About the VR Health Champions Open Call 2026

Each selected project can receive up to €60,000 as a lump sum. The The specific budget for each challenge is defined in Annex 1 – Challenge Descriptions of the Open Call text.

One application per challenge will be funded.

No. Each applicant may submit only one challenge proposal.

Yes – an info session will be held, and additional support is available via email at cascadecall@vrhealthchampions.eu . Full details can be found in the Open Call Document.

According to the open call text, the eligible regions are the ones listed on the website and Ukraine is not among them

• A region covered by the VR Health Champions consortium,
• A less developed region within the European Union, or
• An outermost region of the European Union, as recognised under Article 349 of the TFEU.

No. According to the call text, applicants must be SMEs legally established in one of the following:

• A region covered by the VR Health Champions consortium,
• A less developed region within the European Union, or
• An outermost region of the European Union, as recognised under Article 349 of the TFEU

As the Region of Catalunya (Spain) is not listed among the eligible regions of the call text, an SME registered in Barcelona would not be eligible to apply directly under this call.

No, there is no participation or processing fee to apply for the VR Health Champions Open Call 2026.

After submitting your proposal through the online form on the project website, it will go through the evaluation process described in the call text:

• Admissibility and Eligibility Check

• Remote Evaluation

• Hearings (Pitch Interviews)

• Selection and Contracting

• • A region covered by the VR Health Champions consortium.
  • A less developed region within the European Union, as defined by the European Commission, where GDP per capita is below 75% of the EU average.
  • An outermost region of the European Union, as recognized under Article 349 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).

The term “legally established” refers specifically to the registered (legal) office of the SME as recognised in official company registration documents.

Operational or branch offices located in eligible (less developed) regions do not qualify an SME for eligibility if the legal seat is registered in a non-eligible region. Therefore, only SMEs legally registered in one of the eligible regions listed in Section 4.1.2 of the call text can apply.

Challenge 6 does not ask you to create VR scenarios. It focuses on a web platform to create, adapt, license, and report on scenarios using our pre-existing assets/modules and back-end services.
– In scope: Web app for scenario authoring/adaptation, user/license management, reporting dashboards, integration with existing Metaskills systems & VR application, GDPR/fairness safeguards.
– Authoring tool: Our scenario authoring engine is being developed by Metaskills; your platform will integrate with it (level of integration defined during discovery).

Yes, Cogniclear features a robot that speaks throughout the experience, with all dialogue supported by subtitles. The app is currently localised in Portuguese, Spanish, Hindi, English, Polish, and Italian. Localising to additional languages is relatively straightforward, and we are testing Cogniclear in multiple countries to ensure cultural neutrality, so language should not be a limiting factor when the cascade funding partner is evaluating the market to enter with Cogniclear VR.  

According to section 4.1.2 (Eligibility of Applicants), “Applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) cannot participate in more than one proposal under the call for proposals.” 
This restriction applies across all challenges, not per challenge. Each SME may only submit one proposal total for this call. 

The TRL advancement described in Section 2.2 of the Open Call text refers to the five flagship SMEs’ innovations, not to the applicants’ own technologies. 
Applicants are expected to contribute specific expertise to help these flagship SMEs close their value chain gaps and move their innovations closer to market readiness. The applicants themselves do not have to demonstrate TRL progression of their own product. 

There is no minimum period of existence stated in the call. 
Applicants must simply qualify as an SME under the European Commission definition (EU Recommendation 2003/361/EC) and be legally established in an eligible region. Even newly founded SMEs can apply if they meet these criteria and provide a valid company registration certificate (or PIC number). 

No. 
Only SMEs legally established in the eligible regions listed in Table 4 may apply. 
For Germany, the only eligible region is Oberbayern. 
Berlin, Hamburg, and Halle are not eligible regions for this call. 

Eligibility (Section 4.1.2) is strictly limited to SMEs as defined by the European Commission. 

For France, only the outermost regions listed in Table 4 are eligible: 
Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, Mayotte, Réunion, and Saint Martin. 
Mainland regions (e.g., Île-de-France, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, etc.) are not eligible. 

A company’s registration seat is its official legal address, which determines its jurisdiction and the laws it must follow.  A company registration number is a unique, official identifier assigned to a business upon its incorporation. 

1. During proposal preparation phase: proposal budget exceeding the maximum of the challenge budget specified in Annex 1 – Challenge Descriptions may be submitted, however this will be taken into account when assessing the Resource allocation efficiency and Approach feasibility within time and budget constraints, Best Value for Money – Justification of budget, cost breakdown, and alignment with market standards during the evaluation process.
2. During reporting phase: if the actual delivery costs for the Participants exceed the approved grant amount, reimbursement can only be made up to the level of the approved grant. Any additional costs incurred beyond the approved financial budget will remain the sole responsibility of the Participants.

E. Indirect cost will be reimbursed at the flat-rate of 7% of the eligible direct costs (A. Direct Personnel Costs, C.1 Travel and subsistence, C. 3 Other goods, works and services) meaning that the challenge budget specified in Annex 1 – Challenge Descriptions shall be calculated as this 7% is included where applicable. Budget template of the call automatically calculates this amount.

Example: if the challenge budget specified in Annex 1 – Challenge Descriptions is EUR 10,000 and the Applicant plans to utilize the total budget available on A. Direct Personnel Costs then the direct amount of A. Direct Personnel Costs shall be EUR 9,345.79 and the 7% E. Indirect cost shall be EUR 654.21.    

