OPEN CALL

What?

Project acronym: LASER-PRO
Project full name: Excellent Laser Technologies for the Sustainable Prosperity of Europe
Project grant agreement number: 101186838

The LASER-PRO launches an Open Call for Application Experiments with the objective to support companies in the advanced laser-based innovation, helping to strengthen Europe's position in photonic and laser technologies to drive industrial innovation in the Czechia, Lithuania, and Ukraine.

In the framework of the Open Call, up to 5 small and medium enterprises (SME) and mid-cap companies will get access to high-quality technical and non-technical services through Application Experiments.

Interested companies targeting e.g. the following application areas may apply:

• Sustainable Manufacturing
• Semiconductor Technology
• Biomedical Innovations
• Digital and 3D Printing

The call will support experimenting and testing end-product ideas with laser technologies as well as manufacturing of end-products.

When?

The Open Call will be open from October 2025 to June 2026. Applicants will be able to apply anytime during this period. Any submitted proposal will be evaluated on the nearest cut-off dates (deadline: 17:00 CET).

Who?

The Call is open for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and / or mid-cap Innovative Companies:

• from all activity fields addressing the above-mentioned application areas;
• with a technical or nontechnical background.

Please note that the main factors determining the type of the company are staff headcount and, either, turnover or balance sheet total (see the COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION of 6 May 2003 concerning the definition of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises). If you are still not sure, please check the User Guide to the SME Definition.

To be eligible for this Call, your company will also have to be established in one of the eligible countries. Please check the list of countries in the attached document.

Why?

All successful applicants to the LASER-PRO Open Call will receive subsidized access to:

• experimenting and testing end-product ideas with laser technologies
• support to manufacturing of end-products
• innovation support combining technical and non-technical services for maximum outcome covering also business innovation services, intellectual property consulting and support, access to finance and funding.

The overall budget for the programme is 200 k€. We aim to support 5 projects from this budget. LASER-PRO considers that proposals requesting a contribution up to 40 k€ would allow the objectives of the call to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

All related costs will be covered through a voucher provided to the successful applicants. The cost of each case will be defined during the negotiation of the Joint Implementation Plan between the successful applicant and LASER-PRO. The expected costs to be covered by the voucher include:

• Qualified human resources dedicated to the execution of the Application Experiments;
• Consumables and materials required for the product/part/prototype demonstrator, as well as travel costs for experts to the Application Experiment partner;
• Access to top-notch equipment and infrastructure;
• Business innovation services, including consulting on IP issues, business model development, and access to funding/finance, where appropriate.

Please note that equipment and investment costs are not eligible.

The Service Delivery Agreement (that will be published by November 15^th 2025) will contain detailed information about:

• Terms and Conditions for the Financial Support
• Liability
• Intellectual Property Rights Policy
• Confidentiality
• Dissemination
• Checks and audits
• Termination
• Specific obligations
• Joint Implementation Plan
• Final Report Template.

Process?

Any submitted proposal will be assessed shortly after the closest cut-off date and evaluated according to the following criteria:

• Concept (alignment with the call, needs & challenges (business and technological), market opportunity and innovation and approach);
• Implementation (activities, resources and risks and mitigations);
• Impact (outcomes, wider impact and strategy)

Each criterion will be scored on a scale from 0-5 and the maximum overall score is 15. The standard threshold for individual criteria is 3, and the standard overall threshold applying to the sum of the three individual scores, is 10. The average of the 3 scores given by evaluators per section and total will be calculated for each proposal. Proposals failing to achieve the threshold score per individual criteria and the overall threshold will be rejected. Proposals will be ranked according to the overall scores in descending order.

Rejected proposals may reapply in the next cut-offs. In case a proposal reaches the evaluation threshold but is not selected, it will be kept in a reserve list. They might be re-approached in case a higher-scoring proposal fails to negotiate a Joint Implementation Agreement with LASER-PRO.

The most successful proposals, having passed the evaluation and technical feasibility check, will be offered the chance to negotiate and define a Service Delivery Agreement with the Service Delivery Manager (SDM) assigned by LASER-PRO.

