Connecting research infrastructures and a wider user community across the European Research Area through access to advanced research infrastructure services
European Commission · Horizon Europe Framework Programme (HORIZON)
Posted 9 Mar 2027 · About 9 months left
Summary
Expected Outcome:
Project results are expected to contribute to all the following expected outcomes:
Better connection of research infrastructures across the European Research Area reinforcing and spreading excellence throughout the European Research Area;
mitigating scattered national and regional research infrastructures and pockets of scientific excellence, and increasing the circulation of knowledge;
wider, simplified, and more efficient access to the best research infrastructures available to researchers to conduct curiosity-driven excellent research, irrespective of location;
breakthrough and leading-edge research enabled by advanced research infrastructure services made available to a wider user community;
enhanced integration of a wider user community in the European research infrastructure ecosystem; enhanced capacities of a wider user community to address research challenges and EU policy priorities; enhanced convergence of research capacities and increase of Europe’s competitiveness;
a new generation of researchers trained to optimally exploit all the essential tools for their research; better management, including implementing FAIR data principle, of the continuous…
Excerpt from the donor's page. The full text, annexes and forms are on the original call.
Eligibility and conditions
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">General conditions
1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limit and layout
Applicants are not required to include in their proposal a plan for the exploitation and dissemination of the results as the main objective of these actions is the service provision.
The page limit of the application is 100 pages.
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 Eligible Conditions
The following additional eligibility criteria apply due to the specific nature of this topic:
Access provision activities must be included in the proposal. Please read carefully the provisions under the section “Specific features for Research Infrastructures” at the end of this work programme part before preparing your application.
Due to the scope of this topic, proposals must include at least two of the ESFRI Landmarks[[See the list of ESFRI 'Landmarks' in the 2021 ESFRI Roadmap on https://roadmap2021.esfri.eu/ For ESFRI Landmarks that are not an ERIC or an international European research organisation, the beneficiary must be the legal entity hosting the infrastructure in the lead country (such legal entity is a minimum requirement to become an ESFRI Landmark).]] or European Research Infrastructure Consortia (ERICs)[[European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) | European Commission (europa.eu)]] as beneficiaries. Such beneficiaries, and the research infrastructure(s) that they operate, must be explicitly identified in the proposal. For distributed ERIC the ERIC must be the beneficiary.
The Joint Research Centre (JRC) may participate as member of the consortium selected for funding as a beneficiary with zero funding, or as an associated partner. The JRC will not participate in the preparation and submission of the proposal - see General Annex B.
described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes.
4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion
described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes.
5a. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds
are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes.
5b. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes
The following additions to the general award criteria apply:
For the 'Excellence' criterion, in addition to its standard sub-criteria, the following aspects will also be taken into account:
The extent to which the access activities (trans-national and/or virtual access) will offer access to the state-of-the-art infrastructures of European interest in the field, high quality services, and will enable users to conduct excellent research.
are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual.
5c. Evaluation and award: 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
Beneficiaries will be subject to the additional access rights:
The rules are described in General Annex G. The following exceptions apply:
Eligible costs may take form of unit costs for trans-national and virtual access to research infrastructures as defined in the Decision authorising the use of unit costs for the actions involving trans-national and virtual access (see Annex 2a of the Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement).
Beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties. The support to third parties can only be provided in the form of grants. Given the high operating costs of some state-of-the-art research infrastructures, the maximum amount…