STEP Roadshow Fills Auditoriums

Held between 2 and 6 March, the roadshow visited Porto, Coimbra, Évora and Faro.

In collaboration with the CDDRs, public policy stakeholders were mobilised to raise awareness amongst the business community of the four STEP calls for proposals, launched at the end of January by COMPETE 2030, involving a total of €840 million, to familiarise them with the STEP platform, enabling them to understand the context and priorities of the calls, and to present the STEP calls for proposals relating to technological infrastructure.

All these interlocking elements were designed to highlight the objectives of the STEP calls, namely:

a) to support the development or manufacture of critical technologies in the sectors of digital technologies and deep technology innovation; clean and resource-efficient technologies; and biotechnologies;

b) to support the development of essential skills to promote quality jobs.

These are highly selective calls, focusing support on the development and manufacture of critical technologies, or on strengthening the associated value chains, improving the production cycle; they enable support for large enterprises, recognising their knock-on effect, whilst maintaining support for innovative SMEs.

Projects must:

– Strengthen the European Union’s strategic autonomy and competitiveness,

– Reduce the European Union’s strategic dependencies. We are seeking innovative projects that are either cutting-edge or involve emerging technologies, or that contribute, in particular, to the European Union’s industrial leadership, and which increase the capacity to manufacture critical raw materials or essential components.

With a clear strategy of focusing on what is essential for a more robust European market, these calls pose a challenge to the business community.