Consolidation of the Network of European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs with reinforced AI focus)

Expected Outcome:Deliverables

Each EDIH will support the digital transformation of SMEs, mid-caps, and public sector organizations within its geographical area and area of expertise, while also aiming to extend its impact beyond its immediate region. An EDIH can select to focus on specific group(s) of clients (e.g. mainly SMEs or mainly public sector).

Each selected project will provide the four core types of services (testing before investing, training and skills development, support to find investments, networking and access to innovation ecosystems) covering a wide range of digitalisation needs, from mainstream technologies and AI capacities to specialised technologies. The services will be provided seamlessly, through proxies when required, maintaining consistency and accessibility for stakeholders. EDIHs complement and build synergies with existing regional and national initiatives, collaborate with the EU AI Innovation infrastructures and will become a central point for companies and public sector ensuring a flexible and seamless digital journey and referring them to the services provided by these AI innovation infrastructures where appropriate.

All together, EDIHs will contribute to consolidation of a balanced network of EDIHs, ensuring the broadest coverage of regions in Europe, addressing the needs of public and private sectors across all economic sectors, fostering cross-regional collaboration and resource sharing and offering a wide range of digitalisation services, from mainstream to specialised technologies.

The following indicators will be used to evaluate the performance of the hub; proposals should define their indicators as well as the targets related to each of them:

• Number of entities which have used the European Digital Innovation Hubs’ services, by user category (businesses of different sizes, public sector entities, etc.), sector, location, by technology and type of service received. Specific sub-indicators have to be proposed when the services are related to develop and uptake AI solutions, and will include a description of which European AI Innovation Infrastructures have been used (such as the AI-on-Demand platform) or referred to (such as the AI Factories).
• Number of entity referral to European AI Innovation Infrastructures.
• For access to finance: amount of additional investments successfully triggered (e.g. through venture capital, bank loan, etc.).
• Number of collaborations foreseen with other EDIHs and stakeholders outside the region at EU level, and description of jointly shared infrastructures / joint investments with other EDIHs.

A set of additional impact indicators will be collected and analysed with the support of the Digital Transformation Accelerator:

• Increase in digital maturity of organizations that have used the services of the EDIH network. Digital maturity will be defined on the basis of a questionnaire assessing the categories of digital strategy and readiness, intelligence and automation, data and connectedness, sustainable and human-centric digitalisation. EDIHs will administer the questionnaire at the start of the engagement with a client, and later after having delivered services, and report without delay the results to the DTA repository.
• Increase in number of companies benefiting from the use of European AI technology.

Cross-border trans-national hubs are possible with several countries jointly proposing and co-funding cross-border trans-national hubs, serving neighbouring regions in different countries, tackling common challenges identified in the border regions and exploiting the untapped growth potential in border areas. In this case, only the share of the funding of each country involved in the cross-border trans-national will be taken into account for the total amount of funding for that country.

Objective:The objective of this call is the consolidation of the network of European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs) aiming to cover all regions of the European Union and Associated Countries, including the EU’s outermost regions, by strengthening its performance and capacity to meet local, regional, national and European digitalisation needs.With increased experience and capacities, the EDIHs will continue providing the complete set of services of an EDIH, including the necessary infrastructure, focusing primarily on specific geographical areas, and covering the digital transformation needs of local SMEs, mid-caps and/or public sector organisations. Considering the transformation potential of AI technologies, these will be a reinforced focus of EDIHs’ operations under this call.

The consolidation of the EDIHs network will be pivotal in supporting the wide deployment and uptake of European AI technologies, solutions, and tools and in promoting the adoption of other crucial digital technologies, while upholding Union values and human-centric perspective.

Furthermore, the network will harness the potential of green digital technologies, advancing Europe’s collective climate and environmental goals. This approach not only enhances the resilience of Europe’s industry but also boosts its strategic autonomy. With its enhanced presence in countries associated to Digital Europe, the EDIH network will help bridge technology gaps, and support competitiveness and economic convergence.

