Develop call
Open Calls
Financial Support for Third Parties
Within the framework of the PoliRuralPlus project, a series of four open calls are anticipated. These calls are designed to attract and fund innovative proposals that align with the project’s overarching aims. The primary objective of these calls is to extend the impact of the PoliRuralPlus initiative, exploring new methodologies, technologies, and strategies for rural-urban development.
The calls aim to:
- Encourage innovative approaches to rural development that can be replicated or scaled across different regions.
- Promote collaboration among stakeholders from various sectors, including technology, agriculture, and regional planning, to address rural challenges in a holistic manner.
- Generate insights and solutions that can inform policy and practice, contributing to the broader objectives of balanced rural-urban development.
Maximum support for one organisation across all calls can be 60.000 Euro.
DEVELOP CALL
Quick Facts
- Budget: €30,000 - 100,000 per project
- Total projects funded: 5 - 15
- Duration of the call: 26 May - 31 July 2025
- Estimated implementation period: October 2025 - June 2026
- Applicants: A single legal entity or a consortium of up to three entities may apply.
Quick Facts
- Budget: €30,000 - 100,000 per project
- Total projects funded: 5 - 15
- Duration of the call: 26 May - 31 July 2025
- Estimated implementation period: October 2025 - June 2026
- Applicants: A single legal entity or a consortium of up to three entities may apply.
Objectives of the Call
To fund applied, small-scale innovation projects that address specific rural-urban challenges in PoliRuralPlus pilot regions while contributing to the technical advancement of the project. Funded projects must:
- Develop and deploy practical, place-based digital applications aligned with PoliRuralPlus pilot-specific objectives (Section 2.4 of the Guidelines for Applicants).
- Translate promising concepts into action, moving from ideation to implementation by funding pilot activities that apply advanced technologies such as AI, machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), geographic information systems (GIS), or data-driven decision tools.
- Be designed to be compatible with the PoliRuralPlus digital tools (Chapter 4 of the Guidelines for Applicants) and technical frameworks, allowing for smooth integration if required, including licensing and communication compatibility.
- Demonstrate replicability and scalability, showing how proposed solutions could be adapted and applied across other regions or contexts in the EU.
- Support the principles and values of the New European Bauhaus (NEB) by promoting sustainability, inclusion, and aesthetics in the development of rural-urban solutions.
- Ensure that all data collected during implementation is incorporated into PoliRuralPlus tools, including the JackDaw platform and related AI components, to enhance decision-making capabilities and generate stronger project-wide results.
Expected Results
Projects funded under the Develop Call are expected to deliver the following results:
- Operational digital applications tailored to pilot-specific rural-urban challenges, deployed and tested in real or near-real conditions within one or more PoliRuralPlus pilot regions.
- Demonstrated integration of advanced technologies (e.g. AI, ML, GIS, IoT, or data analytics) that provide tangible added value to rural-urban development processes.
- Interoperability with PoliRuralPlus digital tools (as described in Chapter 4), including successful data integration with the Jackdaw GeoAI Chatbot.
- Transferable methodologies or documentation outlining how the application can be replicated or scaled in other contexts or regions, ideally in the form of user guides, APIs, or open standards.
- Structured contribution of collected data into the PoliRuralPlus data ecosystem, enhancing the AI components and decision-support functionalities of the project.
- Evidence of stakeholder engagement, showing how end users (e.g. local authorities, SMEs, NGOs) contributed to and benefited from the application’s development and deployment.
- Visible alignment with New European Bauhaus (NEB) values, illustrated through design, accessibility, and inclusive stakeholder involvement
Specific Objectives per Pilot Area
Pilot 1, situated in Ireland's Monaghan County, aims to foster a vibrant, integrated, and sustainable rural-urban community supported by a circular and green economy by 2040. Reflecting the Irish Pilot’s commitment to sustainability, the roadmap has updated its research focus to “Advancing the Circular Economy in County Monaghan: Exploring Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Environmental Products and Services.”
Specific objectives to be addressed:
- Uncover pathways for sustainable enterprise development in the circular economy
- Identifying emerging sectors and innovative practices in the circular economy.
- Highlight opportunities for growth in the circular economic sector with a focus on innovation and entrepreneurship.
- Full integration of social enterprises advancing inclusive, community-driven circular growth.
- Enhanced quality of life, with Monaghan serving as a model for balanced and regenerative rural-urban collaboration.
