Budget
- Funding rate: Up to 100% for non-profit organisations and 70% for SMEs and profit organisations. - Budget conditions / limitations: Each project can receive up to €250,000. - Payments: Payments are distributed at the end of each sprint, based on the achievement of agreed KPIs, in a 30%+40%+30% distribution.
Key dates and deadline
- Open Call launch: 17 November 2025 - Deadline for Applications: 21 January 2026, 17:00 CET - Evaluation period: February 2026 - Contracting: March 2026 - Implemenation: April 2026 to January 2027.
Details
As industries move towards smart manufacturing, the integration of human-robot collaboration is crucial o ensuring safe, efficient and scalable production processes. FORTIS is committed to advancing next-generation HRI technologies by supporting external innovators with financial resources, technical expertise and industry collaboration opportunities. Through this Open Call, we seek to: Accelerate the adoption of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) innovations that can improve automation and human-robot synergy. Enable real-world validation of promising technologies in operational environments. Expand the ecosystem of robotics research and industrial applications by engaging new partners beyond the FORTIS consortium. Selected projects will receive direct funding and structured guidance to refine their solutions and facilitate market adoption.
Eligibility
- Organisations looking for funding to prototype, test and scale up their HRI technologies. - Eligible participants must be from EU Member States, H2020/HEU Associated Countries, or the Overseas Countries and Territories linked to the Member States. - The consortia must be a multidisciplinary consortium of at least 2 entities. At least 1 SME per project. The non-industry partners involved cannot exceed 30% of total project budget. - The entities of the consortia need to be multiple countries, i.e. the applicants must be from at least 2 countries. Organisations looking for funding to prototype, test and scale up their HRI technologies. - The OC will accept proposed solutions up to TRL 5-6. - Applications will not be accepted from entities with conflicts of interest related to the FORTIS consortium members.
Additional information
Specific topics or challenges: Applicants must submit their proposals to one of the FORTIS topics or subtopics: Topic 1: Activity Recognition - 1.1 Human Activity Recognition Using Non-wearable - 1.2 Human Activity Recognition Using Wearable Sensors Topic 2: Long-term memory - 2.1 Memory Consolidation and Forgetting Mechanisms - 2.2 Lifelong and Continual Learning for Personalized Adaptation Topic 3: Enhancing Robotic Intelligibility Through Directional Audio and Visual Effects - 3.1 Spatialized and Adaptive Audio for Robot Communication - 3.2 Visual Cues for Enhanced Intelligibility Topic 4: Multimodality semantic segmentation/perception
How to apply?
https://fortis-project.eu/open-call-1/