EDIHs will collaborate with the EU AI Innovation infrastructures and will become a central point for companies and public sector ensuring a flexible and seamless digital journey and referring them to the services provided by these AI innovation infrastructures where appropriate. This collaboration does NOT mean that EDIHs need to integrate a representative of each EU AI infrastructures in their own consortium. It means that EDIHs have to map out these infrastructures, establish contacts with them and help their customer benefit from the services provided by the other initiatives in a client journey perspective. These collaborations will not only accelerate the deployment of AI technologies but also ensure that these technologies are applied effectively and ethically. EDIHs will play a pivotal role in bridging the gap between AI research and real-world applications, driving economic growth and improving public services across Europe.The EDIHs will act as a multiplier and widely diffuse the use of all the digital capacities built up under the different specific objectives of the Digital Europe Programme and including the effective use of key digital standards. To the extent possible, the EDIHs should use the AI solutions of European start-ups and SMEs and/or those provided and stemming from EU projects, including from the AI-on-Demand Platform.

Highlighting the vital importance to strengthen the value chains of critical digital technologies, the EDIHs should closely collaborate with AI Factories as well as with the High-Performance Computing competence centres. Where relevant, the EDIHs will facilitate access for their customers to the EuroHPC AI-optimised supercomputers. They will also help SMEs fine-tune available AI solutions to their business needs and use cases by providing, wherever needed, also access to AI training.

It should be avoided that there is duplication of actions of the other AI innovation infrastructures and the EDIHs, and therefore working arrangements will be agreed among them, where the focus of the EDIHs will be on their role as multiplier and reaching out to all regions in Europe. Proposals will describe the planned delivery of AI services and referral mechanisms.

Countries associated to the Digital Europe Programme

Countries recently associated to the Digital Europe Programme participated in the call organised in 2024 that leads to the launch of several EDIHs in these countries starting in 2025. It is crucial to consolidate a stronger and more comprehensive network with a call to the EDIHs with a Seal of Excellence in these countries. By incorporating new EDIHs in these countries, the EDIH network can tap into a broader pool of expertise, resources, and innovation ecosystems, enhancing its capacity to drive digital transformation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption across the continent. Furthermore, this expansion will enable the hubs to refocus on the uptake and wide deployment of European AI solutions and tools, fostering a more robust and competitive European digital landscape. Most importantly, the widened network will ensure that a larger number of customers, including Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), midcaps, and public administrations, can benefit from the digital transformation and AI revolution, thereby promoting economic growth, social prosperity, and regional development across the entire Europe.

Scope:Each EDIH will provide services based on a specific focus and expertise, which will support the local private and public sector with their digital transformation with particular focus on support to development, training deployment and uptake of European AI. This specialisation can be strengthened over time and should make use of existing local competencies in this area.

The EDIH network is dedicated to promoting and facilitating the digital transformation of SMEs and public services through four types of services:

• Test before invest: providing access to technical expertise and experimentation facilities, in particular to AI-related services.
• Training and skill development: offering training sessions to SMEs and public services for upskilling and reskilling of the workforce.
• Support to identify and facilitate access to potential financing sources to support digital transformation.
• Foster an innovation ecosystem and networking opportunities

Each EDIH is expected to provide all four types of services. They can however have different weights in the overall services portfolio. The services will be provided on an open, transparent and non-discriminatory basis and will be targeted mainly to (1) SMEs and mid-caps and/or (2) public sector organisations conducting non-economic activities.

Each EDIH will act as an access point to the European network of EDIHs, helping local companies and/or public actors to get support from other EDIHs in case the needed competences fall outside their remit, ensuring that every stakeholder gets the needed support wherever it is available in Europe. Reversely, each EDIH will support the companies and public actors from other regions and countries presented by other EDIHs that need their expertise.

The EDIHs will also serve as contact point for the AI innovation infrastructures as described above, notably the AI factories, AI-on-demand platform and TEFs, and offer a first-line AI help desk to businesses and public sector organisations, including basic information on compliance with the AI Act as well relevant sources of further information and ensuring a broad adoption of strategic technologies supporting the development of an AI continent.

