Financial Support under the EIC Booster Grant Scheme

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Apr 12, 2024 9:44:28 AM

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Financial Support under the EIC Booster Grant Scheme

TOPIC ID: HORIZON-EIC-2024-BOOSTER

Type of grant: Call for proposals

General information

Programme: Horizon Europe Framework Programme (HORIZON)

Call: Financial Support under the EIC Booster Grant Scheme (HORIZON-EIC-2024-BOOSTER)

Type of action: HORIZON-CSA HORIZON Coordination and Support Actions

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

Status: Open for submission

Deadline model: single-stage

Opening Date: 16 January 2024

Deadline dates: 17 April 2024 17:00 (Brussels time)

Topic description

Scope:

The objective of this action is to organise and ensure the implementation of the EIC Booster Grant scheme. The project implementing this action must provide financial support in the form of grants of a fixed maximum amount not exceeding EUR 50 000 to a booster grant project linked to an EIC pathfinder or EIC transition funded projects.

Scope of the action – financial support to third parties

EIC Awardees or other potential booster grant beneficiaries (Technology Transfer Offices, EIC Inventors and other third parties) can be invited to apply at any time for an EIC Booster grant following a positive recommendation from an EIC Programme Manager or a project review.

The selected CSA project will put in place a constantly open call, using its own IT, for EIC booster grant applicants ( EIC Awardees, Technology Transfer Offices, EIC Inventors and other third parties as indicated above) to submit a Booster Grant proposal.

Following a positive recommendation from an EIC Programme Manager or an EIC project review, the CSA project will send an invitation to submit a proposal to the identified applicant/s for Booster grant project. The CSA project will then organise the evaluation of the submitted Booster grant proposal by setting-up an evaluation committee composed of 3 evaluators: an EIC Programme Manager, an external expert selected from a pool of experts covering the broad technology areas, and either an EIC Project Officer or a second external expert. Each evaluator will assess whether the proposal meets each of the award criteria described in annex 5 and will give a GO or NO GO. Proposals receiving at least two GO will be selected. Proposals not receiving at least two GO will be rejected. The final decision will be motivated and communicated to the applicant by the CSA project. Successful applicants will be awarded by the CSA project an EIC Booster grant in the form of a lump sum grant. The CSA project should also take care of support to applicants including a helpdesk to reply to the questions from the identified applicants.

After signature of the booster grant agreement between the selected CSA project and the selected Booster grant project, the CSA project will ensure a pre-financing payment of 70% of the total amount to the booster grant project and will ensure a final payment at the end of the grant after approval of a final report. Each Booster grant project will have to submit a final report of around 10 pages presenting the results. The selected CSA project will set up a system to perform an assessment of final report ensuring that the activities have been performed as originally foreseen for the booster grant before payment and refer to EISMEA in case of identified issues during the implementation of the project. The final approval of such a report will be performed by the Agency. The CSA beneficiary will run an impact survey 6 months after the end of the booster grant to the booster grant recipients. The results of this survey should be communicated to the Agency.

A maximum of three EIC Booster grants projects can be awarded for each EIC Pathfinder project and more than three may be awarded in exceptional and duly justified cases. A maximum of one EIC Booster grant project can be awarded for each EIC Transition project.

The maximum size of cumulative financial support in the form of a grant allocated to Pathfinder a project under this action is EUR 150,000.

Any such EIC Booster grant can be awarded to an individual EIC awardee or a group of EIC Awardees

The selected CSA project will need to put in place a real-time reporting and monitoring system about applications received and financial support awarded per EIC booster grant project, as well as aggregated data displayed in dashboards, including but not limited to geographical distribution, type of funded activity, financial support received (value of the lump sums, and impact surveys etc). The exact content of the dashboard will be defined at the beginning of the project. By the end of the project all data gathered during its implementation will be made available to the Agency. Each EIC booster grant project has to clearly identify to which EIC Pathfinder or EIC transition project relates.

The selected CSA project would need to collaborate closely for the implementation of this action with the Agency, including participation in regular meetings and making available relevant information. The CSA project should also provide content, in collaboration with the Agency, for an “impact report”. The selected CSA project must ensure sound financial management and applicants must specify in their proposals how the management and control of this financial support will be organised in an effective and efficient way, including avoidance of any abuse.

The standard admissibility and eligibility conditions for Coordination and Support Action (“CSA”) as detailed in Annex 2 will apply to this call. If admissible and eligible, the proposals for the current Coordination and Support Actions will be evaluated and ranked against the criteria as described in Annex 2. Only one project will be selected.

The funding rate of the CSA is 100% of the eligible costs.

At least 80% of the total budget to be funded by the EIC must be allocated to financial support to third parties (the EIC Booster grants projects).

An effective duration of 2 years would enable the project to achieve the desired objectives^[1].

Expected outcomes and impacts

The selected proposal under this call is expected to organise the EIC Booster Grant innovation scheme, covering the following activities:

• Ensure the sound design, organisation, and management of the Booster Grant scheme, ensuring continuity of the scheme as implemented by the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency since 2023;
• Report on the implementation of the scheme (key data on applications, organisations funded, demographics of end-beneficiaries of the scheme, etc.) to European Commission services.

The Key Performance Indicators (KPI) that will be used to monitor the action should include as a minimum:

• “Time to inform” measuring time from application of an EIC booster grant project to the notification of the confirmation about lump-sum award;
• “Time to sign" the Booster grant agreement measuring time from application of an EIC Booster grant project to the signature of the agreement.
• “Time to pay” the lump sum ( from reception of the signature of the booster grant agreement to payment);
• Further KPIs can be developed in the proposal for this action and will be taken into consideration during the evaluation stage.

Type of action: Coordination and Support Action (CSA)

Number of projects expected to be funded: 1

Call opening: 16 January 2024

Deadline for applications: 17 April 2024 at 17h00 Brussels local time

Indicative budget: EUR 6 million. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts if duly justified.

[1]flexibility in the duration will be expected to take into account the demand for booster grants.

General conditions

1. Admissibility conditions: described in Annex 2of theHorizon EICWork Programme 2024.

Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System

2. Eligible countries:described inAnnex 2(B. Eligibility)of the EIC Work Programme 2024.

3. Other eligibility conditions:described inAnnex 2(General conditions for proposals)of the EIC Work Programme 2024.

4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion:described inAnnex 2(C. Financial and Operational Capacity)of the EIC Work Programme 2024.

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

• 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

Specific conditions

7. Specific conditions: described in sectionVII.6 "Financial Support under the EIC Booster Grant Scheme" of the .EIC Work Programme 2024

Start submission

To access the Electronic Submission Service, please click on the submission-button next to the type of action and the type of model grant agreement that corresponds to your proposal. You will then be asked to confirm your choice, as it cannot be changed in the submission system. Upon confirmation, you will be linked to the correct entry point.

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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