Experimental local action for EU missions: knowledge institutions as focal points of transdisciplinary research and innovation activities with European outreach

Topic updates

10 March

2025HORIZON-MISS-2024-CROSS-02

EVALUATION RESULTS

Published: 29 March 2024

Deadline: 25 September 2024

Available budget: EUR 15 million

The results of the evaluation are as follows:

 
HORIZON-MISS-2024-CROSS-02-01
Number of proposals submitted (including proposals transferred from or to other calls)
14
Number of inadmissible proposals
0
Number of ineligible proposals
0
Number of above-threshold proposals
9
Total budget requested for above-threshold proposals
18,325,854.75 €

 
Number of proposals retained for funding
7
Number of proposals in the reserve list
2
Number of proposals with scores lower or equal to 15 and higher or equal to 14
2
Number of proposals with scores lower than 14 and higher or equal to 13
1
Number of proposals with scores lower than 13 and higher or equal to 10
6
Summary of observer report:

The evaluation of the HORIZON-MISS-2024-CROSS-02 covered 14 proposals and a total of 13 experts were involved in the process. It was coordinated and managed by a highly experienced team of EC staff members from the Research Executive Agency (REA).

The evaluation was a complex process that extended throughout several months and required a strong coordination between all participants. Experts proved to be very knowledgeable on the topics under discussions and the evaluation procedure. During the individual remote and the consensus phases, they behaved professionally and made sure that a strong consensus was reached on the aspects covered by the evaluation criteria after a robust exchange of views.

The transparency of the procedures was evident throughout the process. No specific issues were raised as regards to impartiality of the participants, and confidentiality aspects were clearly managed.

The proposed list of proposals to be funded includes strong proposals related to all five EU Missions: Cities (2), Cancer (2), Adaptation to Climate Change (1), Soil (1) and Ocean and Water (1).

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We recently informed the applicants about the evaluation results for their proposals.

For questions, please contact the Research Enquiry Service.

14 October 2024

Call HORIZON-MISS-2024-CROSS-02 has closed on the 25 September 2024.

14 proposals have been submitted.

Evaluation results are expected to be communicated in February 2025.

Experimental local action for EU missions: knowledge institutions as focal points of transdisciplinary research and innovation activities with European outreach

TOPIC ID: HORIZON-MISS-2024-CROSS-02-01

Type of grant: Call for proposals

General information

Programme: Horizon Europe Framework Programme (HORIZON)

Call: Cross-cutting actions (2) (HORIZON-MISS-2024-CROSS-02)

Type of action: HORIZON-RIA HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions

Type of MGA: HORIZON Action Grant Budget-Based [HORIZON-AG]

Status: Open for submission

Deadline model: single-stage

Opening Date: 15 May 2024

Deadline dates: 25 September 2024 17:00 (Brussels time)

Topic description

ExpectedOutcome:

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Research outputs are taken up in the context of an EU Mission and contribute to the achievement of the Mission’s objectives.
• Universities, other higher education institutions and research institutes – including those not participating in the actions – develop their roles as designers and managers of transdisciplinary^[1] research and innovation projects, knowledge transfer hubs and enablers of just transitions in the context of the EU Missions.
• The strategies of universities, other higher education institutions and research institutes to contribute to EU Missions developed along the axes of ‘research and innovation’, ‘education, training and skills’ and ‘public engagement and societal impact’.

Scope:

The EU Missions on cancer, climate adaptation, climate neutral cities, oceans and soil pursue objectives agreed between Member States and the European Commission in the context of the European Green Deal and health policies. Sustainably managing common-pool resources and the provision of public goods (here taken together ‘the Commons’) are an important dimension in the EU Missions. Unlike technology development or scientific progress, for societal transitions and missions that relate to environmental and social Commons, scholars consider small-scale multistakeholder activities within a local or regional innovation ecosystem to be crucial for the non-technological innovation processes^[2].

Such innovation ecosystems for transformative change include non-commercial stakeholders like civil society and administrations.

