StandICT.eu 2026 – 4th Open Call

StandICT.eu 2026 – 4th Open Call

Type of grant: Cascade funding

Opening date: 12 February 2024

Deadline model: single-stage

Deadline date: 12 April 2024 17:00 (Brussels time)

Status: Forthcoming

Expected duration of participation: up to 6 months

Total funding available: €325,000.00

Project acronym: StandICT.eu 2026

Full name of the EU funded project: ICT Standardisation Observatory and Support Facility in Europe

Grant agreement number: 101091933

Topic: HORIZON-CL4-2022-RESILIENCE-01-21 - Leveraging standardisation in Digital Technologies (CSA)

Submission & evaluation process

StandICT.eu will run a cycle of 9 Open Calls. Each call will remain open for proposal submission for a period of sixty days. Upon call closure all proposals submitted through the StandICT.eu grants platform (https://standict.eu) and confirmed with a timestamped, Submission Receipt email will be screened for eligibility, evaluated by an External Pool of Evaluators (EPE), scored and ranked for funding to depletion of the budget available for each call. This process usually takes approximately forty days after which all applicants shall be notified on the outcome of their proposal and granted access to the Consensus Report drawn up by the external evaluators.

Applicants should note that to guarantee maximum fairness and transparency the evaluation of each proposal submission is entirely independent and is carried out by three external experts from the StandICT.eu 2026 EPE.Following consensus on the three evaluations carried out, quality control is then performed by a fourth member of the pool. As the EPE are highly-skilled experts whose qualifications have already been assessed through a competitive, open call process their decisions are binding.Therefore,any redress requests or complaints received in relation to the evaluation will be dealt with strictly in relation to the procedural aspects of the evaluation and not on the merits of scientific or technical judgement of the experts.

Open call Timing

Call Launch: Monday 12th of February 2024, 09.00 CET

Call Closure: Friday 12th of April 2023, 17:00 CET;

Evaluation: Each proposal is evaluated by three members of the External Pool of Evaluators, undergoes consensus guided by a Rapporteur (the evaluator of the three members charged with guiding theconsensus phase). After consensus, the evaluation undergoes a quality check by a fourth member of the pool;

Notification of Outcome: Applicants will be notified on the outcome of their proposal via email to the address registered and provided with access to the Consensus Report from the External Pool of Evaluators. Notifications should be given in the last week of May 2024..

If your proposal is retained for funding, upon notification you will be provided with the information necessary to prepare the financial and administrative paperwork necessary to receivefunding. Please note that a deadline of 10 business days from notification to confirm your intention to take up the funding will be applied before re-allocation to other successful applicants.

Who can receive financial support

Potential applicants are Standardisation specialists, defined as professionals with proven expertise and experience in Standardisation activities e.g. previous contributions to standards developments, participation in various SDO groups working, previous or current chairs etc. in the respective priority area.

The target of StandICT.eu 2026’s Open Calls are European Specialists who:

1. Have profound knowledge in one of the priority areas supported by the open calls;
2. Have experience regarding developments of standards, e.g., in SDOs, in reputable organisations and Standardisation communities, or when creating harmonised standards in open source developments;
3. Are individuals or natural persons residing in European Member States and Associated Countries;
4. Are not already receiving support from other instruments (PPPs, EU or national R&I projects) for the activities proposed. In particular, open calls will target representatives from SMEs and academia.

Type of contributions

Three types of proposals can be funded under the StandICT.eu Open Calls, as shown below.

Proposal type 1:

LT – Long term contribution (with travel option)

Description: Contribution to ongoing standards development as a chair, convener, rapporteur or member of an SDO WG. E.g. comments on standards development and drafts, attending meetings also as an observer, paying membership fees.

Maximum Duration of the Workplan: 6 months

Funding Range: up to €10,000 (ten thousand euro)

Proposal type 2:

ST – Short-Term contributions (with travel option)

Description: Contribution to standards documentation e.g. liaison to WG, comments on standards drafts, participation at meetings paying membership or registration fees.

Maximum Duration of the Workplan: 3 months

Funding Range: up to €5,000 (five thousand euro)

Proposal type 3:

OS – One-Shot contributions

Description: Support to ensure participation at workshop or event (e.g., participant, observer, presentation)

Maximum Duration of the Workplan: 3 months

Funding Range: Up to €3,000(three thousand euro)

Please note that the maximum funding requested per proposal cannot exceed that indicated for the respective type of application (LT financial cap €10,000 , ST financial cap €5,000 , OT financial cap€3,000 ), nor can the duration exceed that indicated for each type (LT financial 6 months, ST financial 3 months , OT three months),.

