The European Commission (EC) will organise the EU – South Africa Matchmaking Event in the context of Manufacturing Indaba which will be held on 24 October – 26 October 2023.

The EU – South Africa Matchmaking Event itself will take place on-site in Johannesburg, South Africa on 24 October – 26 October 2023.

The event will be jointly organised by the European Commission and The Department of Small Business Development (DSBD) of South Africa - with the support of the EU Delegation to South Africa and facilitated by the European Cluster Collaboration Platform (ECCP) and the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN).

Deadlines

This Call for Expression of Interest has two cut-off dates (deadlines):

1. 2 August 2023, 23:59 Brussels time and
2. 7 September 2023, 23:59 Brussels time.

First cut-off

Applicants will receive a notification whether their application is selected, put on the reserve list or rejected within two weeks after the first cut-off date. Applications on the reserve list may be edited and resubmitted until the second cut-off date – the last submitted application will be considered in the evaluation. 

Second cut-off

Applicants will receive a notification whether their application is selected or rejected within two weeks after the second cut-off date.

Applicants that are not selected may participate at their own cost if they fulfil the eligibility criteria of this call.

Applications on the reserve list of the first cut-off will be evaluated together with the applications received by the second cut-off date.

Apply and submit your expression of interest as a Cluster here until 7 September 2023, 23:59 (second cut-off date) Brussels Time.

The EU – South Africa Matchmaking Event will bring together cluster organisations, SMEs, Start-ups and European Industry Associations from the European Union (EU), non-EU COSME countries, and South Africa. It will provide participants an excellent chance to promote Cluster to Cluster (C2C), Cluster to Business (C2B), and Business to Business (B2B) collaborations. The overall objective of the event is to promote the exchange of information and provide networking opportunities for European cluster organisations and their members with counterparts from South Africa, particularly in the fields Agri-food, Green Industries, Chemicals and Metals, Transport (Maritime and Automotive), Digital Tech, Textile and Leather.

The objectives for the participants include:

• Strengthening EU-South Africa cluster cooperation for the benefit of their members, including a seminar, a cluster matchmaking event, and site visits.
• Identifying potential areas of common interest for cooperation and synergies, in terms of the sectoral, value chain, and market focus of their SMEs and other companies.
• Improving, through clusters, the EU-South Africa industry and academia-industry collaboration in research, development, and innovation. For its members, the clusters will identify possible areas of RDI collaboration (academia, research organisations, industries...).

The call for expressions of interest is being launched to identify an European delegation made up of representatives from cluster organisations (please see section “Who can participate” below) who are willing and committed to participate in the EU-South Africa Matchmaking Event.

By submitting an expression of interest in response to this call, you are indicating your acceptance of the call's terms.

Further details about the event, the eligibility requirements, and how to submit an expression of interest can be found here.

This call is targeting only cluster organisations and business network organisations. A separate call exists for SMEs. So if you are an SME you should respond to the call that is available here.