CELTIC-NEXT call for projects (spring 2025)

Participation

Participation is open to companies of all sizes, universities and research organisations.

By participating in a Cluster project, you benefit from:

• Perform collaborative join RD&I consortia and projects within Europe and beyond
• Get public funding support, professional coaching and mentoring
• Reach a high chance of getting your project approved and funded
• Interconnect with SMEs and large industries in more than 45 countries
• Have low administrative overhead and a flexible framework
• Get high exploitation potential and business impact
• Immerse yourself into a rich ecosystem by growing and collaborating beyond borders
• Run your collaborative project via our Brokerage Tool
• Foster and generate collaborative innovation by leading or being part of an industry-led project
• Stimulate disruptive and sustainable ideas
• Boost your competitiveness and accelerate your growth
• Access new markets in a shortened time

CELTIC-NEXT

CELTIC-NEXT is the Eureka Cluster labelled for next-generation communications for a secured, trusted, and sustainable digital society. CELTIC-NEXT stimulates and orchestrates international collaborative projects in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) domain.

CELTIC-NEXT is an industry-driven initiative involving all the major ICT industry players and many SMEs, service providers, and research institutions. The CELTIC-NEXT activities are open to all organisations that share the CELTIC-NEXT vision of an inclusive digital society and are willing to collaborate to their benefit, aligned with their national priorities, to advance the development and uptake of advanced ICT solutions.

For more details, visit the CELTIC-NEXT website or contact the Cluster offices and your national funding body.

CELTIC-NEXT gives project proposers almost limitless freedom regarding what research topic they can explore in their ICT research projects. The programme’s philosophy is to facilitate projects in a bottom-up way, thus offering projects the chance of both evolutionary and disruptive innovation in all relevant ICT areas without limiting their creativity and ambition.

Relevant industry sectors example (but are not limited to):

• ICT
• 6G
• 5G & beyond
• Metaverses
• AI
• Networks & Private Networks
• Industry 4.0 – Logistics
• Consumer IoT & Industry IoT applications
• Digitalisation & Cybersecurity
• Non-Terrestrial-Networks & Terrestrial Network convergence
• Open RAN
• Critical Comms
• Remote Health / Care for Emergency & Rescue Services
• Critical Resilient Infrastructures
• More …

• Call opening: 1 January 2025
• Online launch event: 15 January 2025, 10:30 am
• Proposers’ Brokerage Day: TBD
• Consortium building session: following days of the PBD
• Deadline: 25 April 2025
• Label notifications: June 2025

Eureka has limited eligibility criteria for organisations participating in a Clusters consortium:

• Your project idea must represent international cooperation in the form of a specific project.
• The project must be directed at researching or developing an innovative product, process or service with the goal of commercialisation.
• The project must have a civilian purpose.
• Your consortium must include at least two independent legal entities from a minimum of two Eureka countries.
• No single organisation or country can be responsible for more than 70% of the project budget.

If there is no allocated budget for your organisation type in your country and you want to participate in a project consortium, contact your national funding body using the form below to see whether there are other funding opportunities available or talk to them about self-funding.

1. Contact your national funding body and CELTIC-NEXT offices to discuss your project idea and eligibility.
2. Create an account on Clusters Projects Tool: https://cluster-projects.eurestools.eu/
3. Submit your CELTIC Project Proposal template (CPP) before the deadline, with the Confirmation Letter/Declaration of Acceptance (CLD) for each consortium partner within two weeks after your proposal submission.
4. If you project is selected, you will receive a positive Label Notification, a Project Cooperation Agreement (PCA) should be elaborated and signed between the consortium partners.

During the submission process, you will be guided step by step as all documents are provided in the tool and on our Guides, Contracts & Templates page: https://www.celticnext.eu/guides-contracts-templates/

In case you have any questions regarding the CELTIC Project Portal, don’t hesitate to contact us via office@celticnext.eu.

Please note that your national funding body may have additional steps for applying for R&D funding.

Online Launch Event:

CELTIC-NEXT is pleased to announce its online Launch Event on Wednesday 15 January 2025 from 10:30 am to 12:00 am CET for the Spring Call 2025!

This Launch Event is an excellent place to meet the CELTIC-NEXT Office and learn about the programme’s success and the next opportunities!

As usual, this bottom-up call is the occasion to enable projects in the field of next-generation communications for the digital society that contribute to a sustainable world. By applying and participating in the CELTIC-NEXT Call, your organisation can access national public funding for your R&D project.

The first steps to prepare your proposal will be explained, such as creating a Proposal Portal account and using the Brokerage Tool to find partners and share ideas.

Registration is now open: https://www.celticnext.eu/event/launch-event-of-the-celtic-next-spring-call-2025/

Brokerage Tool:

In addition, to support you in preparing your project proposal for CELTIC-NEXT Calls, we have created an online Brokerage Tool: https://www.celticnext.eu/brokerage-tool/

Its goal is to help you build your Consortium for your CELTIC Project. The Following functionalities are available:

• Submission form for Project Ideas and Expertise Offers
• Overview lists with search form
• Contact request forms
• Process owner support functions: approval process and contact request tracking

After submission, the CELTIC Office will check and publish your Project Idea or your Expertise.