Closed

Controlling infection on large passenger ships

HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions

Basic Information

Identifier: HORIZON-CL5-2021-D6-01-12
Programme: Safe, Resilient Transport and Smart Mobility services for passengers and goods
Programme Period: 2021 - 2027
Status: Closed (31094503)
Opening Date: June 24, 2021
Deadline: October 19, 2021
Deadline Model: single-stage
Budget: €12,000,000
Keywords: Transport engineeringDigital AgendaSocial sciences and humanitiesOcean sustainability and blue economyArtificial IntelligenceWaterborne transportSocial Innovationpassenger transportmaritimecruiseshipbuildinghealthtourism

Description

ExpectedOutcome:

Project outputs and results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes as applicable for the two sub-activities:

Communicable infections (Covid-19, influenza, norovirus) do not spread rapidly amongst passengers and crew on large passenger ships, in particular on cruise ships. The spread is controllable also beyond the vessel in ports and port communities.
Communicable infections on board large passenger ships can be detected systematically at an early stage and effective measures are put in place to prevent the spread of infection. Crews and other personnel are duly trained.
Large passenger ships are intrinsically designed to prevent the spread of infection and to facilitate measures in case of detection to eliminate further spread.
An evidence base is established concerning the specific mechanisms facilitating the on-board spread of infection and the effectiveness of different mitigation methods.
A knowledge base is publicly available concerning mechanisms facilitating the spread of on-board infection, mitigation measures and underlying evidence.
Evidence based guidance for healthy passenger ship design is available to improve the design of ships which can help avoiding infections and facilitate the detection on board infections at an early stage, inherently mitigate the spread of infection and facilitate actions to prevent its further spread.

Scope:

Passenger ships and in particular cruise ships (with their high occupancy rates and elevated passenger and crew numbers of up to 8000 persons, close proximity of passengers and crews, high crew turnover with crews coming from many different countries, frequent port calls naturally implying common shore side excursions, and on-board activities with intense social interaction) have been implicated in the spread and multiplication of disease. Large and medium-sized cruise ships have seen a highly dynamic and sometimes dramatic multiplication of Covid-19 infections on-board and the disembarkation of several hundred infected (and often asymptomatic) passengers who subsequently became vectors for infection within the regions concerned and their home regions. In this context it needs to be kept in mind that cruise passengers often travel to and from the ship by air, adding to the potential spread. Passenger ships have also been hosts for the rapid spread of Norovirus illness, influenza and legionella infections. This can be particularly problematic for (generally smaller) passenger ships that undertake longer expedition-type cruises away from population centres, thus entirely or predominantly relying on on-board medical services and facilities. Europe as the world’s largest and almost exclusive producer of large and medium-sized passenger and cruise ships and as home to a large number of important cruise destinations must ensure a healthy on-board environment which is also crucial for the viability and the sustainable growth of the business. Whilst guidelines to control the spread of on-board infections have been published, it is clear that these are not fully effective and there is a lack of an evidence base to underpin the effectiveness of the suggested measures for different infections. Important knowledge gaps continue to exist and so far the real effectiveness of different mitigation measures now deployed remains largely anecdotal.

To address these challenges, proposals will address one of the following two aspects and cover all of the tasks mentioned.

“Infection control on-board large passenger ships - prevention, mitigation and management”.
- Establishing a comprehensive scientific basis concerning the effectiveness of different prevention, mitigation and management measures.
- Developing and demonstrating solutions for improving the prevention, mitigation and management of on-board disease and illness.
- Cooperate and coordinate with other projects selected from this topic as well as other relevant actions such as the EU’s “healthy gateways” action.
- Outcomes and data to be made publicly available to facilitate the take up of best practices, also in function of vessel type and size, type of cruise and cruise destination. A distinction should be made between large ferries as typically deployed in Europe and cruise ships.
“Healthy ship design”:
- Applying a bottom-up evidence based approach address the functional and concept design of large passenger ships so as to reduce the on-board spread of infection.
- Research should in particular address ventilation systems and their airflows, germicidal surfaces and disinfection practices, contamination control in all relevant ship areas, facilitating enhanced quarantine, process separation, the design of social areas including those for the crew, the design of crew work areas, especially pantries, laundries etc.. In this respect a better interaction of people with the vessel and its equipment on the basis of social innovations (e.g. hands-free accessibility solutions) should also be considered.
- Innovative systems should be addressed to enable early stage detection of the spread of on-board infections such as for example employing AI, big data, smart sensors etc.
- Cooperate and coordinate with other projects selected from this topic as well as other relevant actions such as the EU’s “healthy gateways” action.
- Outcomes and guidance concerning healthy ship design should be made available to facilitate the take up of best practices by ship interior designers, shipyards, and equipment manufacturers.

This topic requires the effective contribution of SSH disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.

Specific Topic Conditions:

Activities are expected to achieve TRL 5 by the end of the project – see General Annex B.

Cross-cutting Priorities:

Socio-economic science and humanities
Social Innovation
Ocean sustainability and blue economy

View on EU Portal →

Destination & Scope

This Destination includes activities addressing safe and smart mobility services for passengers and goods.