Slovakia's pilot (Pilot 2), covering the entire country, serves as a strategic framework for partnerships to revitalize rural areas by addressing key challenges and unlocking new opportunities for sustainable development. Aligned with regional, national, and EU-level priorities - such as the European Green Deal, the EU's Long-Term Vision for Rural Areas, and Slovakia's national rural development strategies - the RAP aims to foster thriving, resilient rural communities while strengthening rural-urban linkages.
As a stakeholders driven pilot the main theme, core areas and strategic goals were identified in a series of 3 conferences involving over 250 participants over a period of 1 year (March 2024 till March 2025).
Main theme formulated: From Dialogue to Action: Strengthening Rural-Urban Linkages through Multi-Sector and Multi-Actor Cooperation & Innovation
The RAP focuses on three core areas:
- Enhancing Rural Leadership: Equipping local leaders with digital and AI tools to address rural challenges and opportunities effectively.
- Boosting Governance: Improving decision-making processes and increasing rural engagement to ensure inclusive and effective policies.
- Encouraging Collaboration: Strengthening ties between sectors and communities to foster a cohesive approach to regional development.
To address regional challenges and opportunities effectively, the Slovak RAP has identified three strategic goals:
- Strengthening Stakeholders Engagement and Capacity Building
- Drive Digitalization and Smart Transformation
- Enhanced Cross-Sector Strategic Cooperation
Through digital tools, foresight methodologies, and cross-sector collaborations, the RAP aims to bridge the urban-rural divide and create a future-ready roadmap for Slovakia’s rural transformation. By leveraging innovative approaches like the Multi-Actor Approach (MAA) and advanced digital tools such as the PoliRuralPlus Knowledge Space and the Spatial Enhanced Attractiveness Mapping Toolbox (SEAMT), the RAP provides a data-driven roadmap for rural transformation.
Pilot 3, located in the region of Central Greece, is geared towards providing training in sustainable agritech technologies and promotional services for agritourism. By enhancing digital skills and promoting local agricultural products, this pilot aims to stimulate economic diversification and capitalise on the region's natural resources.
Specific objectives to be addressed:
- Training for sustainable agritech technologies
- Promotional services for agritourism
- Increase in digital skills among AKIS actors
- Diversification of agritourism opportunities and promotion of local agricultural products
Italian pilot (Pilot 4), situated in Apulia, emphasises the promotion of short food supply chains (SFSC) to strengthen connections between rural and urban areas. By promoting healthy diets and lifestyles, this initiative aims to foster synergies and collaborative models between urban dwellers and rural communities.
Specific objectives to be addressed:
- Support measures for the establishment of short food supply chains
- Promotion of healthy diets and lifestyles
- Creation of direct linkages between rural and urban citizens
- Enhance awareness about the quality and accessibility of local food products
- Explore and/or implement digital solutions and tools that contribute to SFSC innovation
Pilot 5 in Finland, situated in the Mallusjoki rural district, aims to build a Rural Event Industry Ecosystem, fostering community engagement, public-private partnership, and economic opportunities through rural events. By enhancing and leveraging the region's natural and human assets, innovativeness and creative sector, this pilot seeks to attract visitors from urban areas and stimulate community-driven rural development.
Specific objectives to be addressed:
- Promote the rural events industry ecosystem dynamics and economic opportunities. The ecosystem includes businesses involved in local food production, nature and outdoor activities, culture, and the creative arts.
- Strengthening territorial identity and legacy for community spirit and well-being for example through digital cultural heritage platforms, community storytelling by augmented reality or digital archives and memory projects.
- Use publicly available geospatial data such as infrastructure, land use, mobility, and waste management combined with AI-driven models to help individuals, businesses, and communities plan socially and environmentally sustainable solutions, in line with New European Bauhaus principles. These may include energy-efficient building upgrades, sustainable land use strategies, circular economy initiatives, and improved rural-urban connectivity.
Located in the Bohemian Forest (Šumava and Bayerischer Wald), this cross-border pilot aims to support small and medium-sized farms in navigating climate change, digital transformation, and evolving policy demands. Building on a strong rural identity and traditional industries, the pilot will establish a Rural Innovation Hub to promote sustainable agriculture, precision farming, and access to shared digital tools and services.
By 2030, the Hub envisions becoming a trusted partner for rural communities, offering hands-on support to help farms remain competitive, resilient, and sustainable.
Specific objectives to be addressed:
- Establish a cross-border Rural Innovation Hub to support climate-smart and sustainable agriculture.
- Support small and medium-sized farms in adopting precision farming, drone services, and AI-powered decision tools.
