OPEN CALLS
To fuel the growth trajectory of food safety solutions, FS4Africa will launch 2 Open Calls aiming at least at 15 projects in total providing Financial Support to Third Parties (FSTP), as a mechanism to maximize the project’s impact and accelerate network expansion.
- The 1st Open Call aims to provide financial support to research and technology stakeholders (start-ups, SMEs, research organizations and other multidisciplinary actors) to test, validate and enhance the business concepts and tools of the project or develop ideas and tools that contribute to project’s objectives which can then be introduced to the market.
- The 2nd Open Call aims to provide financial support to third parties (innovation hubs) to train use case partners, open call beneficiaries by providing mentoring and accelerating innovative business concepts, including social innovation and upscaling in view of African or European food business entrepreneurs and start-ups. The activities can be either virtual or in-person.
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Thank you to everyone who submitted their applications.
The FoodSafety4Africa Open Call 1 is now officially closed!
Open Call 1
FS4africa Open Call 1 (OC1) addressed to research and technology stakeholders
The FS4Africa Open Call 1 (OC1) aims to provide financial support to research and technology stakeholders (start-ups, SMEs, research organisations and other multidisciplinary actors) to:
FS4Africa will only accept applications from one entity per proposal
(no Consortia allowed)
Each Open Call proposal should propose the following activities:
Applicants should propose either a completely new innovative solution addressing the food safety challenges in the African Informal Sector, or enhancing an existing solution, leveraging tools, business concepts, or frameworks already developed by the FS4Africa project. Solutions do not necessarily have to be tied to FS4Africa existing UC topics as long as they align with the broader goals of the project and address one of the following challenges in areas such as:
- Food safety issues associated with weak channels for value chain organisation, traceability & authentication of safe food
- Mycotoxin contamination in multiple food crops including food and feed
- Pesticide residues in grains and vegetables
- Microbial contamination particularly contamination from coliforms (e.g. Escherichia coli)
- Food adulteration
- Outline a clear testing methodology to engage a minimum of 10 participants, such as (indicatively) farmers, SMEs, or other food supply chain actors.
- Define metrics to measure the solution’s effectiveness, scalability, and practicality in addressing food safety challenges.
- Plan and organise a public demonstration event to showcase the solution’s functionality, outcomes, and benefits.
- Engage at least 30 stakeholders, including (indicatively) policymakers, industry representatives, researchers, and community leaders.
- Present a roadmap for scaling the solution to a broader audience or market.
- Identify potential barriers to scaling and propose solutions to overcome them (e.g., regulatory challenges, market entry barriers).
OC solutions are expected to start at TRL4
and reach TRL6 by the end of the project.
Selected projects will be launched in February 2026 having an implementation timeframe of 12 months (until January 2027). The implementation period will be divided into 3 phases:
The Open Call 1 will select at least 10 subprojects (covering all 5 challenges mentioned above) in total providing Financial Support to Third Parties (FSTP), as a mechanism to maximise the project’s impact and accelerate network expansion.
Key numbers and
date of the Open Call:
Total Open Call 1 budget: €600,000
Max budget per project: €60,000
Submission procedure
Proposals will be submitted digitally through the opencalls.fund (OCF) platform
Proposals must be delivered before the defined deadline (September 30th, 2025, at 17:00 CET)
By applying to FS4Africa Open Call 1, applicants (single entities) automatically accept the terms and conditions of the Open Call 1 as described in the Open Call Kit:
FS4Africa is looking for evaluators !
Evaluators profile
We are looking for independent evaluators, who will be able to assess the quality of applications received within the FS4Africa Open Call 1, shortly after its closure.
Evaluators must be:
- European – EU nationals Member States (MS) of the European Union (EU), including their outermost regions, as well as Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) linked to an EU Member as well as nationals of Horizon Europe associated countries, full list here).
- Experienced in technical and/or business expertise related to the topics of the call and knowledge surrounding food safety systems. Particular attention to the African informal sector will be highly appreciated.
- Experienced in evaluating EC proposals or similar experience.
An evaluator should not work for an organisation that aims to apply for the FS4Africa Open Call, nor in an organisation participating in the FS4Africa consortium.
All evaluators must declare beforehand any known conflicts of interest and must immediately inform the FS4Africa Consortium staff if they detect a conflict of interest during the evaluation. The evaluator’s contract also requires evaluators to maintain strict confidentiality with respect to the whole evaluation process.
They must follow any instruction given by the FS4Africa Consortium to ensure this. Under no circumstance may an evaluator attempt to contact an applicant on his/her own account, during the evaluation process. Confidentiality rules must be adhered to at all times before, during and after the evaluation. All external evaluators will sign a confidentiality declaration.
All evaluators must adhere to the guiding principles for independent experts set out by the EC including independence, impartiality, objectivity, accuracy and consistency.
The evaluators will be in charge of providing a neutral yet technical/scientific review of the received applications on the following aspects:
- Concept and feasibility
- Technology readiness and innovation development
- Impact & Exploitation
- Organisational capacity and sufficiency in the team’s background
The full evaluation criteria of the FS4Africa open call 1 are specified in the respective Open Call kit documents. In addition, the kit will be part of the evaluators’ manual.
You can check the full specifications in the “Call for evaluators” document!
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