FFPlus 2nd call for Business Experiments

Objectif

This announcement is the second call for proposals to address the uptake of HPC by SMEs in order to solve specific business challenges of SMEs that have had no prior use of, or experience with, HPC services.
The resulting sub-projects will perform “business experiments” (also referred to below just as experiments) that should demonstrate to the broader European SME ecosystem that HPC uptake solves business challenges and leads to positive business impact (including but not limited to increased innovation potential and competitiveness) through the use and deployment of HPC-based computational methods (modelling and simulation, data analytics, AI, etc.).

Thus, their key outputs are success stories that promote, communicate, and disseminate the business impact of HPC uptake to the SME ecosystem. The development of the innovation potential of the participating SMEs is also directly targeted and an important objective for the proposed business experiments.
The call targets highest quality experiments involving innovative, agile SMEs with work plans built around innovation targets arising from the use of advanced HPC services. Proposals are sought that address business challenges from European SMEs from varied application domains, whereby SMEs whose adoption of advanced HPC services will create the highest business impact will be prioritized.
SMEs with an academic focus, for example with business models around R&D services based on HPC software, or activities with a potential impact only in the long term, such as fundamental research, are not within the scope of the call.

FFplus seeks to promote a widening of the HPC user base amongst European SMEs and thus targets a broad geographical distribution of participants. SMEs based in countries with a previously low level of HPC adoption are encouraged to submit a proposal and may expect to be assisted by their national HPC Competence Centre.

Critères d'éligibilité

The total number of consortium partners (main participant and supporting participants) is limited to five. A main participant is an SME or start-up new to the use of HPC whose business challenge is addressed in the proposed experiment. Supporting participants are organisations supporting the main participant(s) to complete the foreseen activities; such supporting participants may receive a maximum of € 150,000 over all experiments in which they participate. In principle, at least 50% of the funding applied for should be allocated to the main participants. Any deviations from this principle must be duly justified.

Applications are to be submitted by one or more main participants sharing a business case/challenge and optionally (if well justified) one or more supporting participants.

Single-organisation “consortia” are also eligible to apply. While single-member consortia are eligible in principle, the proposal would need to demonstrate that the sole partner is both an SME new to HPC and possesses all necessary skills to experiment.

Only organisations with head offices based in an EU Member State or in Digital Europe Programme associated countries are eligible to receive funding.

Technologies clés

HPC, AI, modelling and simulation, data analytics, LLMs

Typologie de consortium

The expected duration of business experiments is 15 months, with targeted commencement January 1st 2026.
The indicative total funding budget for all sub-projects funded under this call is € 4M. The maximum funding request per proposal is € 200,000 covering all participants.

The FFplus sub-projects are expected to make use of the HPC resources provided under the EuroHPC JU access schemes, which services are provided free of charge. The use of nationally provisioned HPC resources is considered equivalent. In general, the EuroHPC JU access schemes are organised as a number of different calls for proposals with differing submission dates and available resource volumes and lengths of access and including specific opportunities for industrial users. Proposers are referred to the EuroHPC JU website for regularly updated information about the various access calls, which are organised in the two areas “supercomputers access” and “AI Factories access”:
https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/supercomputers/supercomputers-access-policy-and-faq_en
https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/ai-factories/ai-factories-access-calls_en