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

If projects use satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigation and/or related timing data and services, beneficiaries must make use of Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS (other data and services may additionally be used).

The following additional eligibility criterion applies: at least one public entity must participate as member of the consortium selected for funding as the public entities are the main users of GOVSATCOM (according to Art. 65 of the EU Space Regulation 2021/696).

In order to achieve the expected outcomes, and safeguard the Union’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy, or security, and more particularly, for the reasons of EU strategic autonomy in space and the security and integrity of EU space assets, and in order to guarantee the protection of the strategic interests of the Union and its Member States, participation is limited to legal entities established in Member States and to third countries that have concluded a specific agreement on participation in GOVSATCOM, in accordance with Article 7 of Regulation 2021/696 and have designated a Competent GOVSATCOM Authority in accordance with Article 68 of Regulation 2021/696.

For the duly justified and exceptional reasons listed in the paragraph above, in order to guarantee the protection of the strategic interests of the Union and its Member States, entities established in an eligible country listed above, but which are directly or indirectly controlled by a non-eligible country or by a non-eligible country entity, may not participate in the action unless it can be demonstrated, by means of guarantees approved by the eligible country of establishment, that their participation to the action would not negatively impact the Union’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy, or security.

The guarantees shall in particular substantiate that, for the purpose of the action, measures are in place to ensure that:

a) control over the applicant legal entity is not exercised in a manner that retrains or restricts its ability to carry out the action and to deliver results, that imposes restrictions concerning its infrastructure, facilities, assets, resources, intellectual property or know-how needed for the purpose of the action, or that undermines its capabilities and standards necessary to carry out the action;

b) access by a non-eligible country or by a non-eligible country entity to sensitive information relating to the action is prevented; and the employees or other persons involved in the action have a national security clearance issued by an eligible country, where appropriate;

c) ownership of the intellectual property arising from, and the results of, the action remain within the recipient during and after completion of the action, are not subject to control or restrictions by non-eligible countries or non-eligible country entity, and are not exported outside the eligible countries, nor is access to them from outside the eligible countries granted, without the approval of the eligible country in which the legal entity is established.

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

All applicants, including their subcontractors, must fulfill the above criteria, in order to be eligible. Their eligibility will be checked through Ownership & control assessments which will be carried out by the Central Validation Service. Template for ‘Ownership Control Declaration’ is provided among call documents below. The Validation rules are described in 'the Rules for Legal Entity, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment'. 

Security sensitive activities

For this grant, security sensitive activities are all activities requiring access to EU classified information (EUCI) in accordance with the Security aspect letter. The Security Aspect Letter applies to any proposals for which the handling of EU Classified Information is foreseen.

When applicable, according to the abovementioned conditions, the applicants must self-declare a full compliance with the requirements detailed in the Security Aspects Letter by submitting a “Statement of compliance with the Security Aspects Letter”. They may be requested to provide evidence of compliance during evaluation of their proposal or afterwards. Any classified information should be treated according to the GOVSATCOM Programme Security Instructions and the Tailored Security Classification Guide.

In order to request access to the Tailored Security Classification Guide, applicants must download, fill-in and sign the Non-Disclosure Undertaking and send it to the recipient designated therein.

The Security Aspects Letter does not apply to subcontractors that do not carry out security sensitive activities and for which the applicants can demonstrate and substantiate in the proposal the absence of need-to-know and thus the need to gain access to GOVSATCOM Information.

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

• 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