Europe needs to manage the transformation of supply-based transport into safe, resilient and sustainable transport and demand-driven, smart mobility services for passengers and goods. Suitable research and innovation will enable significant safety, environmental, economic and social benefits by reducing accidents caused by human error, decreasing traffic congestion, reducing energy consumption and emissions of vehicles, increasing efficiency and productivity of freight transport operations. To succeed in this transformation, Europe’s ageing (and not always sustainable) transport infrastructure needs to be prepared for enabling cleaner and smarter operations.

Europe needs also to maintain a high-level of transport safety for its citizens. Resilience should be built in the transport systems to prevent, mitigate and recover from disruptions. Research and innovation will underpin the three safety pillars: technologies, regulations and human factors.

This Destination contributes to the following Strategic Plan’s Key Strategic Orientations (KSO):

C: Making Europe the first digitally enabled circular, climate-neutral and sustainable economy through the transformation of its mobility, energy, construction and production systems;
A: Promoting an open strategic autonomy[[‘Open strategic autonomy’ refers to the term ‘strategic autonomy while preserving an open economy’, as reflected in the conclusions of the European Council 1 – 2 October 2020.]] by leading the development of key digital, enabling and emerging technologies, sectors and value chains to accelerate and steer the digital and green transitions through human-centred technologies and innovations.

It covers the following impact areas:

Industrial leadership in key and emerging technologies that work for people;
Smart and sustainable transport.

The expected impact, in line with the Strategic Plan, is to contribute to “Safe, seamless, smart, inclusive, resilient and sustainable mobility systems for people and goods thanks to user-centric technologies and services including digital technologies and advanced satellite navigation services”, notably through:

Accelerating the implementation of innovative connected, cooperative and automated mobility (CCAM) technologies and systems for passengers and goods (more detailed information below).
Further developing a multimodal transport system through sustainable and smart long-haul and urban freight transport and logistics, upgraded and resilient physical and digital infrastructures for smarter vehicles and operations, for optimised system-wide network efficiency (more detailed information below).
Drastically decreasing the number of transport accidents, incidents and fatalities towards the EU’s long-term goal of moving close to zero fatalities and serious injuries by 2050 even in road transportation (Vision Zero) and increase the resilience of transport systems (more detailed information below).

Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility (CCAM)

The aim of relevant topics under this Destination is to accelerate the implementation of innovative connected, cooperative and automated mobility (CCAM) technologies and systems. Actions will help to develop new mobility concepts for passengers and goods – enabled by CCAM - leading to healthier, safer, more accessible, sustainable, cost-effective and demand-responsive transport everywhere. CCAM solutions will shift design and development from a driver-centred to mobility-user oriented approach, providing viable alternatives for private vehicle ownership while increasing inclusiveness of mobility. CCAM must be integrated in the whole transport system to fully exploit the potential benefits of CCAM and minimise potential adverse effects, such as increasingly congested traffic or new risks in mixed traffic environments.

The focus is on road transport, but relevant interfaces with other modes (for instance transfers and integration with public transport or rail freight transport) will be considered.

All technologies, solutions, testing and demonstration activities resulting from these actions should be documented fully and transparently, to ensure replicability, increase adoption, up-scaling, assist future planning decisions and EU and national policy-making and increase citizen buy-in.

Actions are in line with the recommendations of the new European Partnership on CCAM. The Vision of the Partnership is: “European leadership in safe and sustainable road transport through automation”. It aims to harmonise European R&I efforts to accelerate the implementation of innovative CCAM technologies and services. It aims to exploit the full systemic benefits of new mobility solutions enabled by CCAM. The European Partnership on CCAM plans to closely cooperate with other European Partnerships, in particular with “Towards zero emission road transport” (2ZERO), “Driving Urban Transitions” (DUT), “Key digital technologies” (KDT), “Smart networks and services” (SNS) and “AI, data and robotics” (AI). The European Partnership will establish cooperation mechanisms to ensure close interaction when defining R&I actions to maximise synergies and avoid overlaps.

R&I actions taking place at a socio-technical level aiming to better understand the science-society relationship (particularly when social practices, market uptake or ownership are concerned) should favour solutions that are grounded in social innovation in order to achieve its desired outcomes, i.e. by matching innovative ideas with social needs and by forming new collaborations between public and private actors, including civil society and researchers from the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH).

To test CCAM solutions, applicants can seek possibilities of involving the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) in order to valorise the relevant expertise and physical facilities of JRC in demonstrating and testing energy and mobility applications of the JRC Living Lab for Future Urban Ecosystems https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/research-facility/living-labs-at-the-jrc

The main impacts to be generated by topics targeting connected, cooperative and automated mobility under this Destination are:

Validated safety and security, improved robustness and resilience of CCAM technologies and systems.
Secure and trustworthy interaction between road users, CCAM and “conventional” vehicles, infrastructure and services to achieve safer and more efficient transport flows (people and goods) and better use of infrastructure capacity.
Seamless, affordable and user oriented CCAM based mobility and goods deliveries for all and high public acceptance of these services with clear understanding of its benefits and limits as well as rebound effects; based on the changing mobility needs and desires of a society in transition (digitally and environmentally).
Better coordination of R&I and large-scale testing activities in Europe and expanded knowledge base on CCAM solutions.
European leadership in the development and deployment of connected and automated mobility and logistics services and systems, ensuring long-term growth and jobs.

