Grant for the development of open digital solutions

Today, agribusiness is one of the areas with the greatest potential for development and support of the country's stability as a whole, competitiveness in the international market of goods and services.

The European Union has been supporting various innovative solutions and business projects in the field of agro-industry for a long time. One of the means of its support is non-returnable grant money for the implementation of open digital solutions in the specified sector in the amount of up to 100,000 US dollars.

Consortiums, various farms, as well as legal entities registered in accordance with the legislation of Ukraine as VAT payers, can submit a grant application and estimate for this program until December 2, 2024.

Requirements for applicants are as follows:

• the business model must necessarily provide for the organization of effective cooperation between suppliers of innovative digital agricultural solutions (small and medium-sized businesses, individual research institutes or universities of the relevant field of specialization, non-profit organizations at the level of Ukraine) and, accordingly, their end users (small farmers, organizations in the field of satisfying agro-food business needs);
• a business model is taken into account only if the purpose of its implementation and the ultimate goal of use is the creation and implementation of an innovative digital agricultural solution through the use of computer and cloud technologies to improve management in this area, increase the level of cultivation of relevant crops, plant varieties and animal breeds, particularly in areas with low connectivity.

Consortiums of two people (supplier/user) can apply for financial aid, while their interaction can take place in one of the following schemes: enterprise/farmer, enterprise/farming association (farm), enterprise/enterprise (agribusiness), other institution or organization/farmer, other institution or organization/farming association (holding), other institution or organization/agri-food organization.

Individual legal entities under private law that are VAT payers in the country that participates in the Horizon Europe program (Ukraine is part of them) can also count on receiving a grant.

It should be emphasized separately that those open digital technologies for the implementation of which a grant application will be submitted must meet the following requirements:

• have an innovative component, be useful and energy-efficient in the context of managing the cultivation of crops and certain breeds of animals;
• use exclusively high-quality and new ones in the order of implementation technologies (open software/hardware);
• envisage coupling with the OpenAgri semantic model:have a high initial level of technological maturity (TRL>5), integrate at least one of the OpenAgri OS services, meet compatibility standards, provide openly available results.

Conclusions.

Agribusiness today has the opportunity to receive a grant of up to USD 100,000 (equivalent to UAH 4,200,000) when applying for the implementation of an open innovative digital solution by December 2, 2024.

JK "Prikhodko and Partners" offers clients the services of grant department specialists to increase the probability of receiving funding and save time for the preparation of the necessary documentation.