EU FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT TIPS

• Outline Proposals to be submitted 9 April 2015, 19:00 Central European Time/18:00 Greenwich Mean Time
• Shortlisted applicants to submit Full Proposals in October 2015.

All the guidance documents have been updated to include Spain and Spanish regulations.

The scope of this call is to provide support to innovative SMEs, including start-ups, for the design and creation of innovative applications, in order to foster the delivery of mobile public services.

Specific Challenge:

Current societal and economic challenges as well as rising expectations to reduce the burden on users, put pressure on all public administrations to provide efficient, open and citizen-centric public services.

Due to the increased use of mobile technology as well as the increasing availability of public information, data and online services, public services can be transformed. Coupling open public data and services with information and services offered by the private sector can lead to innovative, user-friendly and personalised services that can be accessed easily.

Because of their size, knowledge and agility, SMEs are key actors for the provision of those innovative services. The "apps" market for mobile devices is a very dynamic market, which mostly lacks application specifically for the public sector. Engaging SMEs into the potentially huge public sector innovation market is a challenge for local and regional public authorities.

The scope of this action is to provide support to innovative SMEs, including start-ups, for the design and creation of innovative applications, in order to foster the delivery of mobile public services.

The aim is to help the interaction of citizens and businesses with public administrations. This may be done through the combination of public and private sector services, through mobile technologies. Although they may be first piloted in a local context – with the involvement of public administrations and end users - the solutions need to ensure replicability, also taking into account multi-lingualism and, where necessary, the cross-border dimension. Scalability and sustainability issues are to be considered.

Scope: The SME instrument consists of three separate phases and a coaching and mentoring service for beneficiaries. Participants can apply to phase 1 with a view to applying to phase 2 at a later date, or directly to phase 2.

Expected impact:

• Enhancing profitability and growth performance of SMEs by combining and transferring new and existing knowledge into innovative, disruptive and competitive solutions seizing European and global business opportunities.
• Market uptake and distribution of innovations tackling the specific challenge in a sustainable way.
• Increase of private investment in innovation, notably leverage of private co-investor and/or follow-up investments.
• The expected impact should be clearly described in qualitative and quantitative terms (e.g. on turnover, employment, market seize, IP management, sales, return on investment and profit).

Type of action: SME Instrument (70%)

The submission to this call will be open as of 1 January 2015.

This measure aims at supporting projects promoted by transnational partnerships and networks directly involving citizens. Those projects gather citizens from different horizons, in activities directly linked to Union policies, with a view to give them an opportunity to concretely participate in the Union policy-making process in areas related to the objectives of the Programme. 

The project should consist in stimulating and organising reflection, debates or other activities related to the annual priority themes of the Programme and propose concrete solutions that can be found through cooperation or coordination at European level, and ensure a concrete link with the policy making process indicated above. Projects should actively involve a large number of citizens in the implementation and aim at setting the basis for, or encouraging the development of, long-lasting networking between many organisations active in the field.

A Civil Society Project must include at least two of the following three types of activities: 9 Promotion of societal engagement and solidarity: activities able to promoting debate/campaigns/actions on the themes of common interest in the larger framework of the rights and responsibilities of the Union citizens and making the link to the European political agenda and policy making process. 9 Gathering of opinions: activities aiming at gathering the individual opinions of the citizens on a specific topic to be yearly defined, favouring a bottom up approach (including the use of social networks, webinars, etc.) and media literacy. 9 Volunteering: activities promoting solidarity among Union citizens and beyond.

Who can participate?

Applicants: non profit organisations, including civil society organisations, educational, cultural or research institutions.

Partners: Public local/regional authorities or non-profit organisations, including civil society organisations, educational, cultural or research institutions, town-twinning committees and networks.

Maximum eligible grant for a project: 150 000 EUR.

Deadline: 02/03/2015

The LIFE programme for the Environment and Climate Action is expanding from providing action grants to projects and operating grants to non-governmental organisations. LIFE funding will now also be channeled through the Private Finance for Energy Efficiency, the first of two new financial instruments under this programme.

The Private Finance for Energy Efficiency (PF4EE) aims to increase private financing for investments in energy efficiency enhancing projects. Its objective is therefore to support Member States in making progress in view of the EU's agreed targets on energy efficiency. 

The Commission has committed €80 million for 2014-17 anticipating an 8-fold leverage effect. The management of the PF4EE instrument is entrusted to the European Investment Bank (EIB).

