YIELD project open call: celebrating innovation across 5 countries

YIELD Project Open Call Results: 81 international teams highlighted a powerful surge in Mediterranean deep-tech solutions, with Egypt, Palestine, and Jordan leading in complete the Blue and Green Circular Economy challenge coverage.
Driven by IoT, AI, and clean technologies, the cohort showcases robust regional innovation alongside a strong push for empowering female-led ventures.

Publication Date
25/05/2026
Reading Time
3 minutes

We are thrilled to share the final results and key findings from the recent YIELD Project Open Call. With 81 total teams evaluated across five participating nations, the applications highlight a powerful surge in deep-tech solutions tailored to meet pressing environmental and sustainability challenges. 

Here is a closer look at the data, trends, and breakthroughs shaping our collective future:

 Challenge Coverage: A Mediterranean Drive for Solutions

Our participating countries –Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Greece, and Italy– showcased incredible dedication to addressing the BGCE (Blue and Green Circular Economy) challenges:

  • 100% Coverage Leaders: Egypt, Palestine, and Jordan achieved complete coverage by submitting innovative solutions across all 10 BGCE challenges.
  • Universal Priorities: Challenges related to Water Security and Resource Recovery are universally prioritized across the board. In fact, Resource Recovery (Challenge #5) emerged as the single most popular focus area, capturing 41% of all participating teams.
  • Regional Highlights:  Palestine showed immense strength in Water Security (77% coverage rate) and Climate Resilience (69% coverage rate).  
    • Jordan dominated in Resource Recovery (56%) and Material Circularity (52%). 
    • Greece and Italy demonstrated highly specialized focus areas, particularly excelling in Material Circularity and Digitalisation.
       

 Deep Tech Distribution: Driving the Future of Clean-Tech

The Open Call proved that modern environmental solutions rely heavily on advanced technology. IoT, AI/ML, and Clean Tech completely dominated the landscape, making up 76% of all technology applications:

 

Deep Tech Area Total Teams Overall Percentage
IoT / Smart Systems 25 26.0%
AI / ML 24 25.0%
Clean / Climate Tech 24 25.0%
Advanced Biotech 16 16.7%
Robotics 4 4.2%
Material Science 3 3.1%

Key Regional Tech Trends:

  • Jordan stands out as the absolute leader in Clean/Climate Tech deployment with 9 dedicated teams.  
  • Greece went all-in on digital automation, with 100% of their teams exclusively utilizing AI/ML and IoT solutions. 
  • Egypt presented the most well-rounded technological ecosystem, balancing applications across AI/ML, IoT, and Advanced Biotech.
     

 Empowering Female Innovators

Achieving gender inclusivity remains a cornerstone of the YIELD project. Across all nations, 16 teams (19.8%) feature female-led innovations: 

  • Jordan leads the pack in female participation, with an impressive 41.7% of its teams being female-led. 
  • Egypt and Italy follow strongly with a 33.3% female team ratio each. 

Moving Forward: While these numbers showcase incredible talent, the overall gender gap presents an excellent opportunity for the YIELD Project to design targeted outreach and mentorship initiatives in our upcoming phases. 

Conclusion

The baseline data established via this Open Call confirms that the Mediterranean innovation ecosystem possesses robust capabilities in IoT automation, algorithmic machine learning, and clean technologies. 

Stay tuned to our website and social media channels as we begin profiling the winning teams and tracking their incubation journeys!

Last Update

25/05/2026