Open call text Section 3.5: The financial support to SMEs will be calculated as a maximum of 100% of eligible costs, up to €60.000, but the applicants may request a lower grant rate/grant amount. 

Participants may utilize co-funding for the delivery of their project, however, double funding (i.e., same investment financed under different EU instruments) must be avoided. 

1. During proposal preparation phase: proposal budget exceeding the maximum of the challenge budget specified in Annex 1 – Challenge Descriptions may be submitted, however this will be taken into account when assessing the efficiency of resource allocation during the evaluation process.

2. During reporting phase: if the actual delivery costs for the Participants exceed the approved grant amount, reimbursement can only be made up to the level of the approved grant. Any additional costs incurred beyond the approved financial budget will remain the sole responsibility of the Participants.

The submitted budget will be taken into account when assessing the Resource allocation efficiency and Approach feasibility within time and budget constraints, Best Value for Money – Justification of budget, cost breakdown, and alignment with market standards during the evaluation process. 

Yes. Organisations based in Prahova County (Sud–Muntenia region) are eligible, as the region is listed among Romania’s less developed regions covered by the call.

The CarnaLife Holo MedNav will be provided by MedApp S.A. for the time of the pilot procedures with appropriate training. We can also assist during the first treatment.

The challenge seeks a technical collaborator, not a content co-creator. The goal is to integrate new functionalities or modules into the existing Metaskills platform, focusing on technical implementation (e.g. Digital Twin, on-prem SLL) rather than content design or pedagogical development.

In line with the VR Health Champions project framework, the intellectual property generated within the challenge will remain with the challenge owner. Any IP resulting from the collaboration must be transferred to the challenge owner.

No. SMEs established in Türkiye are not eligible to apply for the VR Health Champions Open Call.

According to the call’s eligibility criteria, applicants must be legally established in one of the following locations:

• A region covered by the VR Health Champions consortium,

• A less developed region within the European Union, or

• An outermost region of the European Union.

This full list of eligible regions is provided in Section 4.1.2 – Eligibility of Applicants and also on the website, which includes only EU Member State regions. Türkiye is not listed among the eligible regions.

Eligibility is determined exclusively by the location of the SME’s legal (registered) office as stated in its official company registration documents. An operational site, branch office, or activity location in an eligible region does not qualify an SME if its legal seat is registered in a non-eligible region. Only SMEs legally established—meaning legally registered—in one of the eligible regions listed in Section 4.1.2 of the call text are eligible to apply.

Applications must be submitted electronically via the application form on the VR Health Champions website.
Proposals must be complete and include all parts and required attachments and supporting documents, including:
• Budget table and work plan
• Company registration certificate (required only if a validated PIC number is not available)

A PIC number a Participant Identification Code, a unique 9-digit number assigned by the European Commission to organizations that participate in EU funding programs. More info is available here: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/how-to-participate/participant-register

At submission, only the following documents are mandatory:

• Budget table and Work Plan

• Proof of legal establishment (only if you do not have a validated PIC number)

Your registration certificate must clearly indicate the place of legal establishment, as this is needed to verify geographic eligibility.

Acceptable documents include:

• For sole proprietors: an official extract from the relevant national registry confirming the legally registered address.

• For companies: an official company register extract issued by the competent national authority showing the registered seat.

If the registration certificate does not explicitly state the legal address, you may provide any other official document issued by a competent authority that confirms the legal seat.

Yes. In line with the call text, the VR Health Champions consortium may request additional documents during the evaluation, contracting, or post-selection phases.

These may include:

• Balance sheet or financial statements

• Documentation confirming the number of employees

Such documents are requested only if needed and only from applicants advancing to later stages.

Yes. Applicants who were not selected in the first round are fully eligible to re-apply in the second round.

We do use Meta Quest 3 and Quest Pro internally (Quest Pro has eye-tracking).
However, it’s worth highlighting that for the purposes of this specific cascade call the hardware itself is not central.

The challenge is not about building VR scenes or heavy VR mechanics — it’s mainly about:

• modelling behavioural patterns,

• building the Digital Twin for soft-skills assessment,

• working on interpretation, analytics, and feedback layers.

In practice, most submissions won’t need VR headsets at all.

If someone wants to use their own equipment or ours, that’s possible — but it is absolutely not a requirement for this call.

Since this challenge is not hardware-driven, execution can happen fully at the SME’s location.

If at any point someone needs to test something with our setup, they can arrange that, but it’s optional and doesn’t need to be budgeted as equipment cost.

Yes — if someone wants to use their own equipment or ours, that’s possible.
But again, it is not required, and because the challenge is not hardware-centric, it does not need to be included as an equipment cost.

The budget is exactly as mentioned during the fireside chat: up to 60,000 EUR.

Since we have 3 different calls in this round, we have different budgets per each.
The budget limits per call are mentioned under each call description — they vary from 30,000 to 55,000 EUR.

So yes, the differences reflect the specific budget of the given challenge, not flexibility or negotiation.

The Work Plan is included as the third sheet (“Workplan”) of the mandatory Budget Table Excel file:

26092025_VRHC_Open_Call_2026_LS-budget_template.xlsx

You can download the file from the VR Health Champions website:
https://vrhealthchampions.eu/get-involved/ → Download call text and documents for submission.

The Excel file contains three sheets:

1. Instructions

2. Budget Table

3. Workplan

Applicants must complete all three sheets and upload the file during submission.

There are no mandatory in-person meetings, and applicants do not need to include any travel costs in the budget.

If anyone wants to meet in person, it can always be arranged optionally, but it is not required at any stage of the project. All coordination and implementation activities can be fully executed online.