The PF4EE will combine lending from the EIB to financial intermediaries with protection against losses associated with making loans for energy efficiency projects. The Financial Instrument will help intermediary banks in Member States to develop and offer specific loan programmes for energy efficiency projects. These loan programs will be aligned with the national energy efficiency action plans. The Financial Instrument will also provide support and technical assistance aiming at effectively deploying the PF4EE Instrument by increasing the technical capacity of the financial intermediaries.

The beneficiaries could include SMEs, private individuals, small municipalities or other public sector bodies. The size of the energy efficiency loans to be provided to the final beneficiaries could range from €40 000 up to €5 million and higher in exceptional cases.

Proposals should aim to empower patients to manage their pre-existing conditions. Health management will be addressed holistically, including healthy lifestyle interlinked with disease management, placing the patient in the centre and putting increased emphasis on health education, secondary prevention and self-management of individual conditions, including co-morbidities.

Proposals should address all of the following elements a) personalised guidance to patients based on their profiles and the use of wearable/portable devices and improved individual/healthcare-professional interaction, b) engagement of patients as active members in managing their diseases, in particular addressing chronic diseases, co-morbidities, treatment adherence, rehabilitation, self-diagnostics and self-care and c) decision support systems interoperable and/or maintaining integrity with electronic health records.

Expected impact:

• Improving the participation of the patient in the care process.
• Improving the management of a disease by reducing the number of severe episodes and complications.
• Increasing the level of education and adherence of individuals, patients and care givers related to application of ICT for personalised care.
• Improved interaction between patients, their relatives, providers of health-, social-, and informal care givers.
• Strengthened evidence base on health outcomes, quality of life, care efficiency gains and economic benefits from the use of ICT in new care models.
• Reinforced medical knowledge with respect to efficient management of comorbidities.
• Increased confidence in decision support systems for disease/patient management.
• Involvement of health care providers/authorities with increased commitment in the deployment of innovative services empowering the patient.

Type of action: Pre-commercial procurement co-fund actions.

Topic: Capitalising the full potential of online collaboration for SME innovation

Specific challenge: Identifying suitable partners for innovation activities is recognised as a major barrier to SME innovation. Innovation support services are addressing this challenge traditionally by two interventions that are often combined: (a) the provision of networking space for personal meetings either as one-off meeting (‘brokerage events’) or as more stable networks (‘clusters’) often with a limited geographic reach; and (b) the definition of ‘cooperation profiles’ (‘technology offers’, ‘partner search profile’ etc.) that are distributed through networks of intermediaries. To a different degree intermediaries become active in establishing the partnership (‘brokerage’). Social media and other web-based services challenge these existing approaches and ask for their revision.

Scope: To address the described gaps proposals should address one or more of the following aspects:

• develop and test new service designs for ‘assistance to online collaboration for innovation’ for SMEs in diverse sectors;
• make such new services accessible for enterprises in sectors that are typically not yet benefitting from innovation support;

·         develop and test a qualification profile, curriculum and training courses for staff currently providing brokerage services in established networks or SME agencies.

Service designs and qualification profiles shall be formulated independently from a particular collaboration or social media platform. Tests of services shall be undertaken on platforms that are open and bring together already a critical mass of enterprises and innovation stakeholders. Establishing such platforms will not be supported.

The nature of the topic – online collaboration – suggests that the training modules are established as web-based self- or collaborative learning modules that are supported by case studies in the form of videos. The qualification profiles and training modules shall be published under a creative commons license.

Projects proposing new service designs for ‘assistance to online collaboration for innovation’ should indicate on which platform(s) the new service would be tested and in how far the newly developed service could be scaled-up.

Deadline Date 10-03-2015 17:00:00

This call has as its primary purpose to encourage the relevant public authorities to submit proposals for testing innovative policy ideas and reforms in the area of recruitment, selection and induction of new teachers coming to the profession through alternative pathways. Such new entrants could be graduates, mid-career professionals or unemployed people with no formal training in teaching that demonstrate a concrete interest to become teachers.

The priority theme for this call is:Strengthen recruitment, selection and induction of the best and most suitable candidates to the teaching profession by developing alternative pathways to teaching

Deadline:20.03.2015

The Horizon Prize for better use of antibiotics will be awarded for a rapid test to identify, at the point of care, patients with upper respiratory tract infections that can be treated safely without antibiotics.

The test will need to be cheap, rapid, easy-to-use for healthcare providers and non- or minimally invasive for patients. By stopping many patients from taking antibiotics needlessly, it will prevent the side effects of such unnecessary treatment, eliminate the cost of prescribing the antibiotics and, most importantly, decrease the development of resistant bacteria.

