A capacity-building and brokering network to make citizen science an integral part of the European Research Area
HORIZON Coordination and Support Actions
Basic Information
- Identifier
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ERA-01-60
- Programme
- European Research Area
- Programme Period
- 2021 - 2027
- Status
- Closed (31094503)
- Opening Date
- June 22, 2021
- Deadline
- September 23, 2021
- Deadline Model
- single-stage
- Budget
- €5,000,000
- Keywords
- Societal EngagementResearch dataResponsible Research and Innovation (RRI)Social innovationEOSC and FAIR dataInternational CooperationPublic engagementEducational sciencesTrainingCitizen scienceResponsible Research and Innovation (RRI)Capacity buildingFair data
Description
Projects are expected to contribute to the following expected outcomes:
- Strengthened links and collaboration between citizen science initiatives and other research and innovation actors;
- Increased capacity to conduct excellent research and innovation through citizen science, while maximising other potential benefits of citizen science;
- Data infrastructures better aligned to the needs of citizen science, and improved data practices employed by citizen science initiatives;
- Europe positioned as a leader in citizen science throughout the entire research and innovation system with flourishing and mutually beneficial global collaborations.
These targeted outcomes in turn contribute to medium and long-term impacts:
- Increased engagement of citizens in research and innovation;
- Increased public trust in research and innovation;
- Increased capacity in the EU R&I system to conduct open science and to set it as a modus operandi of modern science;
- Increased openness of the EU R&I system.
Citizen Science is a rapidly emerging mode of research and innovation that shows huge promise in terms of collecting new qualities and quantities of data, harnessing collective intelligence, improving science-society literacy, and improving the relationship between science and society. However, it is embedded institutionally only to a limited extent, at an early stage of developing data infrastructures, and lacks the capacities and sustainable resourcing required to live up to its potentials.
This action will become a central point of exchange between citizen science in Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe, and other EU-level and sub-national programmes and initiatives. It should amplify significant outcomes of citizen science in areas such as Horizon Europe’s Missions, should they be confirmed, Clusters and Partnerships, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the Green Deal, across all parts of the research and innovation system. It should maintain up-to-date repositories of initiatives, good practices and tools, and become a stage for discussion and collaboration.
It should offer extensive in situ brokering, skills, training, and capacity building services to citizen science practitioners, civil society, public authorities, businesses/SMEs, formal and informal education establishments, and research funding and performing organisations, with a view to raising their awareness, knowledge and skills to collaborate with, support, and implement citizen science.
Co-ordination of and support for citizen science to work towards FAIR (and in many cases open) data should cut across activities. The action should become a key interlocutor between citizen science initiatives and existing thematic databases and infrastructures. It should support - and ‘connect the dots’ between - existing efforts to make citizen science data FAIR and open, make new efforts to liaise between citizen science and infrastructures where they are needed, identify unmet needs, and develop policy recommendations. Overall the action should move citizen science towards open science as its modus operandi.
Underlying these activities should be efforts to reduce disparities in awareness and actual practice of citizen science across disciplines in the ERA (e.g. at local, regional, national and EU levels). Moreover, significant efforts should be made to be inclusive in citizens’ involvement in terms of geography, gender, ethnicity, disability, age, socio-economic background etc. In order to achieve the expected outcomes, international cooperation and mutual learning that promise tangible scientific, societal or policy impacts is advised.
The action should build on and valorise the results of earlier projects in the Science and Society (FP6), Science in Society (FP7) and Science with and for Society (Horizon 2020) programmes, in particular projects focused on public engagement, responsible research and innovation, and citizen science , as well as of national and regional initiatives, and should aim to provide a seamless transition between previous supporting actions and this new action.
The action should be no shorter than 3 years.
Cross-cutting Priorities:EOSC and FAIR data
Societal Engagement
International Cooperation
Destination & Scope
Introduction
Horizon Europe has a new level of ambition – to maximise the impact of EU research and innovation funding for European science, economy and the wider society. It marks a paradigm change in the design of the EU R&I Framework Programmes (FP) from an activity-driven to an impact-driven programme. Coupled to this ambition is the relaunching of the European Research Area (ERA) as described in the recently published Commission Communication entitled A new ERA for Research and Innovation (COM/2020/628 final of 30.09.2020).