- Deliver AI and digital skills training for farmers, youth, and public sector workers.
- Foster cross-border collaboration through joint activities with Bavarian innovation hubs and shared solution development.
- Enhance access to funding via AI-powered tools for grant matchmaking and expert consulting.
- Improve access to affordable and shared digital technologies to increase adoption in rural areas.
- Strengthen territorial identity and enable inclusive, community-driven rural development.
Spanish pilot (Pilot 7), situated in the region of Sierra & Mancha Conquense, centres on rural-urban synergies and cultural heritage, leveraging the Archaeological Parks as a focal point for community collaboration and economic development. This initiative aims to attract visitors, foster local entrepreneurship, and bridge the gap between rural and urban areas.
Specific objectives to be addressed:
- Promotion of rural-urban synergies and cultural heritage
- Utilisation of interconnected sites engaging public and private stakeholders supported by ADESIMAN as Local Action Group
- Economic development through community collaboration
- Bridging the gap between rural and urban areas
Pilot 8 in Latvia's Vidzeme Planning Region is a public regional development institution. Its mission is to coordinate and promote long-term and well-balanced development of the region, which is guided by the VPR Development Programme (DP). So far, there are no systematic mechanisms to monitor the progress of VPR DP on a territorial level, and so far, it is monitored only on an organization level. It is very important that each goal and planned activities of a VPR DP respond directly to the needs of inhabitants and, where possible, actively involve them in the action. Therefore, a transparent, reliable system for collecting, aggregating and communicating regional development progress to the public is a necessity. The establishment of a unified monitoring framework in the Vidzeme planning region as a territory is very important in order to ensure a successful development management process and feedback to each of the parties involved in the implementation of the VPR Development Programme, thus also promoting the interest and involvement of each resident of the region in the development of their place, region and Vidzeme region as a whole.
Specific objectives to be addressed:
- Develop an integrated, intuitive and sustainable ICT solution/tool for the systematic impact monitoring of the Development Programme of the Vidzeme planning region.
- ICT solution/tool must include a section on the assessment of the development of the Vidzeme planning region as a territory (NUTS 3) that reflects the regional data and their sources, linkages with municipal and regional planning documents, relevant interventions, measures, KPIs, SDGs etc. It also should include a section containing a monitoring and evaluation system of interventions implemented by the administration of the Vidzeme planning region following best practices used in impact monitoring.
- ICT solution/tool has a dashboard that create interactive and visual information (including GIS based) on the regional development progress and foresight in correlation with macro-level indicators.
- The main user of the developed ICT solution/tool is the administration of Vidzeme planning region that can also measure internal contextual and financial contribution to the overall Development Programme for the whole territory, at the time the ICT solution/tool provides the opportunity for external stakeholders (municipalities, LAGs, NGOs) to create their own profile and monitor their own progress on the development.
- Iterative involvement of the users should be ensured during development of the ICT solution/tool.
Pilot 9 in Malta targets digital transformation and entrepreneurial capacity building in rural areas, aiming to level up agricultural sectors through digitisation and youth empowerment. By fostering collaboration between rural and urban stakeholders, this pilot endeavours to bridge societal divides and promote circularity.
Specific objectives to be addressed:
- Digital transformation and entrepreneurial capacity building in rural areas
- Levelling up of the agricultural sectors through digitisation
- Empowerment of youth and promotion of circularity
- Bridging societal divides between rural and urban areas
PoliRuralPlus Tools to Support the Development of Your Solutions
Applicants to the Develop Call are strongly encouraged to incorporate one or more technologies developed within PoliRuralPlus into their proposed digital applications. These tools are designed to support data-driven decision-making, promote stakeholder engagement, and enable the practical deployment of innovative rural-urban solutions.
Integration with PoliRuralPlus tools will be considered during proposal evaluation and may be used as a tiebreaker in the case of proposals with equal overall scores within a region (see Chapter 7 for more details).
