CLUSTER GO INTERNATIONAL

Call summary

Scene Setter

This action builds upon the 2014 "Clusters Go International" call (COS-CLUSTER-2014-3-03) that contributed to launch the first round of projects in January 2016 encouraging cluster organisations across Europe to establish 'European Strategic Cluster Partnerships-Going International' (ESCP-4i) and work concretely together to exploit synergies as well as to develop a joint internationalisation strategy for the benefit of their SMEs. This 1^st call has supported the establishment of up to 26 Partnerships (ESCP-4i) including 15 co-funded projects gathering about 150 cluster organisations across 23 European countries and reaching out to more than 17000 SMEs across Europe. The Partnerships are active in various industrial and cross-sectoral areas including health, aerospace, mobility and logistics, agrifood, energy, marine and environment, packaging, materials and photonics, ICT, construction and sports. The partnerships target cooperation with third countries' economies, of which the main ones include Brazil, Canada, China, India, Japan, Mexico and USA. This action further exploits synergies with other key initiatives of the Cluster Internationalisation Programme for SMEs that have been launched to promote transnational cluster cooperation within and beyond Europe with a view to better support SMEs in global competition.

Budget Information

The total budget earmarked for the co-financing of projects is estimated at EUR 400,000 for strand 1.b, and EUR 5,390,000 for strands 1.a and 2.

The maximum grant per project will be EUR 200,000 per project for strands 1.a and 1.b. The maximum grant per project for strand 2 will be EUR 448,750.

EASME expects to fund two proposals for strand 1.b, nine proposals for strand 1.a and eight proposals for strand 2.

If there are no sufficient proposals passing the overall and individual thresholds of the award criteria in strand 1.b of the 'Preparatory phase' of this action, the budget available can be used to support proposals in reserve lists in strand 1.a and/or strand 2. EASME reserves the right to readjust the estimated budget between strands 1.a and 2 by changing the proportion each one represents in the total budget based on the results of the evaluation.

The grant is limited to a maximum reimbursement rate of 75% of eligible costs.

EASME reserves the right not to distribute all the funds available.