Creative Innovation Lab

Objective

WARNING: BEFORE SUBMITTING, APPLICANTS ARE STRONGLY ADVISED TO CHECK THE RELEVANCE AND ELIGIBILITY OF THEIR APPLICATION WITH THEIR DOMESTIC CREATIVE EUROPE DESK ( https://culture.ec.europa.eu/resources/creative-europe-desks ) The Creative Innovation Lab support shall support the design, development and/or spread of innovative tools, models or solutions applicable in the audiovisual (compulsory) and at least one the following sectors: music , books or museums . The audiovisual sector covers all activities and companies related to the development, production, distribution, promotion and circulation of the following content:

• Feature films, animations and creative documentaries intended primarily for cinematic release;
• Fiction audiovisual works (one-off or series), animation (one-off or series) and creative documentaries (one-off or series) intended primarily for the purposes of television or digital platform exploitation;
• Interactive, non-linear fiction, animation or creative documentary projects (e.g. narrative virtual reality projects);
• Narrative video games and interactive narrative immersive experiences. In order to be considered narrative, the story must be told or shown throughout the whole game (in-game storytelling) or interactive immersive experience, and not only as an introduction or an ending.

The objectives of the scheme is to encourage cooperation between the audiovisual sector and the music, book or museum sectors to accompany their environmental transition and/or to improve their competitiveness and/or the circulation, visibility, discoverability, availability, diversity and the audience of European content across borders. The support also aims to enable the European audiovisual sector and these three sectors (music, books and museums ) to better adapt to the opportunities offered by the development of Artificial Intelligence. Expected results

• Improve the competitiveness of the European audiovisual and other cultural and creative sectors: transparency, data collection and the appropriate use of artificial intelligence/big data, adaptation to the challenges and opportunities driven by the ongoing changes in those sectors;
• Improve the adaptation of the European audiovisual and other cultural and creative sectors to the opportunities offered by the development of virtual worlds (also called metaverse(s)).
• Improve the production/financing and circulation of European audiovisual and cultural content in the digital age;
• Increase the visibility, discoverability, availability and diversity of European audiovisual and cultural content in the digital age;
• Increase the potential audience of European audiovisual and cultural content in the digital age.
• Accelerate the environmental transition of the European audiovisual, cultural and other creative sectors, in line with the priorities of the European Green Deal and the New European Bauhaus.

Description of the activities to be funded Projects must focus on one (or several) of the below topics:

• Virtual Worlds as a new environment for the promotion of European content, audience renewal and competitiveness of European content industries;
• Innovative Business Tools for production, financing, distribution or promotion enabled or enhanced by new technology (AI, big data, blockchain, Virtual Worlds, NFT, etc.), in particular: • Rights’ management and monetisation (including innovative bundled subscription offers to access diverse European cultural content from various existing European platforms), at the same time ensuring transparency and fair remuneration for creators and artists;
• Data collection and analysis, with particular emphasis on prediction for content creation and audience development (including innovative cross-sectoral tools to improve the quality of the subscriber service and a better valorisation of European content offered by European online platforms);

• “Greener” practices in order to lower the impact on the environment of the audiovisual and other cultural sectors in line with the Commission’s Green Deal and the New Bauhaus initiative.

Cross-sectoral cooperation between the audiovisual and other cultural and creative sectors is at the heart of the Call. Therefore, applications must clearly demonstrate the extent of the cross-sectoral approach, the conditions for its implementation and the expected benefits for the sectors covered. Applications should present adequate strategies to ensure more sustainable and more environmentally-respectful industry and to ensure gender balance, inclusion, diversity and representativeness. A wide spectrum of organisations will be invited to participate, including private and public entities, tech companies and start-ups, audiovisual, cultural and creative organisations. The participation of business incubators and accelerators shall be encouraged, to provide space and time for creative ideas to be shaped. Special emphasis will also be placed on attracting private investment and on own investment. The project’s ability to apply for a sound and reasonable level of EU public funding below the 80% authorised will be assessed.

The following activities are ineligible:

• multimedia art projects and installations;
• immersive tours, events, music videos and immersive experiences used in retail;
• works of a promotional nature being part of a promotional campaign or advertising for a specific, destination (tourism), product and/or brand and institutional productions to promote a specific organisation or its activities;
• reference works (encyclopaedias, atlases, catalogues, databases and similar), “how-to” works (instructional guides, manuals and similar) and (interactive) e-books;
• projects focusing on live recordings, TV games, talk shows, cooking shows, magazines, tv-shows, News, Media literacy, reality shows, educational, teaching and “how to” programmes;
• documentaries promoting tourism, “making-of”, reports, animal reportages, news programmes and “docu-soaps”;
• projects including pornographic or racist material or advocating violence;
• E-learning platforms;

Costs related to content production/development, organisation of cultural events are not eligible under this Call . Financial support to third parties is allowed for grants.

Type of action: CREA Project Grants

Programme period: 2021 - 2027

Priorities: DigitalAgenda, AI

"> Conditions

1. Admissibility conditions: Proposal page limit and layout

described in 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 the call document .

3. Other eligibility conditions

described in the call document .

4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion

described in the call document .

5a. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes

described in the call document .

5b. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds

Evaluation criteria, scoring, threshold and process are described in the call document

5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement

described in the call document .

Publication of the call: October, 20 2026 .

Deadline for submitting applications: April, 22 2027 17:00 (Brussels time).

Evaluation period: May-September 2027.

Information to applicants: October 2027.

Signature of grant agreement: January 2028.

6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants

described in the call document .

Call document and annexes:

Call document Application form templates Standard application form (CREA MEDIA) — the application form specific to this call is available in the Submission System Information on independence and ownership control (CREA MEDIA) Model Grant Agreements (MGA) CREA MGA

Additional documents:

CREA Annual Work Progr