An Evaluation Summary Report will be sent to applicants approximately 6 weeks from the submission deadline. The entire process from proposal submission until the end of service delivery could take up to 12 months in the case that your proposal is selected for funding.

Your data and content of your application will be kept confidential and will be shared only internally with LASER-PRO partners, evaluators and European Commission. General data (such as type of company or country of origin) will be used to create statistics and reports which will be exploited through the project in terms of communication activities. In addition, the names of selected companies and their countries of origin will be published on LASER-PRO website as part of Public Evaluation Reports.

How?

If you are interested in applying to the Call, please follow the steps listed below to submit your application.

1. Check the details on https://www.laserpro-eh.eu/

2.  Download & review:

• Application Guidelines;
• Service Delivery Agreement template;

3. Make sure that you satisfy eligibility criteria;

4. Consult the idea with LASER-PRO consortium for pre-qualification; Please contact the helpdesk (laserpro-eh-helpdesk@hilase.cz) for further info.

5. Register through the submission software at https://www.laserpro-eh.eu/ (submission software will be operational from November 15^th);

6. Fill in the application data in the submission software;

7. Download the Application Form from the software;

8. Complete the Application Form, save it as a PDF file (MAX 5 pages), upload it and submit it through the submission software.

We will primarily accept applications in English language. If you would like to submit your application in another language, please contact the Open Call helpdesk first (laserpro-eh-helpdesk@hilase.cz).

Important: We encourage all applicants to check the technical and business feasibility of their ideas well in advance of submission. The LASER-PRO consortium is happy to support this check. You can consult the idea for pre-qualification, please contact the helpdesk (laserpro-eh-helpdesk@hilase.cz) for further information.

Call documents

Application Guidelines
Service Delivery Agreement (to be published by November 15^th)
LASER-PRO Catalogue of Services

Contact

If you need assistance with applying to the Call, or explanations about technology offerings and your possibilities with LASER-PRO, please send us your inquiries by phone to:  +420 226 217 422 or by email to laserpro-eh-helpdesk@hilase.cz.
Helpdesk will be active Monday–Friday from 09:00 to 17.00 (CET/CEST).
We will be happy to help you. 

Complaints

Upon reception of the evaluation feedback, applicants will have the possibility to submit to the LASER-PRO Evaluation Panel complaints related to decisions of proposal evaluation and selection in case there is an indication of a shortcoming in the way a proposal has been evaluated. The complaint procedure is not meant to question the judgment made by the evaluators; it will look at procedural shortcomings and, in rare cases, factual errors.

Complaint requests should be raised within 7 working days from the date of the evaluation feedback sent by the LASER-PRO Helpdesk. Shall a complaint be submitted after that deadline, it will be rejected without further examination.

Complaint requests sent by applicants must be:

• related to the evaluation process;
• sent by email to LASER-PRO Helpdesk;
• received within the specified time limit specified.

An initial reply will be sent to complainants no later than two weeks after the deadline for complaint requests. This initial reply will indicate when a definitive reply will be provided.

A complaint committee may be convened to examine the peer review evaluation process for the case in question. The committee's role is to ensure a coherent interpretation of requests and equal treatment of applicants. The complaint committee itself, however, will not re-evaluate the proposal, but it will examine the eligibility of the complaints and factual arguments and claims of the complaints. Depending on the nature of the complaint, the committee may review the evaluation report and individual comments. In the light of its review, the committee will recommend an action. Only, if there is clear evidence of a shortcoming that could affect the eventual funding decision, it is possible that all or part of the proposal will be re-evaluated.

Please note:

• This procedure is concerned with the evaluation process;
• The committee will not call into question the judgment of the individual evaluators;
• A re-evaluation will only be carried out if there is evidence of a shortcoming that affects the quality assessment of a proposal. This means, for example, that a problem relating to one evaluation criterion will not lead to a re-evaluation if a proposal has failed anyway on the other criteria;
• The evaluation score following any re-evaluation will be regarded as definitive. It even may be lower than the original score;
• Only one complaint request per application will be considered by the committee;
• All complaint requests will be treated confidentially.