Innovation for Public Development and Procurement Open Call
The European Commission has launched an open call to increase innovation in public procurement strategies. The call aims to build an extensive reference base for innovation procurement activities, as well as creating a network of procurers.
This call is part of the EU’s Single Market Programme, which has a budget of €4,2 million over the period 2021-2027, and provides an integrated package to support and strengthen the Single Market. A key objective is improving the competitiveness of businesses, especially SMEs, to complement financial support offered through InvestEU.
Deadline: May 3, 2022
 
Digital Europe Programme
The aim of this program is to support the development of advanced digital skills of people in the SMEs’ labour force by providing affordable access to high quality specialised training courses, reflecting the latest developments in key capacity areas, such as Cybersecurity, cloud or microelectronics.
SMEs owners, managers, and employees will have the possibility to attend high-class digital training that larger companies can already more easily afford. This action contributes to the implementation of the SME strategy for a sustainable and digital Europe, which will ultimately contribute to increasing the number of people able to design, develop, and deploy digital solutions in the economy and across sectors.
Deadline: May 17, 2022
 
The European Social Innovation Competition by the EIC
The challenge was thought for innovators (including the ones from universities, research organisations, SMEs, start-ups, etc) to dynamically develop their ideas into working solutions through competition, while facilitating a network of radical innovators shaping our society.
In particular, related to this year's challenge of “the future of living, innovation for affordable and sustainable housing districts”, social innovators will be key drivers in making housing districts more sustainable and inclusive, boosting employment and improving energy efficiency while ensuring cities and regions’ sustainability and citizens’ well-being.
In addition to non-technological social innovations, the competition will look for projects with a focus on breakthrough, market-creating, and deep-tech innovations embracing the policy objectives, which will boost innovation and, consequently, have an impact on local prosperity and sustainability.
Deadline: May 17, 2022
 
Call for Central Purchasing Bodies (CPB)  on SMEs Objectives 
This call aims to fund proposals that contribute to specific objectives related to SMEs, such as: improving the knowledge in strategic procurement of CPBs and SMEs staff, contributing to the professionalisation of CPBs in charge of public procurement regulation or policy on EU level, creating and contributing to a learning community of CPBs in charge of public procurement regulation or policy on EU level.  
The priority themes in learning objectives are: professionalisation of the CPB’s procurement practices, making the CPBs’ procurement accessible for participation of SME’s, strategic use of the instrument of public procurement to achieve green, digital and social outcomes. 
Deadline: May 18, 2022 
 
GROW/HARVEST Call for Financial Support to SMEs
The overall objective of the METABUILDING Grow/Harvest Project is to bring innovation to the “traditional” value chain of the construction sector and expand that value chain to other industrial sectors to create an Enlarged Built Environment.
The GROW/HARVEST call aims at stimulating the cross-sectoral collaboration of SMEs in the framework of innovative projects, which should serve as a starting point to help SMEs learn from what is going on in other sectors and use knowledge, expertise and technology assets from said sectors to increase their performance and productivity. 
Deadline: May 25, 2022 
 
The European Innovation Council Accelerator Open Call 
The EIC Accelerator supports companies (principally SMEs, and including start-ups) to scale up high impact innovations with the potential to create new markets or disrupt existing ones, through Business Acceleration Services and funding ranging from EUR 0.5 to EUR 17.5 million. Funding and support from the EIC Accelerator are designed to enable such innovators to attract the full investment amounts needed for scale up in a shorter timeframe, focusing in particular on innovations, building on scientific discovery or technological breakthrough. 
The EIC Accelerator supports the later stages of technology development as well as scaleups, which means that the technology component of the innovation must therefore have been tested and validated in a laboratory or other relevant environment. 
Deadline: June 15, 2022  
 
Innovation Procurement Strategy
The European Innovation Procurement Awards aim to recognise public and private buyers, natural persons and legal entities across Europe in their efforts to promote and stimulate innovation procurement and the innovative ways the solutions are procured, by providing state-of-the-art goods and services to society at large, and offering new growth and commercialisation opportunities for suppliers of disruptive solutions, particularly start-ups and SMEs.
The Awards also aims to demonstrate how innovation procurement positively transforms the economy by not only creating new and sustainable markets, but also by tackling societal challenges such as climate change. The Innovation Procurement Strategy Category Award Winner will be awarded EUR 75,000, while the Runner Up EUR 25,000.
Deadline: June 22, 2022

Call to Action: Mapping Innovation Support Organization in MIP Countries
MIP network has the mission of strengthening the Mediterranean Entrepreneurial and Innovation Ecosystems, by networking Innovation Support Organizations (ISOs) and other ecosystem players in the Mediterranean countries, and by implementing activities towards the enhancement of the local innovation and entrepreneurship support value chains.
Within this framework, CIHEAM Bari in collaboration with BUSINESSMED (Union of Mediterranean Confederations of Enterprises) and INSME (International Network for Small and Medium Enterprises), is engaged in the creation of the Mediterranean Observatory on Youth Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems. The observatory aims at gathering and analysing the information relative to the innovation strategies implemented by local ecosystem enablers within the realms of innovation and entrepreneurship.
To start with the creation of ISOs database, which will be updated on yearly base and that will contribute to draft the MIP annual report, we are pleased to invite you in filling a survey to collect the profiles and the key performance indicators of the ISOs.
Deadline: July 10, 2022

Ideas Powered for business SME Fund
Grant scheme designed to support the intellectual property (IP) rights of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the EU. The SME Fund is an initiative of the European Commission implemented by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO).
Deadline: 16 December 2022.