Such intensive transdisciplinary interactions are required, for example, for effective spatial planning and community action for increasing resilience to climate change, or for better services of prevention, early detection and care for cancer in vulnerable groups of society. To be effective such transdisciplinary research and innovation actions need a strong scientific lead in its design and operations in order to draw scientifically sound conclusions. The experience gathered and conclusions drawn must be taken up locally to create impact, for example in training courses, in by-laws for land management or in targeted support to entrepreneurship. The topic acknowledges the potential of local and regional collaborative, transdisciplinary action in research and innovation for the EU Missions and the value of sharing of data, innovative approaches, and experience in designing and managing local transdisciplinary research and innovation actions with other regions engaging in the Missions.

Higher education institutions, universities and research institutes are key players for these actions. They already provide diverse services to stakeholders in their local region, including: lifelong learning courses and applied research that take account of the specific needs and opportunities of businesses and industries; research activities in the social sciences and humanities investigate cultural preferences; start-up ecosystems build around them, complemented by citizens’ science; and science outreach activities engage citizens of all ages. At the same time, students and researchers participate in international networks and transfer knowledge to and from the region.

For these reasons, universities, other higher education institutions and research institutes receive recognition and trust from public administration and public services, civil society, education, the private sector and other diverse stakeholders in their home region for their role as impartial, competent and knowledge-based actors for the co-creation of fair and inclusive innovation processes. This puts them in a good position to undertake collaborative, transdisciplinary research and innovation activities in their local context and enables them to play multiple, important roles in the realisation of the objectives of the Green Deal and the EU Missions.

Proposals should therefore support transdisciplinary research and innovation activities by one or more higher education institution(s), university(-ies) or research institute(s) together with regional stakeholders in support of the objectives of one of the EU Missions.

The proposal should aim to implement, for the benefit of a specific location or region in an EU Member States or countries associated to Horizon Europe, a research and innovation action that:

1. concretely contributes to the achievement of the objectives of one of the EU Missions, by creating new knowledge and/or developing and testing innovative approaches in co-creation with regional stakeholders, while not replicating the scientific/technological approach of projects already funded by Horizon Europe in support of the EU MissionsProjects funded by Horizon Europe in support of the five EU Missions are documented either on the Missions’ platforms and/or on Cordis (https://cordis.europa.eu), the platform for EU research results, using the search via “Call ID” search string *MISS*. and
2. engages in concrete transdisciplinary research and innovation activities and in strategy development to bring the Mission to the regional or local level stakeholders that traditionally have more difficulties accessing European level research and innovation support and/or the EU Missions (notably: small and medium sized enterprises; communal, municipal or other public services; citizens, civil society or philanthropy).

The action provides the opportunity to integrate as partners in the project non-local entities that contribute to the project with special knowledge or capacities otherwise absent in the region. To increase the European added value, projects have to foresee activities active engagement in the learning environments created by the relevant Mission platforms^[3]. This should be reflected in the projects’ communication and dissemination activities and is considered an integral part of the expected impact of the project.

Activities should aim to have tangible local or regional impact for one of the EU Missions, arising from the full integration of different academic disciplines in interaction with local stakeholders in the activities on the ground, for example in moderated or supervised experimentation and citizens’ science activities in communities, in living labs or in regulatory testbeds.

Insights created from these experimental activities should be taken up locally by stakeholders, for example in teaching and training activities, or in specific funding schemes for deployment and replication of innovations implemented by philanthropic funders, or commercial or development banks. Methods and results of the projects should be propagated in the wider Mission context to academic and non-academic stakeholders.

Financial support to third parties may be provided, for example to cover the costs of experimental actions conducted by civil organisations or neighbourhoods, or for a local start-up support centre to provide seed funding for an innovative commercial activity that directly supports the objectives of the Mission. In order to achieve a close interaction of the regional and European dimension in the EU Missions, cooperation with relevant Horizon Europe National Contact Points is encouraged.

[1]The term ‘transdisciplinary research’ is used in the sense of ‘an approach that integrates knowledge across academic disciplines and involves collaboration with non-academic stakeholders to address societal challenges.’ (Utrecht University, ‘Transdisciplinary field guide’). For a wider ranging discussion, see Lawrence M et.al; (2022) Characteristics, potentials, and challenges of transdisciplinary research. One Earth Volume 5, Issue 1, pp. 44-61, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.12.010.

