EU FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT TIPS

The European Commission has launched a call for tender for a study to assess the progress of the eHealth Action Plan in every objective. This will steer the preparation and design of the post-2015 programming period.

The evaluation of the eHealth Action Plan 2012-2020 will contribute to the eHealth strategy of DG CONNECT and could support the same exercise by 2020.

The current study should include the assessment of the progress of the e-HAP in every objective by:
1. analysing the added value of having an action plan;
2. providing an overview of the implementation of the e-HAP in the first 2-3 years, including a quantitative and
qualitative description of the priorities set, the financial mechanisms used (e.g. operating grants, joint actions,
tenders, etc.), the beneficiaries reached, the actions funded, and the intended results;
3. assessing the relevance, effectiveness and efficiency of the funded actions, taking into consideration the
fact that the majority of the actions funded will not have provided all the deliverables and final reports when the
evaluation takes place, so the assessment of impact will have to be forward-looking. However, some preliminary
outcome should be analysed, above all related to the data strategy;
4. assessing the impact and adoption of the policy targets.
This assessment should include desk work on the projects and studies supported by the EC, in addition to a
survey with representatives of MSs or other key stakeholders about the progress, impact and added value of
the actions which have taken place. The study should look for quantitative and objective indicators. Satisfaction
surveys should be complementary.

Maximum value 200 000 EUR.

Time limit for receipt of tenders or requests to participate
19.9.2014 - 16:00

Topic: Cloud Computing, including security aspects

Specific Challenge: Data are motivating a profound transformation in the culture and conduct of scientific research in every field of science and engineering. Advancements in this area are required in terms of cloud-centric applications for big data, as well as in creating novel cloud technologies that provide effective utilization and optimization of heterogeneous resources (such as storage and communications) in big data scenarios, in particular addressing privacy, security and other Quality-of-Service issues.

Scope:

·         The focus of the joint research will be the development of innovative technologies combining advanced Clouds and Big Data approaches to address the challenges stemming from different application domains in business and societal contexts. The technologies developed should take into account interoperability  and data portability issues and aim towards future standardization.

·         Coordinated and Support Actions

One CSA for the research coordination and policy activities, including research roadmapping and supporting further future common activities, i.e. dissemination, organisation of workshops, preparation of future coordinated call topics, etc.

Planned Opening date 15-10-2014

Deadline Date21-04-2015 17:00:00 (Brussels local time)

Total Call Budget€7,000,000

The contests for the five innovation prizes will start in late 2014 and early 2015.

The prizes, worth €6 million in 2015, cover three different thematic areas of research:

health:

• "Reduction of the Use of Antibiotics Prize",
• "Food-Scanner Prize"

environment:

• "Reduction of Air Pollution Prize"

 ICT :

• "Collaborative Sharing of Spectrum"
• "Optical Transmission Prize".

Type of action: ECSEL Innovation Action

Description: Action primarily consisting of activities directly aiming at producing plans and arrangements or designs for new, altered or improved products, processes or services. For this purpose
they may include prototyping, testing, demonstrating, piloting, large-scale product validation and market replication.
A 'demonstration or pilot' aims to validate the technical and economic viability of a new or improved technology, product, process, service or solution in an operational (or near to operational) environment,
whether industrial or otherwise, involving where appropriate a larger scale prototype or demonstrator.
A 'market replication' aims to support the firstapplication/deployment in the market of an innovation that has already been demonstrated but not yet applied/deployed in the market due to market
failures/barriers to uptake. 'Market replication' does not cover multiple applications in the market of an innovation 4 that has already been applied successfully once in the market. 'First' means new at least to Europe or new at least to the application sector in question. Often such projects involve a validation of technical and economic performance at system level in real life operating conditions provided by the market.

Advanced Grants are designed to support excellent Principal Investigators at the career stage at which they are already established research leaders with a recognised track record of research achievements. This action is open to researchers of any nationality who intend to conduct their research activity in any Member State or Associated Country.
The ERC's frontier research grants operate on a 'bottom-up' basis without predetermined priorities.
The call 'ERC-2014-AdG' consists of one call with a single deadline applying to each of the three main research domains:
• Physical Sciences & Engineering (Panels: PE1 – PE10),
• Life Sciences (Panels: LS1 – LS9),
• Social Sciences & Humanities (Panels: SH1 – SH6).

Budget: €450,000,000
The deadline for all domains of this call is 21 October 2014, 17:00:00 (Brussels local time).

Scope: Proposals should develop further the concept and approach expected to be implemented in the partnership. Feasibility, strategic priorities and action plan should be developed taking full account of present and emerging initiatives at national, EU, African (e.g. CAADP and the forthcoming Science Agenda for Agriculture in Africa) and global level so as to maximise complementarities and synergies. Furthermore, in addition to technological and economic factors, the strategic action plan should also take anthropological and cultural aspects into account. 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 ensure commitment and participation of a variety of concerned partners established in the EU and in Africa.