The challenge is to develop a rapid test that will allow healthcare providers to distinguish at the point of care between patients with upper respiratory tract infections that require antibiotics and those that can be treated safely without antibiotics.

Specific challenge: Facilitate trans-national co-operation between NCPs within the Transport Challenge with a view to identifying and sharing good practices and raising the general standard of support to programme applicants, taking into account the diversity of actors that make up the constituency of the Transport Challenge.

Scope: Support will be given to a consortium of formally nominated NCPs in the area of Transport. The activities will be tailored according to the nature of the area, and the priorities of the NCPs concerned. Various mechanisms may be included, such as benchmarking, joint workshops, enhanced cross-border brokerage events, specific training linked to the Transport Challenge as well as to gender dimension of Research and Innovation, and twinning schemes. Special attention will be given to enhance the competence of NCPs, including helping less experienced NCPs rapidly acquire the know-how accumulated in other countries.

The focus throughout should be on issues specific to the Transport Challenge, and should not duplicate actions foreseen in the NCP network for quality standards and horizontal issues under ‘Science with and for Society’.

Only NCPs from EU Member States and Associated Countries which have been officially appointed by the relevant national authorities are eligible to participate in and receive funding for this action.

The consortium should have a good representation of experienced and less experienced NCPs.

Specific objective

Supporting theatrical distribution through transnational marketing, branding, distribution and exhibition of audio visual works.

ELIGIBLE ACTIONS

The Cinema Automatic Scheme works in two phases:

1. The generation of a potential fund, proportional to the number of paying admission tickets sold during the reference period (2014) for non-national European films in countries participating in the MEDIA Sub-programme, up to a fixed ceiling per film and adjusted for each country.

2. Reinvestment: the potential fund thus generated by each company must be reinvested in:

Module 1. the co-production of eligible non-national European films;

Module 2. the acquisition of distribution rights, for example by means of minimum guarantees, of eligible non-national European films; and/ or in

Module 3. editing costs (prints, dubbing and subtitling), promotion costs and publicity costs for eligible non-national European films.

Deadline

Generation: 30 April 2015

Reinvestments: within the deadline set out for each module and by 02 August 2016. 

The objective of this call is to strengthen the capacities of sending and hosting organisations intending to participate in the EU Aid Volunteers initiative and to ensure compliance with the standards and procedures regarding candidate volunteers and EU Aid Volunteers. With this call the European Commission expects to achieve the following results:

The capacities of up to 100 sending and hosting organisations are strengthened in the fields of

— Disaster risk management, preparedness and response as well as linking relief, rehabilitation and development;

— Volunteer management according to the standards and procedures for the management of the candidate volunteers and the EU Aid Volunteers;

— Strengthening local volunteering in third countries;

— Capacities to undergo certification including administrative capacity;

— Tools and methods of needs assessment at a local level;

Building partnerships with a view to develop joint projects in the context of the EU Aid Volunteers initiative.

— Communicating the European Union’s humanitarian aid principles agreed in the European Consensus on Humanitarian Aid and raise awareness levels and visibility of its humanitarian aid.

BUDGET AVAILABLE

The total budget earmarked for the co-financing of projects is estimated at EUR 6 948 000.

— For the first round (projects submitted by 1.4.2015) it is foreseen to use 70 % of the available amount for projects (EUR 4 863 600). — 30 % (EUR 2 084 400) will be available for the second deadline on 1.9.2015. The maximum grant will be EUR 700 000. Grant requests below EUR 100 000 will not be considered for funding. The Agency expects to fund 20 proposals.

Priorities:

• increase the capacity of audiovisual operators to develop European audiovisual works with a potential to circulate in the Union and beyond and to facilitate European and international co-production, including with television broadcasters.

The MEDIA Sub-programme shall provide support for the following measures:

• the development of European audiovisual works in particular films and television works such as fiction, documentaries, children’s and animated films, as well as interactive works such as videogames and multimedia with enhanced cross-border circulation potential;
• activities aiming at supporting European audiovisual production companies, in particular independent production companies, with a view to facilitating European and international co-productions of audiovisual works including television works.

Eligible actions

The audiovisual work proposed must be an independent European television production (fiction, animation or creative documentary) involving the participation of at least three broadcasting companies from several Member States of the European Union or countries participating in the programme.

