Tagged / Excellent Science

Horizon 2020 – hit the ground running for 2018-2020

Funding opportunities, international

The European Commission has pre-published a number of the Horizon 2020 draft Work Programmes for the period 2018-2020. In each case, please keep in mind that these drafts have not been adopted or endorsed by the European Commission and are for the purposes of providing potential participants with the currently expected main lines of these work programmes, as per the disclaimer at the start of each of the documents below.

With reference to calls which are ‘top-down’, please keep an open mind and do not assume that all the calls in, for example, Societal Challenge 1; Health, Demographic Change and Well-being are only for those working directly in those disciplines. Far from it, this Work Programme requires the research expertise of those working in, amongst others, big data, digital health, cybersecurity, smart living, ICT enabling technologies and regulatory frameworks, as well as the more obvious fields of maternity, ageing and the treatment of disease.

The pre-publication documents currently available are:

Strategic Programme Overarching Document – giving context for the suite of Work Programmes and the cross-cutting themes

Pillar 1: Excellent Science:

Other Related Schemes:

Once adopted, links to the Work Programmes will be promoted on this blog and will also be readily accessible on the European Commission’s Participant Portal.

 

BU staff considering applying for any of these calls and other international funding, should contact Emily Cieciura, RKEO’s Research Facilitator: International Funding, for further information and support.

EU Radar – Excellent Science

BU Challenges

The following calls have been announced on the Participant Portal, within the Excellent Science pillar of Horizon 2020:

ERC Advanced Grant – this call is open and closes on 2/6/15 at 17:00 (Brussels local time)

Advanced Grants are designed to support excellent Principal Investigators at the career stage at which they are already established research leaders with a recognised track record of research achievements. Applicant Principal Investigators must demonstrate the ground-breaking nature, ambition and feasibility of their scientific proposal.

MSCA Individual Fellowship – this call is open with a deadline of 10/9/15 at 17:00 (Brussels local time)

The goal of Individual Fellowships is to enhance the creative and innovative potential of experienced researchers. Please see information about BU’s workshop and external training provided by UKRO

Future and Emerging Technologies (FET)

FET-Open – novel ideas for radically new technologies (Research & Innovation Action)  – this call is open with a closing date of 29/9/15 at 17:00 (Brussels local time)

Supporting a large set of early stage, high risk visionary science and technology collaborative research projects is necessary for the successful exploration of new foundations for radically new future technologies. Nurturing fragile ideas requires an agile, risk-friendly and highly interdisciplinary research approach, expanding well beyond the strictly technological disciplines. Recognising and stimulating the driving role of new high-potential actors in research and innovation, such as women, young researchers and high-tech SMEs, is also important for nurturing the scientific and industrial leaders of the future.

FET-Open – novel ideas for radically new technologies (FET Take-Up Coordination and Support Activities) – this call is open with a closing date of 29/9/15 at 17:00 (Brussels local time)

The challenge is to make Europe the best place in the world for collaborative research on future and emerging technologies that will renew the basis for future European competitiveness and growth, and that will make a difference for society in the decades to come, by actions for stimulating take-up of FET research results towards impact and innovation, in ways that are complementary to and beyond the capacity of single research projects. Examples include outreach to investors and entrepreneurs, use of unconventional channels (like NGOs or artists), or targeting of new audiences and purposes (e.g. for social innovation, global development or peace).

FET-Open – novel ideas for radically new technologies (FET Exchange Coordination and Support Activities)

The challenge is to make Europe the best place in the world for collaborative research on future and emerging technologies that will renew the basis for future European competitiveness and growth, and that will make a difference for society in the decades to come. Applicants should address structuring an emerging FET-relevant topic and the interdisciplinary communities around it. This shall include research roadmapping, stimulating learning and exchange (possibly with related initiatives worldwide) involving the appropriate range of disciplines and actors such as young researchers and high-tech SMEs, and broader stakeholder engagement.

ERC Proof of Concept – this call is open with two forthcoming deadlines – Intermediate deadline: 28/5/15 and Final deadline: 1/10/15, both due at at 17:00 (Brussels local time)

Frontier research often generates unexpected or new opportunities for commercial or societal application. The ERC Proof of Concept Grants aim to maximise the value of the excellent research that the ERC funds, by funding further work (i.e. activities which were not scheduled to be funded by the original ERC frontier research grant) to verify the innovation potential of ideas arising from ERC funded projects. Proof of Concept Grants are therefore on offer only to Principal Investigators whose proposals draw substantially on their ERC funded research.

