EU FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT TIPS

Scope:

This aims to enhance cooperation among innovation agencies of the European innovation ecosystem by establishing a mutual learning process at national and regional level, as well as by developing joint tools and resources to assist start-ups and SMEs to innovate.

The pilot action will create an enhancing, supporting and cooperative environment across EU that will allow national and regional agencies to:

• cooperate, learn from each other and exchange knowledge by using join tools in order to provide high-level services and support high-quality start-ups and SMEs for their innovation projects;
• create and operate national and/or regional support schemes regarding feasibility studies and external expertise, thus ensuring that the most promising high-potential innovation proposals of start-ups / SMEs are supported at their critical stage of development.

In particular, the cooperation that will notably involve the participation of national or regional innovation agencies or similar organisations should focus on:

• Exchange of information and best practices, with focus on:
• Best ways to better identify the specific needs of the start-ups and SMEs in order to allow the customization of the provided services
• The design of programmes at national/regional levels with the view of filling possible gaps in relation to the services provided by the European Innovation Council (EIC), as well as the design of the project proposals and the weight of the criteria
• Internationalisation of evaluation panels. The cooperation shall also enable accesses to respective pools of evaluators in order to set international evaluation panels and facilitate the establishment of minimum set of common evaluation criteria.
• Coaching services and selection of coaches, including access to existing databases of coaches/experts (EU, national, regional) and possible creation of pools of experts. Optionally, design and development of other common tools and resources.
• Identifying ways to continue the exchanges, provided services, tools and resources after the end of the action.
• The established national and/or regional support schemes could include the following:
• Common tools and resources to support, with the respective budgets of the national innovation agencies, highly innovative start-ups and SMEs with a clear commercial ambition and a potential for high growth and internationalisation for their close-to-market activities. The national resources deployed by national innovation agencies, if relevant, will need to comply with State Aid competition rules
• Feasibility study as an outcome of the project (not necessarily the only one)
• International pool of evaluators of the projects
• Short market-oriented project proposal template/form
• Introduction of other supportive services, including coaching services to the beneficiaries
• Follow up of the beneficiaries and advice services concerning other possible instruments on national/regional/EU levels, as well as other ways of private funding for the continuation of a project, in case the feasibility studies demonstrate that it is worth proceeding to the next phase of development.

The objective of Pilot Projects under this Call is to foster the development of tools supporting independent and inclusive access to online content and services, including consumer transactions, for persons with cognitive disabilities, to fulfil the commitments under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the EU Web Accessibility Directive4
and the European Accessibility Act5 . Such tools will benefit all users, including vulnerable citizens affected e.g. by information overload, excessive credulity, psychosocial disabilities or old age.
In particular, proposals must address common accessibility challenges that persons with cognitive disabilities encounter on websites or mobile applications, such as:
- signing in or completing authentication processes;
- entering data or filling out forms, avoiding and correcting errors;
- accomplishing multi-stage tasks;
- using complex interfaces and intricate navigation patterns;
- processing information on cluttered pages, avoiding cognitive overload;
- getting focussed on the task at hand, limiting interruptions, reminders, and changes in content;
- stopping animations and auto-play videos or audios;
- understanding text and graphics;
- identifying key points from lengthy or heavy text based pages;
- interpreting and processing numerical information, including managing dates;
- finding information;
- following instructions;
- looking for help or support

General objectives of the initiative
The EU Aid Volunteers initiative aims to contribute to strengthening the Union's capacity to provide needs-based humanitarian aid aimed at preserving life, preventing and alleviating human suffering and maintaining human dignity and to strengthening the capacity and resilience of vulnerable or disaster-affected communities in third countries, particularly by means of disaster preparedness, disaster risk reduction, and by enhancing the link between relief, rehabilitation and development.

The objective of the call is to fund projects involving the selection, preparation and deployment of junior and senior EU Aid Volunteers, apprenticeship for junior volunteers and online volunteering.
The deployment of senior and junior professionals, apprenticeships for junior professionals and online volunteering opportunities shall contribute to:
- Capacity building of vulnerable or disaster-affected communities in third countries;
- Resilience building and disaster risk management in vulnerable, fragile or disasteraffected countries and forgotten crises;
- Disaster prevention, preparedness, disaster risk reduction and recovery from natural and man-made disasters, including the impacts of climate change:
- Enhancing the link between relief, rehabilitation and development;
- Support to emergency response operations

BUDGET AVAILABLE
The total budget earmarked for the co-financing of projects is estimated at EUR 13 500 000 (maximum co-financing is 85%).
The maximum grant will be EUR 1 400 000. Grant requests below EUR 60 000 will not be considered for funding. The Agency expects to fund 12 proposals

New confirmed measures

All submission deadlines are being extended by one month.

