European Digital Media Observatory Hubs

Støtter

Expected Outcome: Deliverables EDMO will continue to maintain and further support a platform for joint activities to analyse and respond to the phenomenon of disinformation. EDMO will be carrying out and coordinating various activities in this field, including investigations, targeted research, monitoring as well as media literacy and communication activities throughout Europe and across the national/multinational research hubs. Objective: The EU supports the capacity of a multidisciplinary community to understand, monitor and counter disinformation. The objective of this topic is to maintain and further develop a platform supporting the operations of the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), as well as deepening the language coverage and operational capacity of fact-checking in Europe. In particular, the topic will support the operational cooperation between fact-checkers, researchers and media literacy practitioners across the EU through EDMO and support fact-checkers, with the aim to contribute to the fight against disinformation, to gain further insight on disinformation, monitoring of the disinformation space, debunking disinformation through the network of fact-checkers, and increasing the resilience of media professionals and citizens to disinformation. Scope: The funding will support further consolidation of EDMO’s role as a key player in the fight against disinformation in Europe, in particular: operation of a platform composed of a set of tools and services responding to the needs of the EDMO community composed of researchers, fact-checkers, media literacy practitioners and other relevant stakeholders, including services and actions to support and protect these communities when carrying out their work; fostering and coordinating research activities and open-source investigations on disinformation at European level focused on detecting and analysing, in an agile and practice-oriented way emerging and prominent issues related to the disinformation landscape; carrying out activities for monitoring disinformation trends and narratives across the EU, including through pre- and debunking; investigating and fostering the development and use of novel tools such as Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI to respond to addressing current challenges in the disinformation landscape, including AI-generated disinformation and deepfakes, and in this respect also collaborate with ongoing Horizon Europe projects working on AI-tools to fight disinformation; monitoring and reacting to disinformation threats related to crisis situations and elections – including by pre- and debunking - as well as to emerging disinformation waves, including giving assistance to neighbourhood countries through dedicated actions, targeted communication and awareness raising campaigns; supporting targeted activities to facilitate access to data for researchers to allow conducting research activities on disinformation; supporting activities related to the implementation of the 2022 Code of Practice on Disinformation; coordinating and carrying out tailor-made media literacy activities and campaigns at European level, targeting both the general public and vulnerable groups; carrying out proactive communication and outreach activities through various channels (including by traditional and online media, podcasts, social media etc.) to a broad audience, including the general public, to increase societal resilience to disinformation; conducting targeted communication campaigns about EDMO’s activities. General information Programme Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL) Call Accelerating the Best Use of Technologies (DIGITAL-2026-BESTUSE-TECH-EDMO-09) Type of action DIGITAL-SME Digital SME Support Actions Type of MGA DIGITAL Action Grant Budget-Based [DIGITAL-AG] Closed Deadline model single-stage Opening date 04 November 2025 Deadline date 03 March 2026 17:00:00 Brussels time 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-BESTUSE-TECH-EDMO-09-HUBS - DIGITAL-SME Digital SME Support Actions €6,000,000.00 Single-stage 4 November 2025 3 March 2026 around €6,000,000.00 8 Topic Q&As One of our consortium partners may no longer qualify as an SME after being acquired by another company. In addition to checking their status, are there any other actions they should consider? According to section 6 Eligibility of the call text, in order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must: − be legal entities (public or private bodi... Are subscription costs considered under the category of Other goods, works and services? The correct categorization of costs depends on their underlying nature. The costs of a subscription, may generally: - Either be considered as direct costs under the budget category "... If the members of the consortium receive funding from external sources, they should include detailed information on how the consortium guarantees that the hub and all its activities remain fully independent. Is there a template for this? No template is provided in this regard. If a consortium member receives external funding, a detailed explanation must be provided. This should demonstrate how the consortium will enf... In relation to the self-declaration demonstrating the independence of all consortium members from public authorities and, if applicable, justification on the separation of duties, is a third level institution considered a public body? A Public Body is any legal entity established as such by national law and any international organisations. As such, the determination for a third-level institution rests on whether i... Is it permissible to assign the entire travel budget to a single partner and - should the project be awarded - reimburse the travel expenses incurred by the other partners during project implementation? In order to be eligible, costs must be claimed by the beneficiary who sustained them . Indeed, according to the Article 6.1 General eligibility conditions of the DEP MGA and the ann...