Spaces

* AI

* Data

* Robotics

Mentioned Countries:

* EU Member States

* Iceland

* Norway

* OECD countries

Project Stage:The opportunity targets projects at various stages, including research, innovation, and implementation. The HORIZON-RIA (Research and Innovation Actions) suggests a focus on research and development, while the HORIZON-IA (Innovation Actions) indicates a focus on demonstration, piloting, and validation of new solutions.

Funding Amount:The funding amounts vary depending on the specific topic. Some topics have a fixed budget, while others provide a range. Examples include:

* HORIZON-CL4-2025-03-DATA-08:€75,000,000

* HORIZON-CL4-2025-03-DATA-09:€1,800,000 to €2,500,000

* HORIZON-CL4:€7,000,000 to €9,000,000

* HORIZON-CL4-2025-03-DIGITAL-EMERGING-07:€40,000,000 to €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 to support their projects.

Application Stages:The application process is a single-stage process.

Success Rates:The success rates are not explicitly mentioned.

Co-funding Requirement:The information does not explicitly mention a co-funding requirement.

This opportunity is a call for proposals under the Horizon Europe program, specifically focusing on fostering innovative and compliant data ecosystems through AI, data, and robotics partnerships. The call aims to address the challenges faced by businesses and professionals in complying with the expanding EU legislation, particularly in the digital and non-digital realms. The program seeks to ease the compliance process, alleviate administrative burdens, and enhance competitiveness within the EU by developing and integrating advanced technologies for data collection, sharing, and analytics. A key focus is on generating and leveraging synthetic data to overcome limitations of real-world data, improve data quality, and mitigate bias, while ensuring data privacy and ethical considerations are addressed. The call is structured around three main areas: developing advanced compliance technology, ensuring auto-compliance of data transactions and data spaces, and generating and leveraging synthetic data. Eligible applicants include legal entities from EU Member States, Iceland, Norway, associated countries, and OECD countries, with certain restrictions to safeguard the Union's strategic interests. The funding is provided through Horizon Innovation Actions (IA), Horizon Research and Innovation Actions (RIA) and Horizon Coordination and Support Actions (CSA), with varying budget allocations for different topics. The application process is a single-stage submission, and projects are expected to develop synergies with other relevant initiatives, such as the Digital Europe Programme and the Common European Data Spaces. The call emphasizes the importance of user training and support to ensure the adaptability and scalability of proposed solutions.