The exploitation rights licensed to the broadcasters have to revert to the producer after a maximum period of 7 years for a pre-sales or 10 years for co-production.

Minimum 50% of the estimated total financing of the production budget must be guaranteed from third party sources of finance and the production budget must be minimum 50% financed by European sources.

Next Deadline: 28/05/2015 at 12.00 noon (midday Brussels time) 

The next biodivERsA call, cofunded by the European Commission will cover the two following themes:

• Theme #1: Understanding and managing the biodiversity dynamics of soils and sediments to improve ecosystem functioning and delivery of ecosystem services
• Theme #2:  Understanding and managing biodiversity dynamics in land-, river- and sea-scapes (habitat connectivity, green and blue infrastructures, and naturing cities) to improve ecosystem functioning and delivery of ecosystem services

The call is planned to be launched in May 2015, with a closing date in early November 2015.

The indicative global budget for this call is ca. 30 million euro.

To be eligible, transnational research consortia should be composed of members from at least three countries participating in the call. So far, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom have shown preliminary interest, and will have to confirm their participation by April.

ERC Consolidator Grants are designed to support excellent Principal Investigators at the career stage at which they may still be consolidating their own independent research team or programme. This action is open to researchers of any nationality who intend to conduct their research activity in any Member State or Associated.

Deadline Date 12-03-2015 17:00:00 (Brussels local time)

The call contain the following topics where you could aplly:

Topic: Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases. Prevention and treatment of lung diseases

Scope: Proposals must focus on lung diseases and they must have an implementation science focus. They must address what works, for whom, under what contextual circumstances and are the intervention(s) adaptable and scalable in ways that are accessible and equitable. Proposals should generate new knowledge on interventions and their implementation for the prevention and treatment of lung diseases in LMIC, and/or in vulnerable populations in HIC[4]. Proposals must focus on existing approaches to prevention and control of lung diseases or develop treatments at lower costs. They should demonstrate a sound understanding of the local health system context as well as the global cross-sectorial context.

Topic: ERA NET Collaboration and alignment of national programmes and activities in the area of brain-related diseases and disorders of the nervous system

Scope: Proposals should coordinate national and regional programmes for research in the area of brain-related diseases by implementing a transnational call with EU co-funding resulting in grants to third parties.

Proposals should also aim at improved collaboration and alignment of national programmes and activities and will provide concrete plans for decreasing fragmentation, for data sharing, for promoting common data elements for the establishment of patient registries, for addressing hurdles for effective coordination, for involving stakeholders and relevant existing initiatives. Proposals should consider and may build on previous EU-funded projects supporting ERA-NETs.

Topic: ERA NET: Antimicrobial resistance

Scope: Proposals should be central to the effective coordination of joint research funding in the area of AMR. Proposals should coordinate national and regional programmes in order to implement the Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) of the JPI AMR through a transnational call with EU co-funding resulting in grants to third parties.

Topic: ERA-NET: Cardiovascular disease

Scope: Proposals should coordinate national and regional programmes for research in the area cardiovascular research by implementing a transnational call with EU co-funding resulting in grants to third parties. Moreover, proposals should also aim at the better collaboration and alignment of national programmes and activities and should provide concrete plans for decreasing fragmentation, for data sharing, for addressing hurdles for effective coordination, for involving stakeholders and relevant existing initiatives.

Topic: Towards sustainability and globalisation of the Joint Programming Initiative on Neurodegenerative Diseases

Scope: Proposals should support the development and extension of the JPND capacities

Deadline Date 24-02-2015 17:00:00 (Brussels local time)

DEADLINE:

Interested experts are invited to send their application at any time prior to the last 3 months of validity of the list (31/12/2020)

Call for tender :Support to establishment of an 'EU-level platform to facilitate the setting up of a transnational partnership, the exchange of experiences, capacitybuilding and networking, and the capitalisation and dissemination of relevant outcomes

Deadline for receipt of bids: 16/01/2015 Opening of bids: 30/01/2015

Key Action 3: Support for policy reform - Initiatives for policy innovation European Forward Looking Cooperation Projects
in the fields of Education and Training, and Youth

Forward-Looking Cooperation Projects are co-operation projects proposed and managed by a partnership of key stakeholders in view of identifying, testing, developing, assessing new
innovative approaches in the fields of education, training and youth, that have the potential of becoming mainstreamed and giving input for improving educational and youth policies.
The projects should focus on innovation in practices and policies across educational and youth fields. The specific aim of these activities is to provide in-depth knowledge on target group(s),
learning, teaching, training or youth work situations and effective methodologies and tools that help policies to develop, as well as conclusions relevant for policy makers in education, training
and youth at all levels.

