The applicants are encouraged to consider a project duration of up to 12 months and in their proposals they should:

• Identify areas and activities of cooperation to enhance the coordination and directionality of their research and innovation investments and policies and improve the efficiency and performance of the EU’s innovation ecosystems, fostering their interconnection and scale-up while tackling EU, national, regional and/or local challenges.
• Plan their long-term commitment: the applicants are encouraged to consider planning commitments of at least three (3) years towards engaging in the joint cooperation activities set out in the frame of the projects;
• Explain the potential for growth and competitiveness foreseen in the targeted sector and/or expected impact on relevant EU challenges through the proposed cooperation;
• Ensure inclusiveness and diversity with the involvement of all innovation actors, including individual inventors, enhance complementarities of EU, national and/or regional funds and programmes, and encourage the alignment of their innovation agendas;
• Provide a justification on the need for those joint activities that should be scalable at European level and demonstrate their strong EU added value;
• Explain its links to the New European Innovation Agenda and how the project will contribute to its objectives;
• Explain how the proposed action plans complement and reinforce their national and/or regional and/or local innovation plans, policies and/or strategies in synergy, including with their smart specialisation strategies, and if applicable their Partnerships for Regional Innovation and start-up villages[6];
• Explain the process that they plan to follow, with an open, clear, realistic, and impact-oriented approach, including relevant guidance mechanisms and tools;
• Present what common knowledge assets are expected from the proposed action plans, and the benefit of the intended beneficiaries of the plans;
• Present the targeted milestones to be achieved.

The proposals for the development of a joint long-term action plan may include the following Two (2) Phases:

• A first phase to foster close dialogue among key stakeholders for strategy/partnership building, mapping, and analysis of existing national and/or regional and/or local innovation agendas/strategies/policies/plans/activities, including local pockets of excellence/innovation hubs, the relevant active/inactive actors (including financial actors, citizens, and individual innovators) and ways to motivate their inclusion, identification of areas of competitive advantage for sustainable economic growth, mapping of gaps, needs, and opportunities. Any activities are encouraged to consider existing tools, knowledge and expertise, including the methodology and governance tools tested and developed in the context of the Partnerships for Regional Innovation initiative or the knowledge and expertise of the EIT KICs with place-based approaches to innovation. Responsible Research and Innovation expertise may also be relevant in this regard;
• A second phase dedicated to the concretising, setting up, and finalising the joint action plan(s) and allocation of the activities over a period of the proposed action plans.