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the importance of R&I cooperation to deliver solutions to society’s most demanding needs. Delivering Europe’s recovery is a priority as are the green and digital twin transitions. To match these challenges, a new level of ambition that links better R&I with the economy, as well as with education and training, is necessary to put the EU’s scientific knowledge to work.
The new ERA calls for deepening existing priorities and initiatives through new and stronger approaches. The green and digital transitions and the recovery call for cooperation between the Commission and the Member States. They require the setting of new priorities, launching ambitious joint initiatives and developing common approaches between policies.
To address these requirements, Destination 3 of Annex 11 of the Horizon Europe Work Programme, will support efforts to reform and enhance the EU R&I system. Destination 3 is built around four strands corresponding to the four objectives set out in the ERA Communication: 1. Prioritise investments and reforms; 2. Improve access to excellence; 3. Translate R&I results into the economy and 4. Deepen the ERA. The principle of excellence, meaning that the best researchers with the best ideas that respond best to the societal challenges obtain funding, remains the cornerstone for all investments under the ERA.
Strand 1 recognises the importance of prioritising investments and reforms to accelerate the green and digital transformation and to increase competitiveness as well as the speed and depth of the recovery. It offers support for policy makers and addresses the need for better analysis and evidence, including simplifying and facilitating the inter-play between national and European R&I systems.
Strand 2 addresses the need to improve access to excellence and to increase the performance of R&I systems, building on dedicated Horizon Europe measures as well as complementarities with smart specialisation strategies under the Cohesion Policy.
Strand 3 addresses the importance of translating R&I results into the economy. R&I policies should aim to boost the resilience and competitiveness of our economies and societies.
Strand 4 addresses the challenge of deepening the ERA and includes Open Science, Higher Education and Researchers, Citizen Science, Science Education, Gender and Ethics. It aims at underpinning a new ERA benefiting from knowledge creation, circulation and use. This empowers higher education institutions and research organisations to embrace a transformative process; where a highly skilled workforce circulate freely; where research outputs are shared; where gender equality is assured; where the outcomes of R&I are understood, trusted and increasingly used, by educated informed scientists and citizens to the benefit of society.
Expected impact:
Proposals for topics under this Destination should set out a credible pathway to contributing to the following expected impacts:
- Reform and Enhance the EU R&I system
- Prioritisation of investments and reforms, realisation of the recovery and the twin transitions
- Improved access to excellence
- Greater quality of the scientific production and stronger translation of R&I results into the economy
- Deepen the ERA
- Coordinated national and regional R&I programmes by pooling national resources and contributing to the alignment of national research and innovation policies
- Improved knowledge for policy making about the networking patterns of research support staff and research management
- Synergies between research & innovation and higher education policies and programmes
- Modernised higher education sector, benefitting from targeted transformations in higher education, research, and innovation
- Increased number of interconnected knowledge ecosystems, strong in knowledge creation, circulation and use
- Researchers benefit from attractive careers
- Inclusive gender equality is promoted in the European research and innovation system
- A more open and inclusive research and innovation system
- Increased capacity in the EU R&I system to conduct open science and to set it as a modus operandi of modern science
- Increased engagement of citizens with research and innovation
- Increased alignment of strategic research with society needs, expectations and values
- Identified synergies between second and third level education, and between education and business;
- Increased trust in science and R&I outcomes, and greater two-way communication between science and society
- Knowledge and a highly skilled workforce circulate freely
- Improved capacities within the EU R&I system to conduct open science
- A more open and inclusive research and innovation system
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
- 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
Beneficiaries will be subject to the following additional dissemination obligations:
Beneficiaries must make proactive efforts to freely share, in a timely manner and as appropriate, all relevant results with the other grants awarded from this work programme part subject to the same additional dissemination obligations. Beneficiaries must acknowledge and incorporate these obligations in the proposal, outlining the efforts they will make towards meeting them, and in Annex I to the Grant Agreement.
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
Call-specific instructions
Essential Information for Clinical Studies
Additional documents:
HE Main Work Programme 2021–2022 – 1. General Introduction
HE Main Work Programme 2021–2022 – 12. Missions
HE Main Work Programme 2021–2022 – 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
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Horizon Europe Programme Guide contains the detailed guidance to the structure, budget and political priorities of Horizon Europe.
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