Multimodal and sustainable transport systems for passengers and goods

Multimodal and sustainable transport systems are the backbone for efficient mobility of passengers and freight. In particular, the areas of infrastructure, logistics and network/traffic management play a major role in making mobility and transport climate neutral, also through the digitalisation of the sectors. At the same time, being vulnerable to climate change and other disruptions, resilience in these three areas need to be increased. New and advanced infrastructures across all transport modes are required to enable the introduction of new vehicles, operations and mobility services. Furthermore, efficient and smart multimodal logistics are key for seamless and sustainable long-haul, regional and urban freight transport movements. Finally, dynamic multimodal network and traffic management systems are the “glue” of the entire transport network, for optimised door-to-door mobility of both passengers and freight.

To test solutions related to multimodal and sustainable transport systems for passengers and good, applicants may seek possibilities of involving the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) in order to valorise the relevant expertise and physical facilities of JRC in demonstrating and testing energy and mobility applications of the JRC Living Lab for Future Urban Ecosystems[[https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/research-facility/living-labs-at-the-jrc]].

The main impacts to be generated by topics targeting Multimodal and sustainable transport systems for passengers and goods under this Destination are:

Upgraded and resilient physical and digital infrastructure for clean, accessible, affordable, connected and automated multimodal mobility.
Sustainable and smart long-haul, regional and urban freight transport and logistics, through increased efficiency, improved interconnectivity and smart enforcement.
Reduced external costs (e.g. congestion, traffic jams, emissions, air and noise pollution, road collisions) of urban, peri-urban (regional) and long distance freight transport as well as optimised system-wide network efficiency and resilience.
Enhanced local and/or regional capacity for governance and innovation in urban mobility and logistics.

Safety and resilience - per mode and across all transport modes

Safety and resilience are of primary concern for any transport system. The EU set ambitious targets in its 2011 Transport White Paper, the third Mobility Package and, more recently, the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy[[COM(2020) 789 final.]]. COVID-19 has been a stark reminder of the importance of resilience to external disruptions, particularly for transport. Research and innovation will underpin the three pillars affecting safety and resilience: technologies; regulations (alongside acceptable level of risks); and human factors (individual and organisational aspects, including interaction with automation). The approach is risk-based and systemic, including transport means/vehicles, infrastructure, the physical environment (e.g. weather) and the various actors (e.g. manufacturers, regulators, operators, users) as well as all their interfaces, including certification and standardisation bodies.

Synergies should be exploited across research at national, EU and international level together with national authorities, EU agencies and international organisations to improve rulemaking, safety promotion and oversight.

The main impacts to be generated by topics targeting transport safety and resilience under this Destination are:

Safety in Urban Areas/ Road Transport Safety

50% reduction in serious injuries and fatalities in road crashes by 2030.
Improved reliability and performance of systems that aim to anticipate and minimize safety risks, avoiding risks and collisions, and reducing the consequences of unavoidable crashes.
Drastic reduction of road fatalities and serious crash injuries in low and medium income countries in Africa.
Better design principles of future road transport systems enabling also better traffic flow in big cities.

Waterborne Safety and Resilience

Ensure healthy passenger shipping by preventing and mitigating the spread of contagious diseases and infections.

Aviation Safety and Resilience

Decrease number of accidents and incidents due to organisational/human/automation factors and external hazards in all phases of flight, also beyond CAT category (80% goal in FlightPath2050), while enabling all weather operations.
Saving lives following a crash (post-crash survivability).
Anticipate emergence of new threats that could generate potential accidents and incidents (short, medium, and long term).
Ensure safety through aviation transformation (from green/digital technologies uptake up to independent certification).
Maintain safety and resilience despite the scale, pace and diversity of new entrants.

Eligibility & Conditions

General conditions

1. Admissibility conditions: described in Annex A and Annex E of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes

Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System

2. Eligible countries: described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes

A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide.

3. Other eligibility conditions: described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes

4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion: described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes

5. Evaluation and award:

Award criteria, scoring and thresholds are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes

Submission and evaluation processes are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual

Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement: described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes

6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants: described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes

Specific conditions

7. Specific conditions: described in the specific topic of the Work Programme.

Documents

Call documents:

Standard application form — call-specific application form is available in the Submission System

Standard application form (HE RIA, IA)

Standard evaluation form — will be used with the necessary adaptations

Standard evaluation form (HE RIA, IA)

MGA

HE General MGA v1.0

Additional documents:

HE Main Work Programme 2021–2022 – 1. General Introduction

HE Main Work Programme 2021–2022 – 8. Climate, Energy and Mobility

HE Main Work Programme 2021–2022 – 13. General Annexes

HE Programme Guide

HE Framework Programme and Rules for Participation Regulation 2021/695

HE Specific Programme Decision 2021/764

EU Financial Regulation

Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment

EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement

Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual

Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions

Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement

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