The present Call for Proposals supports projects in two strands:
 Strand 1 - Education and Training field
 Strand 2 – Youth field

Budget

The total budget available for the co-financing of projects under the present call is EUR 17.000.000, and is divided in the following way:
• Strand 1 - Education and Training: EUR 15.000.000
• Strand 2 - Youth: EUR 2.000.000
Financial contribution from the EU cannot exceed 75% of the total eligible project costs.
The maximum grant per project will be EUR 500.000.

Eligible countries 

•  the 28 Member States of the European Union;
•  the EFTA/EEA countries: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway;
•  EU candidate countries: Turkey, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Deadline:  24 February 2015 - 12.00 noon CET

Specific Challenge: The development and integration of robust and fit-for-purpose digital technologies for learning are crucial to boost the market for and innovation in educational technologies.  This requires an industry-led approach in close cooperation with academia to defining the frameworks and interoperability requirements for the building blocks of a digital ecosystem for learning (including informal learning) that develops and integrates tools and systems that apply e.g. adaptive learning, augmented cognition technologies, affective learning, microlearning, game-based learning and/or virtual environments/virtual worlds to real-life learning situations. This challenge also encourages public procurement of innovative solutions to address the needs of the digital learning ecosystem in making better use of educational cloud solutions, mobile technology, learning analytics and big data, and to facilitate the use, re-use and creation of learning material and new ways to educate and learn online.

Scope: Activities will focus on innovative technologies for learning, on the underpinning interoperability standards and on the integration of different components into smart learning environments. They should combine different technologies (e.g. mobile, augmented reality, natural interaction technologies) and support composing, re-using and distributing interactive educational content and services, with assessment and feedback functionalities.  Based on technological advances enabled by research carried out so far, activities will support networking, capacity building and experimentations in methodologies and tools for data-driven, (including automated measurement of human-system interaction) non-linear approaches to adaptive learning and remediation technologies and cognitive artefacts (including toys) for effective and efficient human learning. 

Specific challenge: The contribution of family farms and in particular smallholder farms to food and nutrition security (FNS) has been gaining global attention, both in Europe and in the context of less developed countries. While small farms, as well as other small and micro-sized food businesses, have an important role to play in supporting the local economy and food security in rural areas, this is often placed in contrast with the perceived benefits of large farm structures. This comparison, arguing for the benefits of economies of scale tends to downplay the efficiency of smallholdings, averts considerations for complementarities between agro-food systems, neglects the environmental and social aspects of sustainability such as the ability of small farms to maintain more diverse mixed production systems and the role of labour-inclusive family farms in maintaining an adequate rural/urban balance and enabling territorial development – a challenge for countries facing a strong rural population growth. It is therefore important to gain a better understanding of the contribution of small farms and food businesses to FNS and their resilience to shocks in an increasingly globalised and uncertain world. In particular, it must be understood whether small and family farms may contribute to a 'right balance' between technical, economic, environmental and social sustainability, taking into account the linkages with the up- and downstream sectors and in particular small and medium sized enterprises differentiating between the urban and rural dimensions of FNS, and identifying the requirements with regard to infrastructure (incl. labour, transport, energy, communication, food-safety, etc.), supply chain (local/regional markets), technical pathways (focus on production and transformation at farm level) and governance (local/global).

Scope: Proposals should thoroughly assess the role of family farms and other small food businesses and particularly those with small structures in achieving sustainable FNS, evaluating the means by which such entities could respond to the expected increase in demand for food, feed and fibre under ever scarcer resources, as well as providing evidence and developing tools to guide decision makers in the choice and combination of intensification pathways. Research should identify the optimal enabling environment for small and family farms and businesses to accomplish the aforementioned role on FNS and the multiple dimensions of sustainability with respect to infrastructure, supply chain and governance needs. Foresight activities should be carried out to project the potential weight and role of the aforementioned entities in a few decades' time, regarding the various dimensions of sustainability, including the challenges of less developed countries' growing rural densities. Research work should build upon existing knowledge and take into account activities related to the 2014 International Year of Family Farming and Smallholder Farming. In line with the objectives of the EU strategy for international cooperation in research and innovation and in particular with the implementation of the EU-Africa dialogue, proposals are encouraged to include third country participants, especially those established in Africa and Asia

03-02-2015 17:00:00