COFUND Doctoral Programme – the call will open on 14/4/15 and has a deadline of 01/10/ 2015 at 17:00 (Brussels local time)

Doctoral programmes address the development and broadening of the research competencies of early-stage researchers. The training follows the EU Principles on Innovative Doctoral Training (http://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/pdf/research_policies/Principles_for_Innovative_Doctoral_Training.pdf). Collaboration with a wider set of partners, including from the non-academic sector, which may provide hosting or secondment opportunities or training in research or transferable skills, as well as innovative elements of the proposed programme, will be positively taken into account during the evaluations. Each researcher must be enrolled in a doctoral programme. Attention is paid to the quality of supervision and mentoring arrangements as well as career guidance.

COFUND Fellowship Programme – the call will open on 14/4/15 and has a deadline of 01/10/ 2015 at 17:00 (Brussels local time)

Proposed fellowship programmes are encouraged to cover all research disciplines (“bottom-up”), but can also focus on specific disciplines. In this case the range of covered disciplines should allow reasonable flexibility for the researchers. Programmes that prioritise specific research disciplines based on national or regional Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3 strategies) will also be supported.

For further information on EU and International funding calls, please contact Paul Lynch or Emily Cieciura in the RKEO Funding Development Team

So 3 really is the magic number for the EC: The objectives of Horizon 2020

As highlighted in yesterday’s blogpost, funding for Horizon 2020 will now be structured around three priority areas. Below outlines in more detail the areas included in this:

I. Societal Challenges

This will be in response to EU policy and will focus on 6 areas:

 

  1. Health, demographic change and well-being;
  2. Food security, sustainable agriculture and the bio-economy;
  3. Secure, clean and efficient energy;
  4. Smart, green and integrated transport;
  5. Climate action, resource efficiency and raw materials;
  6. Inclusive, innovative and secure societies.

 The emphasis will be on bringing together a critical mass of resources and knowledge across different fields, technologies and scientific disciplines in order to address challenges and activities will cover the full cycle from research to market, with a focus on innovation-related activities, such as piloting, demonstration, test-beds, support for public procurement, social innovation and market take-up of innovations. Finally, social sciences and humanities shall be an integral part of the activities to address all the challenges.

 

 

II. Excellent Science

This will reinforce and extend the excellence of the EUs science base in order to make the EU research and innovation system more competitive on a global scale. This will be funded under 4 programmes:

 

  • Marie Curie actions will provide excellent and innovative research training plus attractive career and knowledge-exchange opportunities through cross-border and cross-sector mobility of researchers to best prepare them to face current and future societal challenges.
  • European Research Council (ERC) will provide attractive and flexible funding to enable talented and creative individual researchers and their teams to pursue the most promising avenues at the frontier of science;
  • Future and Emerging Technologies will support collaborative research in order to extend Europe‘s capacity for advanced and paradigm-changing innovation. They foster scientific collaboration across disciplines on radically new, high-risk ideas and accelerate development of the most promising emerging areas of science and technology as well as the EU-wide structuring of the corresponding scientific communities.
  • Research Infrastructures will develop European research infrastructure for 2020 and beyond, foster their innovation potential and human capital, and add the related European Union policy and international cooperation.

These activities are focused on building skills in the long term and on the next generation of science, technology, researchers and innovations and providing support for emerging talent from across the whole of the European Union and associated countries, as well as worldwide.

 

III. Industrial Leadership

This aims to speed up development of the technologies and innovations that will underpin future businesses and help innovative SMEs to grow into world-leading companies. It consists of three specific objectives:

  1. Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies which will provide dedicated support for research, development and demonstration on ICT, nanotechnology, advanced materials, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing and processing and space. Emphasis will be placed on interactions and convergence across and between the different technologies.
  2. Access to risk finance in order to overcome deficits in the availability of debt and equity finance for innovative companies and projects at all stages of development  (including supporting the development of Union-level venture capital)
  3. Innovation in SMEs which will stimulate all forms of innovation in SMEs, targeting those with the potential to grow and internationalise across the single market and beyond.

Horizon 2020 will take an integrated approach to the participation of SMEs, which could lead to around 15% of the total combined budgets for all specific objectives on societal challenges and the specific objective on ‘Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies’ being devoted to SMEs.

 

The ‘Societal Challenges ‘ theme and Marie Curie Actions found in the ‘Excellent Science’ theme are most relevant to BU staff and therefore Wednesday and Thursday’s blog posts will focus on these respectively.