Offers up to €100,000 per project in funding for innovative solutions!
In an effort to fuel the growth of digital solutions for rural-urban synergies and to maximize project impact, RURBANIVE has officially launched its Open Call for projects. With a budget of €600,000, RURBANIVE’s Open Call aspires to fund innovative and disruptive ideas that will help transform communities and boost the well-being and economy of rural-urban areas.
RURBANIVE invites consortia of 2-4 parties, including at least one technology and service provider and one end-user, to submit proposals that address societal and environmental challenges. These challenges span a variety of critical areas such as improving logistics and shortening value chains, ecosystem and biodiversity restoration, regional circular bioeconomy development, user engagement and empowerment, culture and heritage promotion, and enhanced mobility.
Each selected project stands to receive up to €100,000, with individual partners eligible for funding between €20,000 and €60,000. This financial support aims to accelerate the development and implementation of innovative solutions that bridge the gap between rural and urban communities.
Bridging Communities with RUEs
More specifically, applicants are expected to propose Rural-Urban Enablers (RUEs), meaning digital solutions or other types of advanced technologies, based on the six identified domains of RURBANIVE:
- Improving logistics, and shortening value chains: refers to the flow of resources between rural communities and urban hubs, investigating new ways by which reciprocal growth can be achieved.
- Ecosystem and biodiversity restoration: includes degraded, arid soil ecosystems, like quarrying operations, targets in local plant community reinstallation (drought tolerant plant species), and integration of natural and agricultural ecosystems in a uniform landscape by introducing novel, microbiome-based, restoration technologies and processes.
- Regional circular bioeconomy development: includes optimizing regional residual biomass streams by data collection, visualizing resource flows, and developing innovation pathways based on environmental, social, and economic factors in sustainable and resilient city-region areas.
- User engagement, empowerment, society and territorial awareness: centred on empowering individuals and communities, particularly in rural and underserved areas, by fostering a deep connection to their environment and society.
- Culture, landscape and heritage access and promotion: focuses on enhancing the appeal and accessibility of rural cultural and natural heritage for urban visitors, and potentially prospective future inhabitants for the rural areas.
- Enhanced mobility: refers to mobility patterns of citizens, existing infrastructure and other accessibility constraints to investigate how commuting between rural and urban communities takes place. Enhanced mobility paves the way for a holistic approach towards mobility, where all people, and especially Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs), can optimally utilize the urban space and reach their destinations on time.
The Open Call intends to enrich RURBANIVE’s Community Store, a digital hub offering enhanced capabilities for accessing solutions and services. By incorporating at least six new RUEs, the initiative seeks to expand the reach and impact of these enablers across diverse regional contexts and socio-economic conditions.
The implementation of selected projects will follow a structured 12-month timeline divided into three phases between September 2025 and August 2026.
Proposals for the Open Call must be submitted digitally through the opencalls.fund platform by March 31, 2025, at 17:00 CET. For more information, interested parties can visit RURBANIVE’s official website.
To ensure the quality and fairness of the selection process, RURBANIVE is seeking experienced evaluators. If you are interested in being an evaluator you can apply here.