HEROES Small-Scale Cooperation Projects

The HEROES4REGIONS Joint Practice-Oriented Scientific Research Hub has launched its first Call for Small-Scale Cooperation Projects.

This call invites researchers and research support staff from all nine HEROES partner institutions to propose new, bottom-up collaborations across the Alliance. It offers seed funding to explore new partnerships, exchange knowledge and co-create innovative initiatives addressing regional challenges.

What does this call support?
Projects focusing on practice-oriented research, innovation, knowledge transfer, research valorisation and stakeholder engagement. All projects should contribute to Smart Regional Resilience, addressing one or more of its dimensions:
👥 people’s resilience,
🏢 businesses’ resilience, or
🌱 nature’s resilience.

Eligible activities include co-creation workshops with regional stakeholders, capacity-building and peer-learning activities, hackathons or challenge-based innovation labs, joint exploration of new research collaborations, and development of shared tools, methods or networks. The aim is to test new collaboration formats and lay the foundation for future initiatives.

Key conditions
Seed funding of up to €9,000 per project is available. Each project must involve at least three HEROES partner institutions and can run for a maximum of nine months. Applications take the form of a short proposal (max. 3 pages).

Timeline
Call open: March 2026
Submission deadline: 30 April 2026
Results communicated: from 26 May
2026 Project start: from 1 September 2026

How to apply
Contact your Institutional Coordinator for information on the application process and submission details.

Application Form, Manual of the 1st Call for Proposals.
Frequently Asked Questions