Early phase implementation of ESFRI Projects which entered the ESFRI Roadmap in 2018
HORIZON Coordination and Support Actions
Basic Information
- Identifier
- HORIZON-INFRA-2023-DEV-01-02
- Programme
- Developing, consolidating and optimising the European research infrastructures landscape, maintaining global leadership (2023)
- Programme Period
- 2021 - 2027
- Status
- Closed (31094503)
- Opening Date
- December 6, 2022
- Deadline
- March 9, 2023
- Deadline Model
- single-stage
- Budget
- €7,500,000
- Min Grant Amount
- €1,000,000
- Max Grant Amount
- €1,500,000
- Expected Number of Grants
- 5
- Keywords
- Digital AgendaESFRI projectsESFRI
Description
Project results are expected to contribute to several of the following expected outcomes:
- enhanced ERA excellence and attractiveness through the availability of additional capacities;
- consistent and well-structured research infrastructures ecosystem in Europe;
- solid Member States/Associated Country engagement in pan-European research infrastructures, leading to their full implementation;
- long-term perspective for investments in research infrastructures;
- synergies and complementarities between new and existing research infrastructures, including technology infrastructures and infrastructures financed by ERDF.
This topic targets the research infrastructure projects which entered the ESFRI Roadmap in 2018[1], due to their scientific excellence and organisational maturity as well as to their strategic importance for the European Research Area and the structuring of the European research infrastructure ecosystem.
Although these ESFRI Projects have received EU funding for their preparatory phase and initial commitment from Member States/Associated Countries, the early stages of the research infrastructure life cycle are particularly challenging, also considering additional difficulties linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and the current energy crisis. Past monitoring exercises on ESFRI infrastructures highlighted recurrent bottlenecks hampering their full implementation and start of operation phase. Building on such experiences, proposals are expected to identify and address the most critical issues that could prevent or delay the entering of these ESFRI Projects into the implementation phase.
Support can be provided for activities, such as enlargement of the membership; establishment of the governance structure and legal entity; securing the funding; finalisation of the distributed architecture; development of ICT and data management solutions (including possible open access to data); development of access policies and users’ strategies; consolidation of the international dimension; consolidate their service offer, assessing possible expansion to new user communities/new needs; addressing staff and procurement related issues. Proposals should focus on the activities addressing the identified bottlenecks.
Proposal consortia should involve all stakeholders necessary to move the project forward and ensure financial commitments (including national/regional ministries/governments, research councils or funding agencies).
Proposals should explain any synergies and complementarities with previous or current EU grants.
[1]Projects eligible for support under this topic include: DiSSCo, EHRI, eLTER, EU-IBISBA and METROFOOD-RI.
Destination & Scope
Over recent years, the European Commission, Member States (MS) and Associated Countries (AC) have been closely collaborating, in particular within the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), to develop an integrated and efficient ecosystem of research infrastructures (RIs) in Europe, which encompasses single-sited facilities, distributed facilities integrating resources across the European Research Area, as well as networks of national facilities and which serves researchers and engineers in all S&T fields, from basic to applied research. To facilitate integration and pooling of resources for the development of new capacities, a legal instrument has also been developed at European level, the European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) that provides favourable conditions for the establishment and operation of large European infrastructures supported jointly by several MSs and ACs as well as by third countries. While Member States remain central in the development and financing of public RIs, the Union and ESFRI play a catalysing and leveraging role in driving the integration between national efforts.
The challenges for the near future are to consolidate and optimise the European Research Infrastructure landscape and enhance its capacity to support frontier research and address the emerging and new scientific and societal objectives associated with the transition towards a sustainable and resilient Europe. In addition, there is the need to define and implement an effective and sound RI strategy in Europe, in close cooperation with ESFRI, MSs and ACs, which is complemented by and interlocks with the long-term ambition of creating an integrated Technology Infrastructure (TI) landscape, the latter is supported in Pillar II of Horizon Europe Programme (HE). Such a strategy would also help in exploiting synergies between RI and TI financed from Horizon and massive investments in infrastructures from ERDF.
This destination aims to create a world-leading coherent, responsive, sustainable and attractive RI landscape in Europe, by reducing its fragmentation at European, national and regional level, ensuring coordination of efforts and fostering alignment of priorities among MSs and ACs, connecting RIs to the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), and which is able to support national and regional R&I ecosystems. The support to a European strategy for Research Infrastructures as well as activities to enhance the role of RIs for international cooperation and science diplomacy will also be covered under this destination.
