Proposals should provide for devising effective and cost-efficient measures to support CCIs to embrace and make full use of digital technologies for competitiveness and sustainability.

Proposals should choose a suitable set of CCI sector(s), or/and cross-sectoral issues, to focus on, which allow significant impacts to be achieved. A wide array of digital technologies should be considered, which are deemed crucial to the CCI sector(s) or/and issues chosen. Analytical technologies such as “big data” or “artificial intelligence” could be used for instance to better understand users’ behaviours, to better plan activities or/and to engage deeper with customers. Visualisation and multi-sensorial technologies such as “virtual reality”, “augmented reality” or “extended reality” could be employed to create more attractive products and services.

The proposed support measures should be effective and efficient across different Member States/Associated Countries, and address the needs of small, micro as well as larger companies. Such measures may involve the use of platforms or networks to facilitate sharing investments, facilities or competencies among several companies or across sectors.

Funded proposals should set up at least four small scale pilot trials under real world conditions to test and refine the proposed support measures. To ensure validity of the results across different national contexts and company sizes, the pilot trials need to involve at least four different Member States/Associated Countries, as well as CCI companies of different size. A wide set of stakeholders should be involved, in accordance with the focus chosen, with a view to ensure that pilot trials are developed in an effective and realistic manner and that results can readily be taken up by relevant policymakers or/and other decision-makers.