European Advanced Digital Skills Competitions

Supports

General information Programme Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL) Call Advanced Digital Skills (DIGITAL-2026-SKILLS-09) Type of action DIGITAL-CSA DIGITAL Coordination and Support Actions Type of MGA DIGITAL Action Grant Budget-Based [DIGITAL-AG] Deadline model single-stage Opening date 04 November 2025 Deadline date 03 March 2026 17:00:00 Brussels time Topic description Expected Outcome: Deliverables: Well defined, up to date and relevant challenges that will serve as the challenges for the European Advanced Digital Skills Competitions Competitions rule book for participants and jury Competitions implementation roadmap Implementation and roll-out of the six competitions Sustainability plans for the proposed competitions after the end of the project Objective: The European Advanced Digital Skills Competitions will serve as catalysts for engaging young European people in cutting edge digital technologies. They will support their creativity, exposing them to project-based research and training, and connect them to the wider community of research organisations and industry players. Each competition will centre around a challenge addressing a highly relevant societal or industrial challenge that has been developed by a consortium of Europe’s most prestigious research institutes and industry partners. The consortia will work in close cooperation with the respective Sectoral digital skills academies and Initiatives to ensure buy in and support from the relevant stakeholders in the ecosystem. The competitions will take place in the EU. To launch the competitions, teams of students will compete in six digital areas, represented by the newly established Sectoral digital skills academies, the Destination Earth initiative and an additional area to be chosen by the consortium. Furthermore, it is expected that the competitions will lead to greater innovation, which will allow to measure and compare progress towards the ambitious goals set under each challenge. Scope: The scope of this topic is to develop six challenges for the European Digital Skills Competitions in the four digital areas corresponding to the Sectoral digital skills academies (Quantum, GenAI, Chips, Virtual Worlds), the Destination Earth Initiative (see topic 4.2 of the DEP Work Programme 2025-2027) and one additional area to be developed by the consortium. The challenges will be designed to target three clear objectives: each will address a European societal-, technological or industrial-relevant challenge, attract a large participation of students and help them develop their skills, and raise their awareness and understanding of team and project-based work as well as applied research and innovation in the respective digital technologies. Special attention will also be given to design local and major tournaments. The consortium will also design attractive prize schemes and award for the best challenges from the six areas. The selected project will cooperate closely with the Sectoral digital skills academies, the Destination Earth sectoral Initiative and the respective industrial communities for the design of the competitions. It will as well collaborate with the European League of Advanced Digital Skills Academies (see section 4.3 of the DEP Work Programme 2025-2027) for dissemination, communication and public relations purposes concerning these competitions. Synergies should also be sought with other relevant initiatives, e.g. the Digital Education Hackathon. Topic conditions and documents Conditions 1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limit and layout described in section 5 of the call document. Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System. 2. Eligible Countries described in section 6 of the call document. 3. Other Eligible Conditions described in section 6 of the call document. 4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion described in section 7 of the call document. 5a. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes described section 8 of the call document and the Online Manual. 5b. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds described in section 9 of the call document. 5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement described in section 4 of the call document. 6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants described in section 10 of the call document. Call document and annexes: CALL DOCUMENT Application form templates Standard application form (DEP) — the application form specific to this call is available in the Submission System Model Grant Agreements (MGA) DEP MGA Additional documents: DEP Work Programmes DEP Regulation 2021/964 EU Financial Regulation 2024/2509 Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement Budget overview Topic Budget year : 2026 Stages Opening date Deadline Contributions Indicative number of grants DIGITAL-2026-SKILLS-09-COMPETITIONS - DIGITAL-CSA DIGITAL Coordination and Support Actions €7,000,000.00 Single-stage 4 November 2025 3 March 2026 1 Topic Q&As How many projects will be funded under the topic DIGITAL-2026-SKILLS-09-COMPETITIONS? For DIGITAL-2026-SKILLS-09-COMPETITIONS, 1 project will be funded, with a maximum budget for funding of EUR 7 000 000. Is the topic main objective rather the creation of real business opportunities — products, services, and solutions (generation of new technological innovations) than the long-term sustainability of such a competition itself? The main objectives under the topic DIGITAL-2026-09-COMPETITIONS are the following: 1. addressing a highly relevant European or local societal, technological and/or industry relevant... Can a community of medical students (for example) from various universities, who have received digital training through a private sector entity, be eligible to participate in the competition? Competing teams will have to be composed by students from at least tertiary level education institutions or equivalent. If the training entity and the group of students in questions ... The teams of students should present a theoretical solution, or a prototype or a kind of pilot is expected? Under DIGITAL-2026-SKILLS-09-COMPETITIONS topic it is indicated that the competitions will address highly relevant European or local societal, technological and/or industrial challen... Are there requirements or limitations on how to design the project budget such as maximum amount for staff costs, travel costs or for the 6 areas of the competitions? There is no such breakdown defined by the call document. The available budget for the funded project under DIGITAL-2026-SKILLS-09-COMPETITIONS is EUR 7 000 000 in total. Each Consort... Is there an expectation on the Part B page limit and structure, for example, should there be one Work Package for each competition? Part B page limit is 50 pages for Coordination And Support Actions. Part B should follow the pre-defined template that can be found on the Submission system. Regarding the design of ... Are there specific requirements on the involvement of Centres of Excellence? Centres of excellence are listed among the targeted stakeholders. There is no specific requirement regarding their involvement, it will be the same expected from the other targeted s... What is the vision for the sustainability of such a competition? The requirement for a detailed plan to ensure the financial sustainability of the competitions after the end of the project does not imply that the consortium must continue organisin... Should challenges be detailed in the proposal or can a general description of each challenge be further developed during the project duration with all project partners? The selected project will identify at least 3 distinct challenges for each of the 6 competitions in the 6 digital areas, meeting the criteria mentioned in the Scope section of the ca... Are there requirements or limitations regarding the country where each competition should be held? The competitions will take place in EU Member States and/or in countries associated with the DIGITAL Programme. Any on-site events linked to the competitions should be hosted in thes... Are mandate letters or any similar documents signed by partners necessary for this call during the proposal submission? The compulsory documents are Part A, Part B and the list of previous projects. Any other document uploaded to the system will not be taken into consideration during the evaluation. Is the DIGITAL-2026-SKILLS-09 call a lump sum or actual cost grant? The call DIGITAL-2026-SKILLS-09 including both topics of DIGITAL-2026-SKILLS-09-LEAGUE-OF-ACADEMIES — ELEVATE and DIGITAL-2026-SKILLS-09-COMPETITIONS are actual costs grants and the ... How can an organisation participate in this topic? The call document can be found here. Moreover, the information day and matchmaking event recordings and relevant info/documentation can be accessed here. Depending on the skills, com... May an institution apply many times or is there a limitation of application per institution? Yes, one institution may be part of many consortia in different proposals. There is no limitation for participation per institution.