[2]For an overview on the relevant theories and developments see: Mariana Mazzucato (04 Dec 2023): Governing the economics of the common good: from correcting market failures to shaping collective goals, Journal of Economic Policy Reform, DOI: 10.1080/17487870.2023.2280969

Climate Mission: Climate ADAPT (https://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/en/mission); Cities Mission: Net Zero Cities (https://netzerocities.eu); Ocean & waters Mission: Mission Ocean and Waters service portal | Research and Innovation (europa.eu) Soil Mission: Mission Soil Platform (https://mission-soil-platform.ec.europa.eu/home); CancerMission – ECHoS - Cancer Missions Hubs (cancermissionhubs.eu)

[3]Climate Mission: Climate ADAPT (https://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/en/mission); Cities Mission: Net Zero Cities (https://netzerocities.eu); Ocean & waters Mission: Mission Ocean and Waters service portal | Research and Innovation (europa.eu) Soil Mission: Mission Soil Platform (https://mission-soil-platform.ec.europa.eu/home); CancerMission – ECHoS - Cancer Missions Hubs (cancermissionhubs.eu)

Topic destination

Destination: Cross-cutting Activities (2024)

This cross-cutting action advances the EU Mission objectives by setting up a European social innovation network. It leverages three different instruments:

1. A Coordination and Support Action (CSA) will set up a network to build the capacity of social innovators and entrepreneurs, and impact investors;
2. A Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA) action will set up a framework to increase the impact of EU funding by attracting additional, non-EU funds in the form of private and public contributions and scale up social innovation projects thanks to a networked fund holding EU and non-EU contributions;
3. One or several Specific Grant Agreements (SGAs) will implement the above budget-less FPA action.

Notably:

• concerning the CSA and the FPA, applicants are free to apply to the CSA, the FPA, or both. The reason for this freedom resides with entities not needing to be part of the consortium managing the CSA to be part of the network that the CSA will set up;
• concerning the SGAs, applicants will have to have applied for the FPA and been selected to be eligible for an SGA.

Expected impacts:

Proposals for topics should set out a credible approach to creating a social innovation network and more specifically to the following impacts:

• the integration of social innovation in the EU Missions;
• the identification of existing, demonstrably successful social innovations, as established by qualitative and quantitative data, that enjoy a real potential for scaling, as attested by credible scaling plans, in support of the EU Missions;
• a network composed of entities interested in scaling up social innovation projects as well as entities interested in investing in such social innovation ventures;
• an interface between the EU Missions and the network to match the demand for and supply of social innovation solutions as well as social innovation investment;
• the foundation for a financial Framework Partnership Agreement to create a networked catalytic fund to scale up social innovations;
• a stronger social innovation funding environment;
• the engagement of social innovation actors including philanthropy;
• the identification of social innovation projects relevant to the EU Missions. Note: “social innovation” refers to “existing, demonstrably successful social innovations, as established by qualitative and quantitative data, that enjoy a real potential for scaling, as attested by credible scaling plans” in the remainder of the document, specifically, in the descriptions of the CSA, the FPA, and the SGA that follow.

General conditions

1. Admissibility conditions: described in Annex Aand 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 Bof 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

The following additional eligibility criteria apply:

The consortium may exceptionally be composed of at least three legal entities established in at least one Member State or Associated Country as the nature of the action aims to support collaborative research and innovation activities in a local setting as contribution to an EU Mission.

The coordinator of the project proposed must be a secondary or higher education establishment or a research organisation[[As demonstrated by the specific legal status as ‘secondary or higher education establishment’ or ‘research organisation’ in the participant register. For definitions see: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/common/guidance/rules-lev-lear-fca_en.pdf]].

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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 Dof the Work Programme General Annexes

• Submission and evaluation processes are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual

Seals of Excellence will be awarded to applications exceeding all of the evaluation thresholds set out in this work programme, but cannot be funded due to lack of budget available to the call.

To ensure a balanced portfolio, grants will be awarded to applications in order of ranking but no more than two grants will be awarded related to each of the five missions, provided that the applications attain all thresholds.

• 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 may provide financial support to third parties.The support to third parties can only be provided in the form of grants.The maximum amount to be granted to each third party is EUR 60 000.

Specific conditions

7. Specific conditions: described in the specific topic of the Work Programme

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To access existing draft proposals for this topic, please login to the Funding & Tenders Portal and select the My Proposals page of the My Area section.

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