European Digital Innovation Hub — Test Before Invest

What this scheme funds

Subsidised access to AI expertise and test environments so you can validate a concept before you fund a build.

• Technical validation and proof-of-concept experimentation
• Access to specialist AI expertise and infrastructure
• Data suitability and model feasibility testing
• Guidance on EU AI Act obligations and trustworthy AI practice
• Skills and awareness support for the internal team

What it does not fund

These costs are routinely ruled ineligible under this scheme.

• Production deployment and ongoing operation
• Commercial software licences
• Business-as-usual IT work

Who is eligible

Eligibility is decided by European Digital Innovation Hub, not by Digital Bridge.

• SME or public sector organisation, subject to the hub's current criteria
• A defined AI question that experimentation can genuinely answer
• Willingness to engage technically with the hub team

How to apply

Typical end-to-end timeline: Engagement typically begins within weeks of a maturity assessment, with proof-of-concept work running over one to three months depending on data readiness.

• Identify the hub covering your sector and region
• Submit an expression of interest describing the technical question
• Complete the hub's digital maturity assessment
• Agree the scope of the Test Before Invest engagement
• Run the experiment, then use the findings to scope the production build

Evidence you will need

Applications are usually delayed by missing paperwork rather than by weak projects.

• Description of the AI use case and the specific unknown
• Indication of available data and its condition
• Digital maturity assessment completion

Why applications get rejected

The recurring reasons assessors give under this scheme.

• The request is really for free production development
• No experimental question — the answer is already known
• No usable data available for the test

What Digital Bridge delivers under this scheme

Illustrative net cost applies the published rate (Services provided free or at heavily subsidised rates) to our published engagement bands. It is arithmetic, not an offer of funding.

• Production engineering of a validated proof of concept — list From €15,000, illustrative net cost Hub validates; the production build is separately funded

Who decides this grant, and what we are responsible for

European Digital Innovation Hub decides eligibility, approval and payment under this scheme. Digital Bridge supplies the work and the documentation an assessor asks for from the supplier side.

• Digital Bridge does not administer, assess, approve, pay or appeal any grant. Every decision is made by the funding body named on the scheme, under its own published rules.
• This section is general information, not financial, tax, legal or grant-writing advice. It is not an application, a pre-approval, or any form of assurance that you will be funded.
• Scheme rates, ceilings and eligibility change without notice and several supports are administered locally, so your Local Enterprise Office or agency may apply different rules to the ones published here. Confirm everything with the funder in writing before you commit.
• Our questionnaire is a deterministic guide based only on the answers you give. It cannot see your accounts, your sector classification, your state-aid position or your previous awards, so it can suggest a scheme you are ultimately found ineligible for.
• If an application is refused, delayed, reduced or clawed back, our fees for work you have instructed remain payable. We recommend you do not instruct chargeable work until your funder confirms in writing what it will support.
• Costs incurred before a funder receives your application are almost always ineligible. Timing is your responsibility, and we will always tell you when we think you should wait.

How the EDIH Test Before Invest works in practice

European Digital Innovation Hubs exist so that a company can try a technology before spending money on it. Support is largely in kind — access to expertise, facilities, testing and sometimes pilot environments — rather than a payment into the business account. For AI in particular this is the least risky first step available in Ireland, because it lets a company find out whether its data is actually usable before anyone commissions a build. The common disappointment is timing: hubs work to their own programme calendars, so a company with a hard commercial deadline may find the queue longer than the project can wait. Ask about the next intake early.

What we do as the supplier on the quote

We treat a hub engagement as a gate. If a test-before-invest exercise shows the data is too sparse, too inconsistent or too poorly labelled, the correct outcome is that we do not build the thing that was being considered, and we will say so. Where a pilot does prove out, the hub's technical notes make a considerably stronger basis for a fixed-price scope than a discovery run entirely by the supplier who wants the contract. We are happy to work from a hub's findings and to hand over our own documentation into one.

Why would I use a hub instead of paying an integrator to prototype?

Because if the honest technical question is 'will this even work on our data', a subsidised experiment is the cheaper way to find out. We will tell a client to do exactly that when it applies. Where the risk is integration and operations rather than model feasibility, a hub proof of concept will not answer it and a properly engineered pilot will.

Does a proof of concept become the production system?

Almost never, and treating it as production is one of the most expensive mistakes we see. A proof of concept is built to answer a question fast. Production needs error handling, access control, audit logging, monitoring, rollback and a support model.

Is EDIH support free?

Support is typically subsidised or free at the point of use for eligible SMEs, because the hubs are publicly co-funded, but availability, intake dates and eligibility vary by hub. Confirm with the hub covering your region before planning around it.

Source and last review

Scheme parameters checked against European Digital Innovation Hubs — EU Commission (https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/activities/edihs) on 2026-08-18. Reviewed quarterly. Next scheduled review: November 2026. Digital Bridge is a supplier, not the awarding body. Eligibility, approval and payment are decided solely by the funding body named on each scheme. Figures below are the published scheme parameters as at the review date shown, and net costs are arithmetic illustrations of the published rate applied to our published prices. Always confirm current rules with the funder before you commit to any spend, because expenditure incurred before an application is received is almost always ineligible.

What is genuinely useful about testing before committing budget?

The honest answer is that it stops businesses buying the wrong thing confidently. Most failed digital investments we are called in to rescue were not failures of software quality; they were failures of fit, where a product that works perfectly well elsewhere met a process it was never designed for. A structured test-before-invest engagement forces the awkward questions early: what is the actual volume, what does the data look like in reality rather than in the demo, who will operate this on a Tuesday when it misbehaves. It also produces something valuable even when the answer is no. A documented conclusion that a technology does not suit your operation saves the full cost of finding that out after purchase, and it is a far cheaper piece of learning than a half-implemented platform that everyone quietly stops using six months later.

How does an independent testing centre fit alongside a commercial supplier like us?

They answer different questions and we are careful not to blur that. A digital innovation hub is set up to be impartial: it can tell you whether a class of technology is suitable for your kind of operation without a build at the end of the conversation. We cannot make that claim, because we sell the build, and any supplier who tells you otherwise is being loose with the word independent. The sequence that works well is assessment first, scope second. Businesses that arrive with a hub's findings in hand write much tighter briefs, ask harder questions about integration, and generally spend less with us than businesses starting from a sales conversation — which is fine, because the projects that result are the ones that survive contact with daily use. Where a hub concludes that a business is not ready, we would rather hear that before quoting than halfway through delivery.