Funding rate: 100%

Deadline: 26.06.2014

The Horizon 2020 societal challenge of ‘health, demographic change and wellbeing’ (SC1) for the years 2014 and 2015 includes 34 topics in the ‘personalising health and care’ focus area call (15 in 2014 only, 17 in 2015 only and 2 which are open in both years) and 15 topics in the ‘co-ordination activities’ call (10 in 2014 and 5 in 2015). 9 other actions designed to support the implementation of the challenge are also included and are not subject to calls for proposals. The total budget available is approximately EUR 1.21bn.

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

Proposals submitted to phase 1 shall consist of a draft business plan and feasibility study verifying the technological/practical and economic viability of the clinical validation proposed. These may, for example, comprise risk assessment, market study, user involvement, intellectual property (IP) management, innovation strategy development, partner search, feasibility of concept etc. Proposals may analyse bottlenecks preventing advance of the applicant SME in this area and identify how a phase 2 proposal may contribute to attaining growth or sustainability.

The main outcome of the proposal should be a detailed business plan. Funding for phase 1 will be provided in the form of a lump sum of EUR 50.000 and proposals should have a duration of around 6 months.

In phase 2 proposals should address the specific challenge described, elaborated in the scope section above, and demonstrate high potential in terms of applicant's competitiveness and growth underpinned by a strategic business plan.

Proposals shall be based on a business plan developed either through phase 1 or another means. Particular attention must be paid to IP protection and ownership; applicants should provide evidence of the possibility of commercial exploitation (‘freedom to operate’).

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The COFUND scheme aims at stimulating regional, national or international programmes to foster excellence in researchers' training, mobility and career development, spreading the best practices of Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions.

This will be achieved by co-funding new or existing regional, national, and international programmes to open up to, and provide for, international, intersectoral and interdisciplinary research training, as well as transnational and cross-sectoral mobility of researchers at all stages of their career.

Deadline: 02.10.2014

Topic: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks (ITN-EID)

European Industrial Doctorates (EID)

EIDs have the objective of training highly-skilled researchers and stimulating entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation in Europe. This is to be achieved in particular by involving the non-academic sector in doctoral training so that skills better match public and private sector needs. Each EID is composed of at least two beneficiaries established in two different Member States or Associated Countries. At least one beneficiary must be entitled to award doctoral degrees  and at least one beneficiary must come from the non-academic sector, primarily enterprise. Each participating researcher must be enrolled in a doctoral programme and spend at least 50% of their time in the non-academic sector. The joint supervision of fellows by supervisors from each sector is mandatory. A wider set of partner organisations may also complement the training. Note that EID proposals will be ranked in a separate panel with a dedicated budget of €25 million.

Topic: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks (ITN-EJD) MSCA-ITN-2015-EJD

European Joint Doctorates (EJD)

EJDs have the objective of promoting international, intersectoral and multi/inter-disciplinary collaboration in doctoral-level training in Europe through the creation of joint doctoral programmes, leading to the delivery of joint, double or multiple doctoral degrees.

Topic: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks (ITN-ETN)  MSCA-ITN-2015-ETN

European Training Networks (ETN)

ETNs are multi-partner research training networks and must be composed of at least three beneficiaries established in at least three different EU Member States or Associated Countries. Above this minimum, the participation of other organisations, including international organisations and those from Other Third Countries, is possible under the conditions provided by the Horizon 2020 Rules for Participation. Although there is no pre-defined size for these multi-partner networks, it is strongly recommended to keep the size of the consortium between 6 and 10 beneficiaries. It is expected that beneficiaries will be drawn from the academic and non-academic sectors and that ETN proposals will offer intersectoral and interdisciplinary research training as well as high-quality supervision arrangements. Each beneficiary must recruit and host at least one ESR.

Deadline Date for the all 3 topics: 13-01-2015 17:00:00 (Brussels local time)

Total Call Budget   €370,000,000

Objective:

The COFUND scheme aims at stimulating regional, national or international programmes to foster excellence in researchers' training, mobility and career development, spreading the best practices of Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions.

This will be achieved by co-funding new or existing regional, national, and international programmes to open up to, and provide for, international, intersectoral and interdisciplinary research training, as well as transnational and cross-sectoral mobility of researchers at all stages of their career.

Scope:

Each proposal funded under the COFUND scheme shall have a sole participant that will be responsible for the availability of the necessary matching funds to execute the proposal.

Participants submit multi-annual proposals for new or existing doctoral programmes or fellowship programmes that may be run at regional, national or international level. The evaluation is organised in two different panels: A) Doctoral programmes and B) Fellowship programmes. Support cannot be awarded to researchers who are already permanently employed at the host organisation.