Applicants may register for a one-to-one short discussion about their project concept with one of our project advisors (a registration system will be set up once the call is published).

Private entities in the 2020 call are no longer obliged to launch ‘open’ tenders for contracts above 139 000 euros’. However, when purchasing goods and services, they will need to comply with the ‘value for money’ and ‘absence of conflict of interest’ requirements (their internal procurement rules will need to be respected).  

All projects will be allowed to financially support local initiatives that may contribute to the project objective.

Environment sub-programme

• Environment and resource efficiency traditional projects
  • Launch of the call for proposals: 2 April 2020
  • Deadline for submitting concept notes: 14 July 2020 (extended)
• Nature and biodiversity traditional projects
  • Launch of the call for proposals: 2 April 2020
  • Deadline for submitting concept notes: 16 July 2020 (extended)
• Environmental governance and information traditional projects
  • Launch of the call for proposals: 2 April 2020
  • Deadline for submitting concept notes: 16 July 2020 (extended)
• Integrated projects under the sub-programme for environment
  • Launch of the call for proposals: 2 April 2020
  • Deadline for submitting concept notes: 6 October 2020 (extended)
• Technical assistance projects under the sub-programme for environment
  • Launch of the call for proposals: 2 April 2020
  • Deadline for submitting full proposals: 16 July 2020 (extended)

Climate action sub-programme

• Climate change mitigation traditional projects​​​​​
  • Launch of the call for proposals: 2 April 2020
  • Deadline for submitting full proposals: 6 October 2020 (extended)
• Climate change adaptation traditional projects​
  • Launch of the call for proposals: 2 April 2020
  • Deadline for submitting full proposals: 6 October 2020 (extended)
• Climate governance and information traditional projects
  • Launch of the call for proposals: 2 April 2020
  • Deadline for submitting full proposals: 6 October 2020 (extended)
• Integrated projects under the sub-programme for climate action
  • Launch of the call for proposals: 2 April 2020
  • Deadline for submitting concept notes: 6 October 2020 (extended)
• Technical assistance projects under the sub-programme for climate action
  • Launch of the call for proposals: 2 April 2020
  • Deadline for submitting full proposals: 16 July 2020 (extended)

Are you a woman currently enrolled, or about to enrol, in a Master’s course in economics at a university or business school in Europe?  

€10,000 each, to five female economics students  in order to finance their studies 

Eligibility criteria

• You are a woman
• You are an EU citizen
• You are currently enrolled, or are about to enrol, in a Master’s course in economics at a European university or business school
• You have a financial need, and the funding gap may prevent you from pursuing your studies
• You obtained excellent grades in your undergraduate studies (corresponding grades are outlined below for some countries; for other countries, grades of an equivalent level are required)

Apply by 9 June 2020 (23:59 CEST).

General objective

 to encourage and support citizen engagement in cohesion policy for better implementation and a stronger sense of ownership of its results among citizens

Specific objective 

to support projects that provide citizens/civil society organisations (CSOs) efficient means to actively participate in the design and/or implementation and/or monitoring of cohesion policy.

The selected projects will promote active participation of citizens at the level of an operational programme, of a policy objective covered by the programme and/or of a specific objective. The selection will be done based on the quality of the proposal and planned activities.

Priority will be given to project proposals that will:
- Develop new tools or actions that support citizen engagement in cohesion policy; and/or
- Support scaling up of existing tools or activities for strengthening and widening citizen engagement in cohesion policy.

BUDGET AVAILABLE
The total budget earmarked for the co-financing of projects under this call for proposals is estimated at EUR 375 000.
The maximum grant will be EUR 25 000.

Deadline for submitting applications:1.06.2020 

No modification to the application is allowed once the deadline for submission has elapsed. However, if there is a need to clarify certain aspects or to correct clerical mistakes, the Commission may contact the applicant during the evaluation process.

