Оpen Call – Tourism, Culture & Creativity

Оpen Call – Tourism, Culture & Creativity

COS-TOURSYN-2018-3-01: Supporting the development and promotion of transnational thematic tourism products—exploiting synergies between tourism and cultural and creative industries

This call for proposals seeks to support projects focusing on existing or new tourism experiences which build on the creative and innovation potential of CCIs to develop services and products.

The Commission wishes to support projects which are innovative in their approach, propose sustainable solutions and are based on the close cooperation with and involvement of tourism and CCIs-related SMEs and professionals.

The general objective of the action is to explore the spill-over effects of culture and creativity on tourism products and services in terms of: 

– revitalising tourism attractions and destinations, and diversifying transnational tourism experiences
– prolonging seasonality of EU destinations and/or enhancing sustainability of tourism offers
– boosting innovation across transnational tourism value chains.

The specific objectives of the action:

– developing innovative solutions or  management tools for tourism attractions or destinations through cooperation between tourism and CCI SMEs
– exploring new ways of engaging visitors, with the help of CCIs-related companies or professionals, to revitalise existing tourism products/services and/or create new ones
– creating solid public-private partnerships in the area of tourism and CCIs and ensuring the exchange of knowledge and experience within the partnerships

Taking the above into account, this call for proposals intends to co-fund projects which put a particular focus on transnational cooperation between tourism and CCIs-related SMEs to develop and promote innovative yet tangible tourism offers. Such tourism offers need to capitalise on the creative potential of CCIs to develop innovative services and products and/or use cultural and creative content to enhance existing or develop new tourism experiences.

Eligibility of applicants

Applicants must be legal entities and must correspond to the definition of at least one of the target organisations mentioned in Section 6 of the call that are active in the field of tourism, cultural and creative industry (CCIs).

Only applications from legal entities established in the following countries are eligible:

– EU Member States
– countries participating in the COSME programme pursuant to Article 6 of the COSME Regulation

For British applicants: Please be aware that eligibility criteria must be complied with for the entire duration of the grant. If the United Kingdom withdraws from the EU during the grant period without concluding an agreement with the EU ensuring in particular that British applicants continue to be eligible, you will cease to receive EU funding (while continuing, where possible, to participate) or be required to leave the project on the basis of Article 34.3.1(b) of the grant agreement.
Please also note that the consortium must gather a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 8 members/partners—different legal entities—covering at least 5 eligible countries—as listed in Section 6.

The consortium must be composed of at least:

1. four SMEs – Small and Medium Sized enterprises: 2 active in the tourism and 2 in the CCIs sector; and
2. one national or regional or local public authority
For more details, please consult the text of the call available below.

Submission of Proposals

The deadline for electronic submission is 19 July 2018 17.00 hours (Brussels time).
Access the Participant Portal to draft and submit proposals. 

Important Notice

For any technical problems encountered with the submission system, please contact the Service desk: EC-RESEARCH-IT-HELPDESK@ec.europa.eu Tel: +32 (2) 29 92222 (during office hours).

The electronic submission reference for this call is COS-TOURSYN-2018-3-01.

Information event

A general “COSME Info Day: Opportunities to Participate in Calls for Proposals” took place on 11 June 2018 at the EASME offices in Brussels. Further information is available online. 

Partner and previous projects search

If you are looking for partners to apply to this call, you may wish to consider  using the Cordis database where you have the option to create partnership requests. For people who already have a Partner profile in Cordis database, they can select a specific COSME call when they create a partnership request. Each partnership request will then show up as being associated to the call to attract others interested in the same call.

In the case you do not have a profile, you can create one. Should you encounter any difficulties with the Cordis database, please contact the Cordis helpdesk.

You may also contact your nearest Enterprise Europe Network expert who could assist you in finding potential partners.

Another useful source of information on past and existing projects co-financed under COSME is also available through the COSME Hub.

Questions/Answers

Potential applicants should address questions related to the content of this call by e-mail to EASME-COSME-TOURSYN-2018@ec.europa.eu . Only questions sent to this functional mailbox will be answered.

Answers will be published periodically and within a reasonable period of time on this page. (Refer to FAQ below).

Deadline for submitting questions related to the content of this call: 12 July 2018.

Information to applicants on the results of the evaluation

EASME expects to be able to inform applicants on the outcome of the evaluations during the course of December 2018.