Programme Category
Programme Name
Programme Description
Digital Europe Programme is the first EU programme that aims to accelerate the recovery and drive the digital transformation of Europe.
Worth €7.6 billion (in current prices), the Programme is a part of the next long-term EU budget, (the Multiannual Financial Framework), and it covers 2021 to 2027. It will provide funding for projects in five crucial areas: supercomputing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, advanced digital skills, and ensuring the wide use of digital technologies across the economy and society.
The Programme is fine-tuned to fill the gap between the research of digital technologies and their deployment, and to bring the results of research to the market – for the benefit of Europe’s citizens and businesses, and in particular SMEs. Investments under the Digital Europe programme supports the Union’s twin objectives of a green transition and digital transformation and strengthens the Union’s resilience and strategic autonomy.
Identifier Code
Call
Summary
Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) can play a transformative role in public administrations by automating routine tasks, enhancing personalised citizen-centric service delivery, and improving communication with citizens. It supports decision-making by analysing large datasets and simulating policy outcomes, while also helping in the drafting of legal texts. GenAI can also play a role in mitigating staff shortages and language barriers to access public services. Its implementation must take into account challenges related to privacy, robustness, sustainability, explainability, bias and transparency, while mitigating cybersecurity risks and ensuring human oversight in critical decisions complying with the AI Act.
The objective of the call is to accelerate the adoption of GenAI in public administrations by supporting three to four pilot projects.
Each pilot project will comprise one or more use cases where European GenAI solutions are developed and applied in the public administrations of the involved countries.
Detailed Call Description
The pilot projects will focus on using European GenAI solutions to drive innovation, improve public services, and enhance citizen experiences, including through:
- supporting decision making in areas such as sustainable urban planning, infrastructure development, and transportation-systems design;
- optimising public administrations’ internal processes and operations, and promoting smarter budget planning and human-resource allocation;
- tailoring interactions with citizens via advanced platforms, such as chatbots and agents, to deliver personalized assistance, improve the accessibility of public services, and offer integrated support across multiple domains, including combining social protection, healthcare, social services, public employment, migration management, security, and other services into a seamless, one-stop experience; and/or
- making legislation more machine-readable (‘law as code’) and complicated procedures and text more understandable to citizens and businesses, for instance regarding environmental authorisations, procedures for starting a new business, or funding opportunities.
A key element of the piloted GenAI solutions will be their replicability across various EU public administrations, enabling consistent digital service delivery across Member States.
A call will be launched to select consortia of public administrations at national, regional, or local level that wish to participate in the pilot projects. The consortia may also include other entities such as higher education institutions, research and technology organisations, and civil-society and non-governmental organisations, which will support the public administrations in the implementation of the pilot projects.
To apply, consortia must submit a project proposal that includes:
- An overview of the planned GenAI models and solutions and the specific use cases where these solutions will be deployed across participating public administrations;
- An overview of the expected outcomes and benefits of the proposed GenAI models and solutions;
- An outline of the consortium’s capacity to successfully integrate and scale up the proposed GenAI models and solutions; and
- A letter of commitment from the Member States or local or regional authorities of the participating public administrations, undertaking to provide 50% co-funding of the respective project costs, should the project be selected for funding.
Successful consortia will be awarded a grant to implement the proposed pilot projects. Specifically, public administrations within these consortia will be responsible for procuring the fine-tuning of proposed foundation models, developing tailored solutions based on these models, and integrating them into their existing platforms, systems, and operational workflows. The procurement could moreover cover supporting infrastructure and implementation activities such as:
- The technical infrastructure required to deploy and run GenAI solutions at scale and across single or multiple public administrations;
- The support needed by public administrations to ensure they have the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively implement and manage the deployed GenAI solutions; and
- The maintenance and optimisation costs for the deployed GenAI solutions.
In addition, other consortium entities may provide support to the public administrations across a range of areas, including:
- Developing procurement specifications;
- Sharing knowledge and building capacities;
- Organising change-management and adoption-support actions;
- Documenting best practices; and
- Engaging and communicating with citizen and other stakeholders.
- Entities that are part of a successful consortium will be ineligible to participate as suppliers in the procurement processes initiated by the public administrations within that consortium.
To ensure public trust, the procurement process will require the use of foundation models and systems which aligns with EU values and rules, particularly in terms of data protection, explainability, sustainability, and compliance with the EU AI Act. Projects that demonstrate EU-added value will be prioritised.
Strong links should also be built with the future Multi-Country Project on Innovative and Connected Public Administrations.
Call Total Budget
Financing percentage by EU or other bodies / Level of Subsidy or Loan
GenAI for the public administrations: between €5.000.000 and €7.000.000 per project.
Thematic Categories
- Information Technology
- Research, Technological Development and Innovation
Eligibility for Participation
- Educational Institutions
- Legal Entities
- Local Authorities
- NGOs
- Non Profit Organisations
- Private Bodies
- Researchers/Research Centers/Institutions
- State-owned Enterprises
Eligibility For Participation Notes
In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:
- be legal entities (public or private bodies)
- be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
- EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs)
- non-EU countries (except for topics with restrictions; see below):
- listed EEA countries and countries associated to the Digital Europe Programme (list of participating countries)
This topic is subject to restrictions due to security reasons: GenAI for the public administrations.
Only the following countries are eligible: EU Member States, EEA countries (Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein) and Switzerland.
Entities must not be directly or indirectly controlled from a country that is not an eligible country unless the granting authority agrees to allow for exceptional participation on the basis of a guarantee. For more information, see Annex 2.
Consortium composition – Proposals must be submitted by: minimum 3 independent applicants which are public administrations (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities) from 2 different eligible countries.
This call will be open to consortia comprising higher education institutions, research and technology organisations, civil-society organisations, non-governmental organisations, and other interested stakeholders.
The successful consortium will be responsible for enhancing the scalability and replication of successful European GenAI pilot solutions, through activities that foster knowledge sharing, community building, and capacity development.
Entities that are part of the successful CSA consortium will be excluded from participating as suppliers in the procurement of the public administrations involved in the pilot projects.
Call Opening Date
Call Closing Date
National Contact Point(s)
Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy
Directorate of Research and Innovation
Eleana Gabriel
Telephone: +357 22 691918
Email: egabriel@dmrid.gov.cy