Each EDIH will make available the relevant experimentation facilities and demonstrators related to its specialisation. SMEs, mid-caps, and the public sector will be able to test the technologies proposed, including where relevant their environmental impact, and the feasibility of applying these technologies to their business before further investing in it. Likewise, EDIHs will harness the potential of green digital technologies, advancing Europe’s collective climate and environmental goals.

EDIHs will also provide access to finance services including providing information and facilitating access to public and private funding sources as well as to public and private investors.

The EDIHs will be active in networking with other hubs, sharing best practices and specialist knowledge, in bringing companies into contact with other companies of their value chain, and in seeking synergies with innovators and early adopters that test solutions in novel experiments and can foster the adoption of digital technologies, and notably AI, in working and business environments in a more human-friendly way. EDIHs will also play a brokering role between public administrations and companies providing e-government technologies.

In all the networking activities, EDIHs will be supported by the Digital Transformation Accelerator (DTA) and therefore it is compulsory that EDIHs participate actively in the relevant support activities of the Digital Transformation Accelerator, such as matchmaking, training, and capacity building events. The Digital Transformation Accelerator in cooperation with the Commission will also host tools, such as the Digital Maturity Assessment Tool, and have the role to centralise overall Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of the network, and therefore each EDIH will report the necessary information to the DTA. EDIHs are encouraged to make use of the digital tools provided but are also free to use their own tools. However, interoperability with the EDIH network tools is a requirement, so that users of the EDIHs will have a seamless experience.

DTA will organize events and activities for the network of EDIH, to share information and experiences, train, build cohesion. EDIHs should foresee active participation in those events and activities.

The EDIHs should closely collaborate with the AI factories as well as with the High-Performance Computing competence centres, the Cybersecurity centres, the AI Testing and Experimentation Facilities, and other EDIHs seeking complementarities in view of supporting companies and public sector organisations with their digital transformation. To the extent possible, the EDIHs should use the AI solutions of European start-ups and SMEs and/or those provided and stemming from EU projects, including from AI on Demand Platform. Where relevant, the EDIHs will facilitate access for their customers to the EuroHPC AI-optimised supercomputers. They will also help SMEs fine-tune available AI solutions to their business needs and use cases by providing, wherever needed, also access to AI training.

EDIHs will maintain structured long-term relationships with the relevant local actors like regional authorities, industrial clusters, SME associations, business development agencies, incubators, accelerators, chambers of commerce, and partners of the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN), Cybersecurity Centres and Startup Europe by offering joint investor-related events, organising common trainings, workshops or info days, referring SMEs from EEN to EDIHs and from EDIHs to EEN according to their specific needs. It is expected that local actors planning mutual support with a local EDIH will sign a Memorandum of Understanding for a proper governance of their collaboration 1.

Additionally, EDIHs will serve as an interface for the European Commission to support the implementation of specific sectorial policies, SME policies and eGovernment policies. This will imply that EDIHs specialised in a specific sector could be consulted on policies related to their sector of competence and could participate in specific actions.

EDIHs will design operations to achieve sustainability level beyond the implementation and will indicate how they will build local capacity, foster community ownership, and integrate the initiative into their ecosystems.

The total public funding for this action may be up to 100% of eligible costs (50% coming from the Digital Europe Programme and up to 50% coming from the Member States). Proposals will describe their co-funding sources (e.g. public funding and remaining amounts to be paid by customers) and how they will achieve economic sustainability for their operations. In line with Appendix 6 on State Aid, Member States have to ensure that State aid is granted in line with the applicable State aid rules, such as de minimis or GBER (ensuring compliance with GBER compatibility conditions, including on aid intensities and notification thresholds set out in Article 4 GBER).

1 See also “Cooperation guidelines for a seamless digitalization support to European SMEs”, November 2023, https://european-digital-innovation-hubs.ec.europa.eu/news/strategic-guidelines-unlock-collaboration-leading-european-networks.