Call for projects Digital 4 Circular Wallonia. Construction, energy and water

As part of the Digital Wallonia strategy, the Digital 4 Circular Wallonia program aims to activate digital technologies to accelerate the deployment of the circular economy in Circular Wallonia's priority value chains. This 1st call concerns construction, energy storage and the water cycle. An opportunity for Walloon companies to join the circular economy dynamic.

Thanks to the resources provided for in sheet 161 of the Walloon Recovery Plan, this call for projects aims to finance individual or collective demonstrators (PoC: Proof of Concept) of digital technologies accelerating the spread of the circular economy in Wallonia.

These PoCs can be led by companies and innovation players, and must be implemented and tested on Walloon company processes.

The benefits for participants are improved business competitiveness through criteria such as local employment, environmental impact, sustainability, resilience, project innovativeness, economies of scale and, more specifically, benefits for :

• the applicant (beneficiary). Reducing environmental impact, integrating into the circular economy, increasing efficiency to improve sustainable competitiveness, product offering and business.
• the supplier (expert / service provider). Growth for technology suppliers in the implementation of their technology and the reproducibility and scalability of the same solutions in other use cases.
• Wallonia. Societal and innovation impacts on the regional socio-economic fabric, creation of a regional database of use cases that can serve as inspiration for other players.

This call finances individual or collective demonstrators (PoC) of digital technologies accelerating the spread of the circular economy in Wallonia. Projects must bring together an entity representing the "business" side (digital demand - beneficiary) and another entity representing the "technology" side (digital offer - expert).

These entities can respectively be made up of several companies (demand) and several companies and/or organizations (supply).

The beneficiary entity must be a Walloon company, or have at least one operating headquarters in Wallonia. Companies can be of any size, startup or established, and present any degree of digital maturity.

• Construction.
• Energy storage.
• The water cycle.

All digital technologies and applications contributing to the integration of beneficiaries in the circular economy can be financed.

The budget requested for each single application may not exceed 75,000 euros (for a maximum of 70% of total estimated project costs), to be completed within 12 months.

A pool of experts (service providers) responsible for supporting beneficiary companies and implementing projects is currently being set up. These may be private Walloon or European companies (EU members), Approved Research Centers (ARCs) or Research Centers attached to universities.

In the event that a winning company has not yet identified any service providers able to meet its needs, a list drawn from the pool of experts will be proposed.

Candidates are invited to :

• à télécharger et compléter ce formulaire Word.
• and return it by e-mail no later than midnight on October 3, 2022.

Applications will be examined by a selection panel made up of representatives from the Agence du Numérique, the Confédération Construction Wallonne, the Greenwin competitiveness cluster, the Centre Scientifique et Technique de la Construction, the MecaTech competitiveness cluster, the Service public de Wallonie and Cabinet du Ministre Borsus.

• Economic viability of the project.
• Partnerships in place or planned once the solution is in place.
• Growth potential with a focus on sustainable competitiveness.
• Potential impact of its activities on the environment.
• Potential impact on local job creation.
• Degree of innovation of the proposed solution (in relation to the company's current situation).
• Degree of excellence/quality in methodology, implementation and action plan.
• Feasibility of the digital solution.
• Representativeness of the project's issues in relation to the sector (and in line with the bidder's specific business), and of the digital technologies proposed.
• Priority given to open source approaches and transferable results.
• Visibility potential for stimulating the use of digital technology in the circular economy in Wallonia.

This first call for projects was launched on August 17, 2022, with applications closing at midnight on October 3, 2022.

The call for applications for the pool of experts opened in mid-July 2022, with no predefined closing date.

Contact Renaud Delhaye, Senior Expert in Digital Business Transformation, at 0478/226664 or by e-mail at email.

This call for projects was drafted thanks to the contribution of :

• Confédération de la construction
• CSTC
• Greenwin
• Cap Construction
• Sirris
• Tweed
• Cluster H2O
• Infopôle
• Mecatech
• Agence du Numérique