| Technology | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| Jackdaw GeoAI Chatbot | An AI-powered chatbot integrating geospatial data to provide place-specific insights and decision support. It uses datasets from INSPIRE, OpenStreetMap (OSM), and PSI data infrastructures to analyse rural potential, infrastructure gaps, and development opportunities. | |
| PoliRuralPlus Hub | A centralised digital platform for accessing tools like Jackdaw, MapWhiteboard, and the Policy Advisor. It supports interoperability, data sharing, and stakeholder collaboration, streamlining rural-urban development processes. | |
| Map Whiteboard | A GIS-based tool for real-time map visualization and collaborative editing. It supports GeoJSON data, Web Map Service (WMS) integration, and stakeholder-driven spatial planning. | |
| Rural Attractiveness Explorer (RAE) | An analysis tool for assessing rural regions’ appeal using socio-economic and infrastructure data. Features include dynamic scenario testing and AI-enhanced recommendations for rural development. | |
| Policy Advisor | An AI-based assistant offering tailored policy advice, knowledge hub integration, and automated documentation to support the development of Regional Action Plans (RAPs). | |
| Atlas of Best Practices | An interactive repository of successful rural-urban development strategies. It includes detailed, geographically mapped examples and facilitates knowledge sharing across regions. | |
| E-Market for Local Food | An online marketplace promoting local food producers by enhancing visibility and market access, fostering rural-urban economic integration. | |
| Vulture: AI-Driven Productivity Sandbox | An AI-powered tool for intelligent information management, enabling secure data ingestion, retrieval, and analysis through AI-driven workflows. | |
| Multi Actor Approach Tool | A collaborative platform for stakeholder engagement and data-driven decision-making in rural-urban development projects. |
Eligibility criteria
Who can apply?
- Type of entities: Any type of entity can apply for the Develop call funding as long as they have the operational and financial capacity to carry out the tasks that they propose.
- Individual or consortium applications: Single applicants or consortia of up to three entities are eligible to apply. In the case of consortia, one partner must act as the lead applicant (hereinafter referred to as the Coordinator). The contract for provisioning of financing will be concluded only with the Coordinator, who will be responsible for making internal arrangements within the consortium (e.g. a consortium agreement), distributing the funds, and coordinating reporting. All members of the consortium must be eligible under the same conditions listed here.
- Eligible countries: Applicants must be legally established in an EU Member State or an Associated Country as outlined by the Horizon Europe rules.
Other eligibility criteria
- Third parties: The proposal should not include any subcontracting or transfer of financial contribution to third parties.
- One proposal per applicant: Only one proposal will be accepted for funding per applicant (including consortium members). In the case of multiple submissions, only the last one received (timestamp of the system) will enter into the evaluation process, the rest being declared as non-eligible.
- Declaration of honour: Applicants must declare their eligibility and no conflict of interest in the online application.
- Pilot-specific proposals: The proposal must address specific objectives identified within one of the 9 designated pilot regions of the PoliRuralPlus project (Section 2.4 of the Guidelines).
- Language: English is the official language for PoliRuralPlus open calls. Submissions and deliverables done in any other language will not be evaluated. Any supporting documents requested at the time of proposal submission must also be in English, except the document proving the legal status of the organisation.
- GDPR compliance: Any project involving personal data must adhere to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to ensure data privacy and protection.
- Non-beneficiary clause: PoliRuralPlus beneficiaries and their affiliated entities are ineligible to apply.
- Deliverable obligations: Applicants commit to produce obligatory deliverables as outlined in Chapter 6.
- Proposal page limit: The total length of Part B is 13 pages, including the cover page.
Obligatory deliverables
Media & Dissemination Outputs
2 news articles (external or institutional), 3 blog posts for PoliRuralPlus, Social media updates for key project stages (launch, mid-point, final).
Mid-Term Progress Report (after months 1–4)
Summary of work done and alignment with goals, Working prototype in real/test setting, Stakeholder feedback and data integration progress, Financial report and updated action plan, Proof of project visibility.
Final Report (at project end)
Full application description, results, and publicity, Challenges, lessons, and future recommendations, Integration with PoliRuralPlus tools and data, Replication and scalability potential, Summary of communication efforts, NEB principles assessment (sustainability, inclusion, aesthetics), Final financial report per partner (if applicable).
For details see the Guidelines for Applicants, Section 6.
Submission process
Proposal submissions are solely via the online form on the PoliRuralPlus Knowledge Hub - see Part A: Administrative form - "Fill in the form for submission" button.
Upon submission, applicants will receive a confirmation email, ensuring that their proposal has been successfully received.
The proposal contains two parts:
- Part A: Administrative Form - This section is designed to collect essential information about your organisation and designated contacts for technical and contractual matters. Please provide accurate and complete details to facilitate smooth communication throughout the application and project implementation process.
- Part B: Technical Description - Part B of the proposal is the narrative part that includes three sections that each correspond to an evaluation criterion. Part B needs to be uploaded as a PDF document following the template provided as part of the open call documents. Part B includes the proposed budget and its justification.
