[EU] Digital Europe Calls on Advanced Digital Skills Published

The European Commission has launched new calls for proposals under the Digital Europe Programme, in the field of advanced digital skills.

Digital Europe is the European Union’s Programme aimed at providing strategic funding for projects in areas such as supercomputing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, advanced digital skills, and ensuring a wide use of digital technologies across the economy and society.

The 2025-2027 Work Programme highlights key initiatives to be funded, including those related to advanced digital skills.

In this regard, the Commission previously launched three calls for proposals, aimed at establishing new Digital Skills Academies, with a particular focus on quantum skills, GenAI, and Virtual Worlds. The Commission further intends to launch two additional calls on the establishment of new Digital Skills Academies, with a particular focus on AI Factories and Semiconductors, in 2026 and 2027 respectively.

Next to the establishment of these Digital Skills Academies, the Commission continues to provide funding for the design and delivery of education programmes in key capacity areas, as in previous years.

Related to Advanced Digital Skills, the Commission has now launched three new calls for proposals, the first of which offers opportunities for higher education institutions.

The first call focuses on Advanced Digital Skills for AI Uptake in Health (with a total budget of €7,800,000 for two projects, with a 50% funding rate for a duration of 48 months) aimed at expanding the offer of education and training in Artificial Intelligence in health jointly designed between higher education and training institutions, research organisations and industry.

The target audience of the training programmes would include healthcare professionals and managers, as well as computer and data scientists, programmers, and software developers working in the healthcare sector. The training courses should be made available to members of the “European network of AI-powered advanced screening centres” at least quarterly, but the courses could also be offered to interested participants outside the network.

The two other calls focus on Digital Skills and Jobs Platform (aimed at the establishment or expansion of National Coalitions for Digital Skills and Jobs and national platforms in Member States and associated countries); and EdTech Accelerator (aimed at assisting European EdTech startups and SMEs in transforming concepts for educational solutions into matured and fully tested applications and solutions) respectively.

The calls for proposals close on 1 October 2026, with the results expected to be announced in December 2026.

Key Links and Documents:

The Call document outlining the requirements of the calls

Proposals should be submitted by 1 October 2026, 17:00 CET, on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal, respectively:

More information on the Digital Europe Programme and its current priorities can be found in the 2025-2027 Work Programme

The Belgian Digital Europe National Contact Points (NCP Brussels, NCP Federal, NCP Flanders and NCP Wallonia) organise an info session to provide information on the Digital Europe programme, these and other call topics, participation requirements and practical tips for the preparation of an application, on 27 April 2026.

Interested?

If you have any questions about the calls for proposals and the corresponding application processes, or if you are considering applying, please contact Team EU International Education Projects (University Service Education and Research – Function Domain Internationalisation) via eu-educationprojects@ugent.be. 

April 15, 2026, 5:04 p.m.