Expected impact
Proposals for topics under this destination should set out a credible pathway to contributing to one or several of the following impacts:
- Disruptive research and breakthrough science and innovation through cutting-edge, interconnected and sustainable Research Infrastructures;
- Strengthened scientific excellence and performance and efficiency of the European Research Area, increasing its attractiveness to researchers from all over the world;
- Coordinated research infrastructure capacity among countries and regions, also by exploiting possibilities given by the smart specialisation processes;
- Reinforced R&I capacities enabling systemic changes needed for a truly transformative societal and economic recovery and a strengthened resilience of critical sectors, as outlined in the Recovery Plan;
- Improved European response, in cooperation with international players, to emerging socio-economic and related scientific and technological challenges at global level.
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
Legal entities established in non-associated third countries may exceptionally participate in this Coordination and support action.
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
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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
Eligible costs will take the form of a lump sum as defined in the Decision of 7 July 2021 authorising the use of lump sum contributions under the Horizon Europe Programme – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2021-2027) – and in actions under the Research and Training Programme of the European Atomic Energy Community (2021-2025). [[This decision is available on the Funding and Tenders Portal, in the reference documents section for Horizon Europe, under ‘Simplified costs decisions’ or through this link: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/guidance/ls-decision_he_en.pdf]].
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 CSA)
Standard evaluation form — will be used with the necessary adaptations
Standard evaluation form (HE CSA)
MGA
RAO decision authorising the use of lump sum funding
Explanatory slides for applicants on the specificities of lump sum funding
Detailed Budget Table (HE LS) for estimation of Lump Sum Funding
Additional documents:
HE Main Work Programme 2023-2024 – 1. General Introduction
HE Main Work Programme 2023-2024 – 3. Research Infrastructures
HE Main Work Programme 2023-2024 – 13. General Annexes
HE Framework Programme and Rules for Participation Regulation 2021/695
HE Specific Programme Decision 2021/764
Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment
EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement
Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual
Support & Resources
Online Manual is your guide on the procedures from proposal submission to managing your grant.
Horizon Europe Programme Guide contains the detailed guidance to the structure, budget and political priorities of Horizon Europe.
Funding & Tenders Portal FAQ – find the answers to most frequently asked questions on submission of proposals, evaluation and grant management.
Research Enquiry Service – ask questions about any aspect of European research in general and the EU Research Framework Programmes in particular.
National Contact Points (NCPs) – get guidance, practical information and assistance on participation in Horizon Europe. There are also NCPs in many non-EU and non-associated countries (‘third-countries’).
Enterprise Europe Network – contact your EEN national contact for advice to businesses with special focus on SMEs. The support includes guidance on the EU research funding.
IT Helpdesk – contact the Funding & Tenders Portal IT helpdesk for questions such as forgotten passwords, access rights and roles, technical aspects of submission of proposals, etc.
European IPR Helpdesk assists you on intellectual property issues.
CEN-CENELEC Research Helpdesk and ETSI Research Helpdesk – the European Standards Organisations advise you how to tackle standardisation in your project proposal.
The European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for their recruitment – consult the general principles and requirements specifying the roles, responsibilities and entitlements of researchers, employers and funders of researchers.
Partner Search Services help you find a partner organisation for your proposal.
Latest Updates
Dear applicant,
We would like to draw your attention to an update of the “Detailed Budget Table” Excel template. A new template has been republished for your kind consideration and use.
An additional paragraph has been added to the instructions tab, explaining how to save the detailed budget table and how to upload it in the submission system.
The following instructions have been added:
“After you completed this Excel workbook, you must also complete the table ‘Budget for the proposal’ in Part A of the proposal, entering the requested EU contribution for each participant. Fill the Part A budget table using the total for each participant from the sheet ‘Lump sum breakdown’ in this Excel workbook.
The format of this Excel workbook is .xlsm because it uses macros to generate sheets and make calculations automatically. Always save it as .xlsm.
However, this format cannot be uploaded to the submission system for security reasons.
Therefore, to submit the completed workbook, save a copy as an .xlsx or .xls document (and not as .xlsm) and upload it to the proposal submission tool at Step 5 of the submission process. Always keep a copy of the original .xlsm file.
To save the workbook as .xlsx document, use the action button in the sheet “Instructions”. Alternatively, click on “File” and then “Save as”; in the “Save as” dialog box, choose “.xlsx” or “.xls” from the “Save as type” dropdown list.”
You can still use the template initially available in the submission system if you wish to, but please be aware of the instructions on how to upload and save the file.