Deadline Date 01-10-2015 17:00:00 (Brussels local time)

Food-Scanner Prize

Prize money: €1 million

Timeline: Contest opens at the beginning of 2015 and runs until end of 2015

The objective is to unlock the eHealth market with solutions that support citizens in adopting a more active lifestyle and in improving their health by better monitoring food intake. The expected results are an eHealth solution that enables citizens to assess their food intake and provide optimal recommendations to improve their health and well-being. The solution should benefit a wide range of the EU population, from healthy citizens to citizens suffering from food disorders, obesity or allergies.

Specific challenge: Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the largest cause of death in the EU and account for 40% of deaths or 2 million deaths per year. Overall CVD is estimated to cost the EU economy almost EUR 110 billion a year, and they are also one of the leading causes of long term sickness and loss to the labour market. CVD is therefore a major health problem in every country in Europe.

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. The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of a minimum of EUR 5 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Expected impact:

·         Stepping up funding of transnational collaborative research projects in the area of cardiovascular research;

·         Identification of common research priorities and research needs, also taking into account developments on the international level where relevant;

·         Establishment and/or implementation of a common strategic research agenda;

·         Development and alignment of national and regional plans;

·         Streamlined national or regional practices in organising research funding;

·         Increased interoperability of national research programmes;

·         Prioritisation of transnational research;

·         Sharing of data and knowledge;

·         Networking of infrastructures and databases;

·         Contribution to the establishment of the ERA by addressing issues related for example to administrative hurdles, IPR management and different practices regarding resource sharing.

Scope and objectives

Type of action: ECSEL Research and innovation action

Description: Action primarily consisting of activities aiming to establish new knowledge and/or to explore the feasibility of a new or improved technology, product, process, service or solution. For this
purpose they may include basic and applied research, technology development and integration, testing  and validation on a small-scale prototype in a laboratory or simulated environment.

Reimbursement rate for establishing the EU contribution

Industry  50% 
SME  50% 
University/Other 50%

Deadline Date

Total Call Budget

Specific challenge: Antibiotic resistance is a global problem. It is considered by the World Health Organization as one of the three greatest threats to human health for the next decades. In Europe, however, research on the resistance to antibiotics and on how to make sustainable use of antibiotics is fragmented. In addition, few countries have specific programs dedicated to this field of research.

The Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) on Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR) provides an excellent opportunity for joint research of the EU Member States addressing the emerging problem of antibiotic resistance in human and veterinary medicine. Indeed, the currently funded research projects in national or trans-national programs are usually the result of calls initiated within other research areas rather than from research programmes specifically focusing on AMR. Consequently, the variable and non-permanent resources of trans-national organisations and individual countries are insufficient to provide the long-term funding opportunities that are required to solve the major research questions concerning AMR. In addition, research activities on AMR are not harmonised between countries; which may lead to duplications in the research being performed in different countries.

The 19 participating countries of the AMR JPI aim to accomplish the coordination of European research on AMR in close collaboration with the funding instruments of the EU; specifically Horizon 2020, Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) and the ERA-NET Infect-ERA.

This will create the necessary critical mass and develop the most advanced scientific approaches to tackle the problem of AMR, reversing its increasing trend, in the way forward defined by the Strategic Research Agenda which is to be adopted by the JPIAMR in early 2014.

This transnational cooperation will enhance the societal impact that is required in this area, promoting knowledge dissemination among multiple sectors of the society that are implicated – patients, clinical, veterinarians, pharmacists, food producers and representatives of the pharmaceutical industry.

"The proposed Clean Sky 2 Programme will be jointly funded by the European Commission and themajor European aeronautics companies, and will involve an EU contribution from the Horizon 2020
Programme budget of €1.8 bn. It will be leveraged by further activities funded at national, regional andprivate levels leading to a total public and private investment of €4.05 bn. Clean Sky 2 will run for the full duration of Horizon 2020 actions, i.e. from 2014 to 2023.

Clean Sky 2 can deliver key outcomes spanning two of the key pillars
defined in Horizon 2020 - Societal Challenges and Industrial Leadership:
• Creating resource efficient transport that respects the environment. Aeronautical research and innovation in Horizon 2020 and Clean Sky in particular must finish the job of achieving the ACARE SRA goals as set for 2020;
• Ensuring safe and seamless mobility. New concepts will allow the air transport system meet the mobility needs of citizens: more efficient use of local airports, faster connections and reduced
congestion;
• Building industrial leadership in Europe. Clean Sky 2 will help protect and develop highly skilled jobs in Europe".

www.cleansky.eu

Q1/Q2 2013: Preparation of Regulation and Legal / Financial / rules

Q3 2013: Commission's Proposal for Regulation is launched

Q3/Q4 2013: Technical Evaluation of the Joint Technical Proposal by a Panel of Experts

Q4 2013: Information days and sessions related to Calls for Core Partners

Q4 2013: Finalization of the Joint Technical Proposal post evaluation

Q4 2013: Adoption of the Regulation targeted

Q1 2014: Call for Core Partners expected to open

Q2 2014: Programme starts

Funding rate: 100%

Call Budget: €12,200,000

Deadline Date: 2014-10-02 17:00:00 (Brussels local time)