The initial eligibility screening will be undertaken by the Consortium to assess compliance to the call. Proposals which are ineligible for any reason or which do not meet the call criteria will be identified as such and the applicant will receive an automatic notification of rejection from the system.

The consortium will consolidate all eligible proposals and submit them to the External Pool of Evaluators to for evaluation.

The proposals will have to clearly demonstrate:

1. Added value to existing SDO activities;
2. Impact of work on European interests and the standard in question;
3. Expertise of the applicant in the respective priority area;
4. Expertise of the applicant in standardisation, e.g. previous contributions to standards developments, participation in other groups working on architectures, APIs, guidelines in the respective priority area

Eligible Costs

Personal Working Effort (this cannot exceed the EU maximum daily cap of 450 Euro).

Travel costs.

Event registration fee(s).

Membership fee(s) for SDO & SSO organisations.

Evaluations (for each proposal) will be performed using the following, four criteria principle (with a core score from 1 to 10):

• Criterion 1: Soundness of the proposal and foreseen impact on ICT Standardisation (30%);

• Criterion 2: Technical excellence & relevance of the activities proposed (30%);

• Criterion 3: Experience and qualifications of the applicant (20%);

• Criterion 4: Economics of the proposal (20%).

The final scoring and ranking will be automatically determined by averaging the scores provided by the three independent members of the External Pool of Evaluators. In the event of a tie between 2 or more proposals, the proposal bearing the earliest “time stamp” of submission will be eligible for funding.

Further information

IMPORTANT PLEASE READ BEFORE SUBMITTING AN APPLICATION

The financial support provided through the StandICT.eu open calls is restricted to individual specialists residing in European Member States or Associated Countries (as defined in https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/common/guidance/list-3rd-country-participation_horizon-euratom_en.pdf), therefore applications from more than one individual or natural person or residing outside European Member States or Associated Countries in above mentioned countries will be immediately disregarded and ineligible for funding.

In accordance with Article 137 of the Financial Regulation No 966/2012 on Financial Support to Third Parties, the maximum amount to be granted to each Third Party may not exceed € 60.000 euro (sixty thousand euro). This limit applies cumulatively across all the StandICT.eu 2026 Open calls and the overall budget of € 2,925,000 (two million nine hundred and twenty-five thousand euro). In practice, an individual may apply and be awarded funding (Financial Support to Third Parties) under different calls, but cannot exceed an overall total limit of € 60.000 (sixty thousand euro) in funding.

Task description

4th Open Call Topic Priorities

Applications that address any of the topics mentioned below taken from the Multi-Stakeholder Platform Rolling Plan for ICT Standardisation will be considered of equal validity and merit during the evaluation process.

Due to their current strategic importance applications focusing on the topics of Metaverse and Digital Product Passport are highly encouraged.

Topics List

1. FOUNDATIONAL DRIVERS
2. Data Economy
3. Cybersecurity/Network and Information security
4. E-Privacy

1. KEY ENABLERS
2. 5G and Beyond (6G)
3. Cloud and Edge Computing
4. Big Data & Open data
5. IoT Internet of Things
6. Electronic identification and trust services (including e-signature)
7. E-infrastrucutre for data and computing intensive service
8. Broadband infrastructure mapping
9. Accessibility of ICT products and services
10. Artificial Intelligence
11. European Global Navigation Satellite Systems (EGNSS)
12. Quantum Technologies

1. SOCIETAL CHALLENGES
2. E-Health, Healthy living and ageing
3. Digital skills
4. Digital learning
5. E-Government
6. E-call
7. Pandemic Preparedness
8. Safety, transparency and due process online
9. Emergency communications and public warning systems

1. INNOVATION FOR THE DIGITAL SINGLE MARKET
2. E-Procurement
3. E-Invoicing
4. Retail payments
5. Preservation of digital cinema
6. FinTech & RegTech Standardisation
7. Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies
8. Virtual Worlds including Citiverse

1. SUSTAINABLE GROWTH
2. Smart Grids and Smart Metering
3. Smart and Sustainable Cities
4. ICT Environmental impact
5. European Electronic Toll Service (EETS)
6. Intelligent Transport Systems
7. Digitisation of European Industry
8. Robotics and autonomous systems
9. Construction building information modelling
10. Common information sharing environment (CISE) for the EU Maritime domain
11. Water management digitalisation
12. Single European Sky
13. U-Space
14. Circular Economy including Digital Product Passport