Apply AI: GenAI for the public administrations
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See in 5 min if you're eligible for Apply AI: GenAI for the public administrations offering max €21.0M funding💰 Funding Details
Funding Description – DIGITAL-2025-AI-08-SUPPLY-AI
What the Grant Finances
* 3–4 large-scale pilots that design, procure, fine-tune and deploy *European* Generative-AI solutions in public administrations.
* Typical EU contribution: €5–7 million per pilot (50 % of total costs). 50 % co-funding must be committed by participating Member-State, regional or local authorities.
* Maximum grant size (legal ceiling): €21 million (DIGITAL-AG rule), but a single proposal is expected to request ≤ €7 million.
* Eligible cost categories (budget-based):
- Procurement of services & supplies: foundation-model fine-tuning, cloud/edge infrastructure, integration, maintenance.
- Personnel of the public administrations & support entities.
- Travel & meeting costs, stakeholder engagement, dissemination.
- Indirect costs (7 % flat-rate).
Who Can Apply
1. Consortia led by at least one public administration (national, regional or local) established in an EU Member State or a country associated to DIGITAL.
2. Mandatory cross-border composition: *minimum two* eligible countries.
3. Optional partners: HEIs, RTOs, NGOs, civil-society bodies – *but they cannot later act as suppliers in the procurement they design*.
Ineligible & Restricted
* Any consortium member cannot bid in the procurement it organises.
* Non-European foundation models are ineligible unless demonstrably developed by EU entities.
* Projects not complying with GDPR, AI Act, cybersecurity or environmental requirements will be rejected.
Timing & Process
* Call opens: 15 Apr 2025
* Deadline: 02 Sep 2025 — single stage, electronic submission via Funding & Tenders Portal.
* Evaluation period: ~3 months; Grant Agreement signature envisaged Q1 2026; project duration 24–36 months.
Evaluation Criteria (DIGITAL-AG)
1. Relevance (30 %) – alignment with expected outcomes, EU added value, use of EU-developed models.
2. Implementation (30 %) – quality of work plan, consortium excellence, risk & procurement strategy.
3. Impact (40 %) – scalability, replicability, sustainability, cost-benefit, citizen impact, KPIs.
Key Compliance Hooks
* Data protection-by-design & DPIA.
* Explainability, bias mitigation, green-AI footprint.
* Human-in-the-loop for high-risk use cases.
* Links to AI-on-Demand, EDIHs, Multi-Country Project on Innovative and Connected PAs.
📊 At a Glance
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🇪🇺 Strategic Advantages
EU-Wide Advantages & Opportunities under DIGITAL-2025-AI-08-SUPPLY-AI
1. Single Market Access
• Unlocks an addressable market of 27 Member States + EEA/EFTA (≈ 450 million citizens, 20 million public-sector employees).
• One pilot validated in three to four administrations can be immediately commercialised/replicated through common procurement rules (Directive 2014/24/EU) without re-engineering for each country.
• Builds a reference architecture for multilingual GenAI (24 official EU languages) – a competitive edge globally.
2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange
• Mandatory multinational consortia foster joint problem-solving and transfer of best practices among local, regional and national authorities.
• Access to European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs) and the AI-on-Demand Platform accelerates matchmaking with 4000+ AI researchers and 1500+ SMEs.
• CSA budget (EUR 2 m) will institutionalise the GenAI4EU community, turning early adopters into mentors for late movers.
3. Alignment with Key EU Policy Agendas
• Digital Decade: contributes to the 2030 target of 100 % online key public services.
• Green Deal / Climate-neutral & smart cities: data-driven planning use cases directly support the Mission on Climate-Neutral Cities.
• European Health Data Space, Migration Pact, Skills Agenda: citizen-centric chatbots can be integrated into these flagship initiatives.
• Direct compliance with the AI Act positions beneficiaries as role models for trustworthy AI.
4. Regulatory Harmonisation & First-Mover Advantage
• One conformity assessment and fundamental-rights impact check accepted EU-wide drastically lowers legal overhead for scaling.
• Early pilots shape forthcoming standards (CEN-CENELEC AI technical committees), giving consortia influence over future procurement criteria.
5. Pan-European Innovation Ecosystem & Talent Pool
• Synergies with EuroHPC JU give privileged access to petascale compute resources for model fine-tuning.
• Interaction with initiatives such as Alliance for Language Technologies and AI Factories ensures cutting-edge tech inflow.
• Pooling data from multiple administrations increases model robustness and fairness across socio-economic contexts.
6. Funding Synergies
• DIGITAL funding (EU €5-7 m + 50 % national co-financing) can be blended with:
• Horizon Europe Cluster 4 calls (TRL 3-5 research).
• CEF Digital for cross-border infrastructure connectivity.
• RRF & Cohesion Policy (ERDF, ESF+) for large-scale deployment after pilot.
• Interreg for additional cross-border public-sector partners.
• Enables a seamless financing pathway from experimentation to mass rollout.
7. Scale, Replicability & Impact
• Grant explicitly scores replicability; interoperable APIs and open-source components will make solutions plug-and-play for 120k+ EU public bodies.
• Common, EU-branded GenAI services increase citizen trust and uptake (digital ID, once-only principle).
• Potential annual efficiency savings estimated at €15-€30 bn EU-wide by automating routine administrative tasks (Commission AI Impact Assessment, 2024).
8. Strategic Recommendations to Maximise EU-Level Benefits
1. Build a consortium covering at least three administrative levels (local-regional-national) in different Member States to demonstrate vertical and horizontal transferability.
2. Anchor your pilot in multi-country data spaces (e.g., Public Procurement, Mobility, Green Deal) to ensure future interoperability.
3. Adopt an open technical specification & permissive licence for non-sensitive components; align documentation with CSA guidelines to ease uptake by other MS.
4. Integrate a regulatory sandbox with national AI supervisory authorities to de-risk AI Act compliance early.
5. Plan post-grant scale-up using Cohesion/RRF funds; secure political endorsement letters during proposal stage for faster follow-up financing.
Bottom line: Operating at EU scale under this call offers unrivalled market reach, regulatory clarity, funding leverage and innovation capacity that no single-country scheme can match, positioning successful consortia as the de-facto standard-bearers for trustworthy GenAI in public services across Europe.
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Ready to Apply?
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