Applications must be submitted by email in pdf format to the following email address:
REGIO-CALL-FOR-PROPOSALS@ec.europa.eu. 

Good Luck!

Related to the COVID-19 outbreak, is it possible in Horizon 2020 grants to postpone the starting date of the action?

Will the deadlines for Horizon 2020 calls be extended related to the COVID-19 outbreak?

Related to the COVID-19 outbreak, what happens in Horizon 2020 grants if beneficiaries cannot submit all/complete elements for their reports related to interim and final payments?

Can the clause on “force majeure” in the Horizon 2020 grant agreement be invoked in relation to the COVID-19 outbreak?

More Faq on the Participant Portal 

ID: INNOSUP-08-2020

Scope:

The objective is to reinforce the competitiveness of manufacturing SMEs by providing easy and pan-European access to advanced manufacturing advice and expertise as well as training programmes. The services to be provided to the SME should be driven by its business needs and the implementation must be flexible and fast to better cope with the speed of innovation in advanced manufacturing and the SME requirements.

The action will consist of the two elements (which can be combined) listed below which will continue and expand the activities of the Advanced Manufacturing Support Centre :

• The roll-out of a pan-European advanced manufacturing assistance programme helping SMEs with the ambition to turn into a factory of the future: Reaching out to companies and assisting a critical mass of manufacturing SMEs with a view to transform their business towards a factory of the future with modern and sustainable production.

Expected Impact:

• Provide a clear and measurable contribution of the advanced manufacturing assistance and training programme to the innovation performance and environmental and social sustainability of the supported SMEs, as revealed by indicators such as: numbers of new or significantly improved production processes, products or services or new organisational methods; its impact on resource efficiency; its impact on productivity, production lead times, investments and/or turnover; number of SMEs that prepared a concrete plan to upgrade their manufacturing processes during the action; its impact on technical and non­technical competences acquired and workers involvement; a wider impact on job creation is also expected to be measured in the longer term.

• Frameworks for training programmes related to advanced manufacturing, ready for implementation within the duration of the action. These should propose a pathway on how to facilitate a further scaling-up under the European Social Fund.

The training services should include practical, "on-site" training delivered at facilities where technologies can be tested and demonstrated such as pilot lines (e.g. "learning by doing",
"learning factories", fab labs). Proposals should include solutions to overcome the challenge of both geographical distance and the gender segregation.

ID: LANGEQ-2020

OBJECTIVES
The objective of this pilot project is to draw up a sustainable evidence-based strategic research agenda and roadmap setting out actions, processes, tools and actors to achieve full digital language equality of all languages (official or otherwise) used within the Union through the effective use of language technologies. The research agenda should lay out the current state of language technologies and language equality within the Union and give a detailed picture of the desired situation that is needed to achieve digital language equality. The roadmap will then provide the path and the means needed to implement the agenda and ensure that digital language equality becomes a reality by 2030.

The selected project will create a research agenda, which will:
1. Map relevant stakeholders and initiatives and liaise with them through public consultations and on-going dialogues;
2. Map relevant technologies, in particular based on artificial intelligence, assess their impact on the linguistic landscape and then analyse the conditions required to maintain and improve the required knowledge within Europe;
3. Identify key research areas and gaps in research that need to be addressed to ensure language technologies can overcome the linguistic divide;

4. Define the varying needs for language technologies (not only machine translation) across all the sectors that make up the European Digital Single Market and across languages used within the EU and its partner countries, but especially the lesser-used or under-resourced languages.

BUDGET AVAILABLE
The total budget earmarked for the co-financing of projects under this call for proposals is estimated at EUR 1 800 000 (one million eight hundred thousand euros).
The maximum grant will be EUR 1 800 000 (one million eight hundred thousand euros).
The Commission expects to fund 1 proposal

OBJECTIVES
The objective of the proposed pilot project is to demonstrate an interoperable technical infrastructure dedicated to the implementation of child protection mechanisms (such as age verification) and parental consent mechanisms based on relevant EU legislation such as the AVMSD and GDPR. Technical measures will be based on the use of electronic identification (eID) means (in particular, electronic identification schemes notified by Member States under the Regulation on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market (eIDAS Regulation)).

