Open calls

Apply to innovation pilots, challenge calls and collaborative projects. Selected participants work with OpenAIRE experts, with support, coaching and mentoring from idea to result.

OPEN CALLS

Current and upcoming calls

Calls from both strands are published here. Each call is labelled with its strand and states who can apply and how.

Running

Innovation Pilots & Hackathons 2026

For Open Science

We are looking for researchers, civic tech initiatives and startups with ideas that leverage the OpenAIRE Graph for real-world impact.

Opens: Q2 2026

Participate

Upcoming

Open Science and Industry Forum

Call for Speakers

Submit proposals for talks, panels and demos at the inaugural flagship event bringing together open science and innovation actors across Europe.

Opens: Q3 2026 Community

Express interest

Running

Data Partnership Pilots: Industry

With Open Science

Industry actors are invited to propose FAIR data exchange pilots, corpus curation for AI training or cross-repository enrichment projects with the OpenAIRE Graph.

Opens: Q2 2026

Participate

About to start

Compliance and Policy Sandbox

For & With Open Science

Test data licensing, reuse frameworks and responsible AI model clauses in a controlled environment. Open to both research organisations and industry.

Opens: Q3 2026

Express interest

What participants receive

Taking part in a call is more than access to data. Selected participants are supported by OpenAIRE experts throughout, so that ideas become working results.

Technical support

Access to the OpenAIRE Graph, APIs and data, with help from our technical team to integrate them into your prototype, service or research.

Coaching

Guidance to sharpen your idea, define the use case and value, and plan the path from pilot to product, service or policy impact.

Mentoring

A mentor from OpenAIRE who follows your project, with access to experts in open science, FAIR data, AI and legal questions when you need them.

Legal and compliance guidance

Help with data licensing, attribution and responsible AI, so that what you build respects European legal and ethical frameworks.

Visibility

Recognition as a collaborator, and the chance to present your results to the OpenAIRE community and at the Open Science and Industry Forum.

Community

Connections with OpenAIRE partners, research infrastructures and other participants, and invitations to roundtables and innovation sprints.

How a call works

Most calls follow the same five steps. Dates and selection criteria are published with each call.

Call opens

The call, criteria and timeline are published on this page.

Apply

Send a short proposal: your idea, team and how you would use OpenAIRE assets.

Selection

Proposals are assessed against the published criteria.

Build with support

Selected teams work on their pilot with coaching, mentoring and technical support.

Share results

Results are presented to the community and, where possible, shared openly.

Get notified about new calls

One email when a call opens.

Work mail

Questions about a call? Contact us.

Let's build something together

Tell us what you are working on, in research, public innovation or industry.

Get involved