Evaluation and award of Demonstration projects, first call.

Evaluation and award of demonstration projects. Demonstration Vouchers are expected to target large scale projects comprising between 2-7 SMEs and innovation actors from within the participating clusters, ESCP-4is memberships and its regions. This structure is designed to promote cross-sectoral exchanges of knowledge and best practice at the organisation level, thereby leading to the development of new industrial value chains capable of addressing current (increasingly complex) cross-sectoral challenges, already identified in section 1. Eligible activities will include prototyping, testing, piloting at TRL6-8. Sandpit style events about the innovation challenges will be held alongside the project consortium meetings (2 during the project). Each of the awarded projects will be invited to attend these events. The sandpits will be facilitated to enable the attendees to develop new and highly innovative cross-sectoral projects. Sandpit attendees will be invited to pitch their awarded project and sign their VIDA grant agreements with VIDA coordinator. The review panel will comprise 3 relevant experts (Task 1.2) who will review/score each team using the methodology determined in Task 2.3. Funded projects will be initially limited to 12 months including preparation time. A short project cycle has been specified in order to prioritise higher TRL projects and encourage the pursuit of ‘quick-wins’ - projects yielding clear, rapid and tangible benefits, for example repurposing a technology dominant in one field to another or demonstration of an already proven technology. 10 projects are expected to be funded under these funding calls (around 5 during each funding round), between €20.000-60.000/project participant (up to €250,000/project), with a total reserved budget of €3,000,000. The task leader will be responsible for implementing the evaluation process determined in Task 2.4, notifying applicants of the decision and supporting the disbursing the funds (held by the Coordinator). Unsuccessful applicants will receive signposting support in Task 4.5. Project evaluation is conducted in Task 5.1. Exploitation support is provided in Task 6.3.