Specific objectives:
The pilot project shall:
1) Undertake a large-scale mapping of existing methods of age-verification and obtaining parental consent in the context of online child protection. This mapping should cover methods used in EU Member States, but should also cover widely used non-EU solutions, both open-source and propriety.
The mapping should result in a comprehensive overview of existing age verification and parental consent methods, and the different age limits they aim to target. The mapping should also identify relevant good practices, including those ensuring compliance with the AVMSD and the GDPR.
2) Based on an assessment of the mapping presented to the Commission, design, implement and test an interoperable infrastructure for child online protection including in particular age-verification and obtaining parental consent of users of
video-sharing platforms or other similar online services, using different approaches, including for example eID. The infrastructure shall take into consideration the relevant articles of the AVMSD and be designed in a manner compliant with the GDPR and cover a minimum of 3 EU Member States/EEA countries.

NGOs can apply for LIFE action grants under the two sub-programmes “environment” and “climate action”. They can also apply for operating grants. The legal base for NGOs receiving operating grants is the LIFE Regulation which states that:

"Operating grants shall support certain operational and administrative costs of non-profit making entities which pursue an aim of general Union interest, are primarily active in the field of environment or climate action and are involved in the development, implementation and enforcement of Union policy and legislation." (Article 21 of the Regulation).

Brexit information for UK beneficiaries of LIFE grants

The United Kingdom has withdrawn from the European Union and becomes a third country as of 1 February 2020. The EU and the UK have concluded the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement which provides for a transition period until 31 December 2020.

UK applicants and beneficiaries remain eligible to receive LIFE funds for the entire duration of grants under the 2014-2020 LIFE programme, including after the end of the transition period. This applies to existing grants, ongoing procedures and calls for proposals published in 2020 even if the grant is signed after 31 December 2020. 

How voluminous should a project proposal be?

A concept note should have no more than 10 pages.

For full project proposals there are no fixed specifications on the volume. A proposal should be as concise and clear as possible. Applicants should avoid voluminous proposals and should not provide excessively detailed descriptions of project areas, environmental technologies, lists of species, etc. You should, however, describe all project actions in a clear and detailed way.

What is the optimal budget for a LIFE project?

The project budget depends on the project type. Please carefully read the application guide of the call for proposals you apply for.

For traditional LIFE projects there are no specifications for project budgets. LIFE has co-funded large ambitious projects with total costs of more than EUR 5 million several times in the past. However, proposals for small projects with total costs below EUR 500,000 have rarely been selected in the evaluation due to the limited output and consequently a low added value.

Integrated projects usually have a total project budget of around EUR 17 million.

Who should manage a LIFE project?

Generally, the staff of the project leader (“coordinating beneficiary”) should carry out the project management. However, if justified, an associated beneficiary or a sub-contractor under the coordinating beneficiary's direct control could take over the project management. Each project should have a full-time project manager.

The project proposal should clearly describe who will be in charge of the project management, how much personnel and time will be devoted to this task, and how and by whom decisions will be taken during the project period.

Are individuals who act as freelance experts acceptable as
partners for a LIFE programme? Freelance experts do not form
part of any organisation.

Article 23 of the LIFE Regulation states that LIFE may fund "public and private bodies". This article should be read in the context of the EU Financial Regulation which makes it clear that "private bodies" does not include private individuals. Therefore both the applicant and any partners (associated beneficiaries) must be "bodies" and not individuals (i.e. natural persons). Please note that
'sole traders' are also considered 'natural persons'. Individuals can be involved in projects as employees of beneficiaries, as natural persons or through external assistance contracts. As indicated in art. II.19.2 of the Grant Agreement, costs of natural persons working under a contract with the coordinating beneficiary or an
associated beneficiary other than an employment contract
may be assimilated to costs of personnel, provided that
the following conditions are fulfilled:
(i) the natural person works under the instructions of the
beneficiary and, unless otherwise agreed with the
beneficiary, in the premises of the beneficiary;
(ii) the result of the work belongs to the beneficiary; and
(iii) the costs are not significantly different from the costs of personnel performing similar tasks under an employment contract with the beneficiary. In the case of external assistance, it should be recalled that it must be tendered so the proposal cannot name a specific individual or company as the provider of the external assistance.