Grassroots sports programmes and infrastructure innovation

1. Admissibility conditions 

Proposals must be submitted before the call deadline (see timetable section 4).

Proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System (accessible via the Topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section. Paper submissions are NOT possible.

Proposals (including annexes and supporting documents) must be submitted using the forms provided inside the Submission System (NOT the documents available on the Topic page — they are only for information).

Proposals must be complete and contain all the requested information and all required annexes and supporting documents:

1.    Application Form Part A — contains administrative information about the participants (future coordinator, beneficiaries and affiliated entities) and the summarised budget for the project (to be filled in directly online)

 2.    Application Form Part B — contains the technical description of the project (to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed and then assembled and re-uploaded)

 3.    mandatory annexes and supporting documents (to be uploaded):

• detailed budget table/calculator (template available in the Submission System)
• CVs of core project team: not applicable
• activity reports of last year: not applicable
• list of previous projects (key projects for the last 4 years) (template available in Part B)

Your application must be readable, accessible and printable.

For more details, see Chapter 5 of the Call document in section 12 below.

2. Proposal page limits and layout (described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System)

Proposals are limited to maximum 40 pages (Part B). Evaluators will not consider any additional pages.

You may be asked at a later stage for further documents (for legal entity validation, financial capacity check, bank account validation, etc).

For more details, see Chapter 5 of the Call document in section 12 below.

3. Eligible countries 

EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs)

For more details, see Chapter 6 of the Call document in section 12 below.

4. Other eligibility conditions 

 The applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:

• be legal entities (public or private bodies)
• be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))
• Be an organisation active in the field of sport (such as a sport federation or club), with legal personality (public or private body), which regularly organises sport activities and competitions and has activities in Europe, a European dimension or European impact

Beneficiaries and affiliated entities must register in the Participant Register — before submitting the proposal — and will have to be validated by the Central Validation Service (REA Validation). For the validation, they will be requested to upload documents showing legal status and origin.

Other entities may participate in other consortium roles, such as associated partners, subcontractors, third parties giving in-kind contributions, etc. (see section 13).

For more details, including about specific cases, please see Chapter 6 of the Call document in section 12 below.

 Eligible activities are described in Chapter 2 of the Call document (see section 12 below)

5. Consortium composition

Only applications by single applicants are allowed (single beneficiaries).

For more details and explanations, see Chapter 6 of the Call proposal in section 12 below.

6. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion 

Financial capacity

Applicants must have stable and sufficient resources to successfully implement the projects and contribute their share. Organisations participating in several projects must have sufficient capacity to implement all these projects.

The financial capacity check will be carried out on the basis of the documents you will be requested to upload in the Participant Register during grant preparation (e.g. profit and loss account and balance sheet, business plan, audit report produced by an approved external auditor, certifying the accounts for the last closed financial year, etc). The analysis will be based on neutral financial indicators, but will also take into account other aspects, such as dependency on EU funding and deficit and revenue in previous years.

The check will normally be done for all beneficiaries, except:

• public bodies (entities established as public body under national law, including local, regional or national authorities) or international organisations
• if the individual requested grant amount is not more than EUR 60 000.

Operational capacity

Applicants must have the know-how, qualifications and resources to successfully implement the projects and contribute their share (including sufficient experience in projects of comparable size and nature).

This capacity will be assessed together with the ‘Quality’ award criterion  on the basis of the competence and experience of the applicants and their project teams, including operational resources (human, technical and other) or, exceptionally, the measures proposed to obtain it by the time the task implementation starts.

If the evaluation of the award criterion is positive, the applicants are considered to have sufficient operational capacity.

Applicants will have to show their operational capacity via the following information:

• profiles (qualifications and experience) of the staff responsible for managing and implementing the project
• list of previous projects (key projects for the last 4 years).

Exclusion

Applicants which are subject to an EU exclusion decision or in an exclusion situations that bar them from receiving EU funding can NOT participate^.

For more details, see Chapter 7 of the Call document in section 12 below.

9. Submission and evaluation processes

This is described in Chapter 8 of the Call document (see section 12 below) and the Online Manual.

8. Award criteria, scoring and thresholds 

The proposals will be assessed according to the following award criteria:

Relevance: clarity and consistency of project, objectives and planning; extent to which they match the themes and priorities and objectives of the call; contribution to the EU strategic and legislative context; European/trans-national dimension; impact/interest for a number of countries (EU or eligible non-EU countries); possibility to use the results in other countries; potential to develop mutual trust/cross-border cooperation (40 points)

Project design and implementation: technical quality; logical links between the identified problems, needs and solutions proposed (logical frame concept); methodology for implementing the project (concept and methodology, management, procedures, timetable, risks and risk management, monitoring and evaluation); feasibility of the project within the proposed time frame; cost effectiveness (sufficient/appropriate budget for proper implementation; best value for money) (30 points)

Impact: ambition and expected long-term impact of results on target groups/general public; appropriate dissemination strategy for ensuring sustainability and long-term impact; sustainability of results after EU funding ends (30 points).

 Scores:

• Maximum total points: 100 points
• Individual thresholds per criterion: 20/40; 15/30; 15/30 points.
• Overall threshold: 60 points.

Proposals that pass the individual thresholds AND the overall threshold will be considered for funding — within the limits of the available call budget. Other proposals will be rejected.

For more details, see Chapter 9 of the Call document in section 12 below.

10. Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement (see Chapter 4 of the Call document in section 12 below)

Call opening: 2 August 2022

Deadline for submission: 26 October 2022 at 17.00 CET (Brussels)

Evaluation: October 2022 - March 2023

Information on evaluation results: March 2023

Grant Agreement signature: April-June 2023

11. Legal and financial set-up of the grants:

This is described in Chapter 10 of the Call document (see section 12 below).