Call for proposals
Horizon 2020 – Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation, “TWINNING” – WIDESPREAD-05-2017
Objective and description
A
new call for proposals has been published under the Horizon 2020
Programme, within the “Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation”
part, under the title “TWINNING” – WIDESPREAD-05-2017.
Despite
serious efforts deployed at national and European level, the European
Union sees significant internal disparities in terms of research and
innovation performance as also identified in the Innovation Union
Scoreboard. These trends are further exacerbated by the continuing
severe financial crisis, and the subsequent adverse effects on public
research and innovation budgets. Also,
there is significant evidence pointing to the fact that the pathway to
economic growth and competitiveness is strongly connected to the scaling
up of investment in research and innovation.
In
order to address these challenges, Horizon 2020 introduces specific
measures for spreading excellence and widening participation. These
measures are targeted at low-performing Member States in terms of
research and innovation, and they will be implemented by the Member
States most in need of the new Cohesion policy for the 2014-2020
programming period.
The specific challenge under the Twinning call
is to address networking gaps and deficiencies between the research
institutions of the Widening countries and internationally-leading
counterparts at EU level. Driven by the quest for excellence, research
intensive institutions tend to collaborate increasingly in closed
groups, producing a crowding-out effect for a large number of promising
institutions. This is the challenge that a specific Twinning action will
try to address.
Twinning aims
at significantly strengthening a defined field of research in a
university or research organisation from a Widening country by linking
it with at least two internationally-leading research institutions in
other Member States or Associated Countries.
Twinning will:
· Enhance
the S&T capacity of the linked institutions with a principal focus
on the university or research organisation from the Widening Country;
· Help raise the research profile of the institution from the Widening country as well as the research profile of its staff.
Successful
Twinning proposals will have to clearly outline the scientific strategy
for stepping up and stimulating scientific excellence and innovation
capacity in a defined area of research as well as the scientific quality
of the partners involved in the twinning exercise. If relevant, any links with sustainable development objectives are to be outlined.
Such
a strategy should include a comprehensive set of measures to be
supported. These should include at least a number of the following:
short term staff exchanges; expert visits and short-term on-site or
virtual training; workshops; conference attendance; organisation of
joint summer school type activities; dissemination and outreach
activities.
In
general, costs relating to administration, networking, coordination,
training, management, travel costs are acceptable under a Twinning
project.
Eligible applicants
- The applicant organisation (coordinator) where a defined field of research aims to be strengthened as a result of the
Twinning action should be established in a Member State or Associated
Country that is ranked below 70% of the EU27 average of the composite indicator on Research Excellence.
The selected corrective threshold of 70% of the EU average has been
chosen in line with the particular policy requirements of the measure,
to ensure the greatest possible impact through targeting only the lowest
performing Member States, and thereby maximising the real value of
these actions.
Based
on the above threshold, applicant organisations from the following
Member States and Associated Countries (subject to valid association
agreements of third countries with Horizon 2020) will be eligible to
submit proposals as coordinators (the "low R&I performing" or
"Widening" countries):
Member States: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Associated Countries:
Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Faroe Islands, Former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia,
Tunisia, Turkey and Ukraine.
- Twinning proposals must involve a minimum of three participants.
a. The applicant organisation must satisfy the condition set out in point 1 above, and must be the coordinator of the proposal.
b. At
least two internationally-leading research intensive counterparts that
must be coming from a Member State or Associated Country other than that
of the coordinating applicant.
Budget
The total budget for the topic WIDESPREAD-05-2017 is 30,000,000EUR, with 100% funding rate.
The requested EU contribution shall not exceed a maximum of EUR 1 million for a period of up to 3 years.
Deadline for proposals’ submission
The deadline is 15 November 2017, 17:00 (Brussels local time).
Applicants must submit their proposal electronically, following the link on the submission service.
Further information
Please find attached the call documents.
More information: https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/widespread-05-2017.html
The European Commission is holding an Info Day on the Spreading excellence and Widening participation Calls in Horizon 2020. During the event the Twinning Call 2017 will be presented. This information day will take place in Brussels on 15 June 2017. For registration, interested parties should send an email to RTD-INFO-DAYS-B5@ec.europa.eu.
Kind regards,
Flora
Flora Stavropoulou
Intern
European Office of Cyprus
Rue du Luxembourg 3, 2nd floor
B-1000, Brussels
Tel/Fax: +32 (0) 2 280 22 85
E-mail: eoc.brussels2@ucy.ac.cy
PLEASE NOTE THAT THE GREEK TRANSLATION IS PROVIDED AT REQUEST OF ANY INTERESTED MEMBER (based on the decision of 22.12.2016 of the EOC Administrative Council).
