With our next call, we invite organisations from across central Europe to submit transnational cooperation ideas for small-scale projects. On this page, you will find a preview of key call elements to help you start developing concrete proposals and partnerships.

The overall objective of the call will be to “pioneer solutions for peripheral and lagging areas, making them more attractive to live and work in”. Consequentially, the call will have a territorial and thematic focus and will address small-scale projects as outlined below. The indicative budget will be around 14 million Euros ERDF.

More information on requirements and the application process will be published when the call launches on 15 October 2024. The timeline below will be further updated after call closure, especially in view of the assessment. Please note that this will also include hearings as a novelty. In these hearings, applicants have to deliver a short pitch deck and explain proposals “in their own words”. The hearings will be held in English.

Territorial and thematic focus

Territorial challenges

The central Europe territory is characterised by structural differences and economic disparities between different types of regions, notably more advanced and industrialised areas (e.g. capital regions, metropolitan areas) and deprived areas (e.g. peripheral areas including inner peripheries, rural areas which are lagging behind). The latter are characterised by lower competitiveness and shrinking populations, and they face many different challenges in relation to economic development, connectivity, demographic change and social cohesion. Furthermore, there are significant disparities in the quality of governance and public services.

Targeted territories

With this call we want to unlock the development potentials of peripheral and lagging areas. Projects shall deliver local and regional solutions tailored to the specific challenges of these places in line with the principles of the Territorial Agenda (TA) 2030, with lessons learned from related pilot actions serving as insights for project applicants.

In order to qualify for the territorial focus of the call, areas to be targeted by projects have to show one or more of the following characteristics:

• Low economic potential;
• Poor access to services of general interest, often affected by demographic change;
• Lack of relational proximity, decline in significance, influence or connectivity.

These characteristics of peripherality and lagging areas are of qualitative nature and there is no specific list or map of eligible regions to be targeted by projects. Targeted areas may be rural but may also include urban areas which are lagging behind in terms of socio-economic development. Their scale and size can vary depending on the project goals, e.g. ranging from local neighbourhoods (e.g. suburbs), city districts, villages and rural communities, small-or medium-sized towns or entire regions that are suffering from peripherality or that lag behind.

Thematic focus

The call will be thematically focused and be open for proposals in four programme specific objectives (SOs):

• SO 1.2: Strengthening skills for smart specialisation, industrial transition and entrepreneurship
• SO 2.5: Greening urban mobility
• SO 3.1: Improving transport connections of rural and peripheral regions
• SO 4.1: Strengthening governance for integrated territorial development

Projects shall promote good governance through inclusive and participatory processes, on supporting socio-economic transformation by developing human capital and improving connectivity and governance in the concerned territories.

Launch of call  15 October 2024

Closure of call  10 December 2024

Assessment incl. hearings  First half of 2025

Selection of proposals  Summer 2025