As our RESPOND Open Call has come to an end, we would like to send out a big thank you to our community for responding so quickly and efficiently to this call for proposals. While the COVID-19 crisis continues to drag on, the SmartAgriHubs community has really shown its resilience and commitment to use this set-back as an opportunity to boost the digitalisation of the agri-food sector.

What better way to exemplify this commitment than by the fact that we received over 109 proposals - an incredible amount given the short time frame in which we announced and conducted the Open Call (just over three weeks).

The goal of this Open Call was to mobilise our ecosystem and beyond in proposing digital solutions in addressing the current COVID-19 crisis and its impact on the wider agri-food sector. Therefore, it made sure that a maximum of €900.000 was made available for the funding of two individual open calls as an immediate response (hence the name RESPOND) to the crisis. Over the span of two weeks, companies, research institutions, SMEs, start-ups and other actors could hand-in proposals for either the ‘RESPOND to COVID-19 Crisis - DIH Hackathon Open Call’, or the ‘RESPOND 2 - SAH2SMEs Open Call’.

With regards to the DIH Hackathon Open Call, we received 31 proposals, which addressed on average nearly 2 countries and involved 3 partners each. Moreover, the average total budget of proposals was around €37.000, with the average requested funding hovering at around €28.000. If we divide the proposals in terms of requested types of activities, we get the following numbers: hackathons (80%), challenges (15%), and datathons (5%). The average duration proposed was 5 months. In total, the proposals involved partners from 22 countries, with a majority of them being delivered by DIHs from Romania, Spain, France, and Portugal.

As to the SAH2SMEs Open Call, the total amount of proposals received was 78, involving on average one country, and just over 2 partners. The average total budget of the proposals was around €75.000, with the average requested funding at just under €45.000. Furthermore, the average duration period proposed was nearly 5,5 months. In total, the proposals involved partners from 18 countries, with a majority of proposals being delivered by SMEs and Startups from Spain, Italy, France, The Netherlands, and Bulgaria.

We would like to thank everyone for helping us successfully conclude this Open Call. With regards the next Open Call, we will be announcing it in early July, so stay tuned.