Resources

These Guidelines for Applicants for the European Circular Innovation Valley (ECIV) – 1st Open Call explain what kinds of interregional circular-economy innovation projects (TRL 6–8) ECIV wants to fund, who is eligible, how to apply (procedures, deadlines, required forms), and how proposals will be evaluated and selected. It also sets out the practical rules around funding (budgets, rates, eligible costs, payments) and the key legal/ethical requirements (e.g., IP, GDPR, open access/open science, “do no significant harm,” confidentiality, ethics checks), plus regional specificities and annexed templates/forms.

This document answers the most frequently asked questions and aims to help with the application process.

This is a public transparency report for ECIV Open Call 1, documenting how the European Circular Innovation Valley project selected interregional circular economy innovation projects — covering the call's objectives, evaluation process, results, and lessons learned, in line with EU accountability requirements.

List of external evaluators of ECIV Open Call 1

The Dissemination and Communication Strategy details how the project will raise awareness, engage stakeholders, and promote circular innovation across Europe. It defines target audiences, key messages, communication channels, visual identity, and performance indicators to ensure cohesive and impactful outreach throughout the project’s lifecycle.

The document analyzes regional conditions for the circular economy and industrial symbiosis, identifying key challenges, opportunities, and gaps in value chains. The report also introduces a mission-oriented methodology to design “sub-missions” and action plans that will guide Europe’s transition toward a circular economy by 2050.

The document compiles the results of a self-assessment survey, SWOT analyses, and regional stakeholder workshops across nine participating regions. It maps current conditions for the circular economy, including policies and strategies, funding opportunities, priority sectors and resource flows, stakeholder ecosystems, and shared strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, with the aim of identifying synergies and informing future mission-oriented actions.

This document presents a consolidated GAP analysis of circular economy performance across the nine ECIV regions and at European level. It compiles existing national and regional reports (including Circularity Gap Reports and EEA Circular Economy Country Profiles), summarises key findings on current states, identifies gaps and barriers, and highlights strategies and policy directions for accelerating the transition. The report also includes sector-specific analyses for strategic value chains such as batteries, textiles, and construction, alongside comparative country and regional profiles.

This document maps existing and ongoing research and development activities related to the circular economy across the nine ECIV regions. It identifies key universities, research centres, projects, and thematic focus areas (such as circular business models, materials, construction, bioeconomy, waste, and consumer behaviour) to provide an overview of where knowledge and expertise are concentrated. The report does not assess research outcomes, but instead offers an indicative landscape of regional R&D strengths to support future collaboration and strategic alignment within the ECIV initiative.

This document outlines ECIV’s Transformative Innovation Programme (TIP)—a joint interregional strategy that sets out how participating European regions will collaborate through mission-oriented innovation to accelerate the transition to a circular economy. It provides a shared framework for defining missions, coordinating actions, and aligning regional and interregional efforts toward long-term systemic change.

ECIV Regional Action Plans (RAPs) are project bound, operational documents that capture each region’s concrete commitments to ECIV submissions. The Regional Action Plans were developed within the framework of the ECIV Transformative Innovation Programme (TIP), which applies a mission oriented innovation approach to support systemic circular economy transitions and collaborative, inclusive innovation processes across participating regions.

This document is the second Annual Work Programme (D2.3) of the ECIV project, outlining planned activities, deliverables, milestones, and budgets for Year 2. It details the consortium's shift from preparation to implementation, including the deployment of the Dance Floor methodology, the launch of the first Open Call for Innovation Projects, and finalisation of Regional Action Plans, along with resource commitments across all six work packages.

This document is ECIV's official Open Call package — a compilation of guidelines, application forms, agreement templates, and FAQs that governs how ECIV, a Horizon Europe-funded circular economy project, distributes €9.13M in EU funding to third-party organizations for interregional circular economy innovation projects.

This is the guidance package for independent evaluators assessing applications to ECIV's first Open Call. It explains the evaluator's role, the eligibility and scoring process, timelines, confidentiality/conflict-of-interest rules, and compensation, alongside the detailed scoring grid. It also includes the Memorandum of Understanding among ECIV's seven funding partners and a governance/ethics assessment document outlining the roles of the Call Steering Committee, Call Secretariat, Advisory Board, and Peer Review Panel, plus ethics screening requirements.

This deliverable provides the template legal contract to be signed between selected third-party project beneficiaries and their respective ECIV funding organisation after being awarded funding through an Open Call.