General conditions

1. Admissibility conditions: 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 eligibility conditions: described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes

The following additional eligibility criteria apply:

This action requires the participation of at least three (3) independent legal entities, of which at least one (1) is established in a 'moderate' or 'emerging' innovator region and at least one (1) in a 'strong' or 'innovation leader' innovator region.

The Regional Innovation Scoreboard is taken as a reference, and in the case of entities representing national authorities, the European Innovation Scoreboard. The applicants must use as a reference the latest version of the documents mentioned above at the time of the call closure. Associated Countries which are not included in the European Innovation Scoreboard and are ranked below 25 on the latest Global Innovation Index are considered as ‘moderate’ or ‘emerging' innovators. In cases of Associated Countries not included in any of the previously mentioned references, the participation rank of the country in the Horizon Europe programme (H2020 country profile) will be taken as a reference and countries ranked below the average will be considered as ‘moderate’ or ‘emerging' innovators.

The following additional eligibility criteria apply:

The consortium must include at least one (1) educational institution or research organisation and at least one (1) representative of the private sector (for-profit entity).

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 D of 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

Eligible costs will take the form of a lump sum as defined in the Decision of 7 July 2021 authorising the use of lump sum contributions under the Horizon Europe Programme – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2021-2027) – and in actions under the Research and Training Programme of the European Atomic Energy Community (2021-2025). [[This decision is available on the Funding and Tenders Portal, in the reference documents section for Horizon Europe, under ‘Simplified costs decisions’ or through this link: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/guidance/ls-decision_he_en.pdf]].

Specific conditions

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

Documents

Call documents:

Standard application form — call-specific application form is available in the Submission System

Standard application form (HE CSA)

Standard evaluation form — will be used with the necessary adaptations

Standard evaluation form (HE CSA)

MGA

Lump Sum MGA v1.0

Call-specific instructions

Information on clinical studies (HE)

Additional documents:

HE Main Work Programme 2023–2024 – 1. General Introduction

HE Main Work Programme 2023–2024 – 10. European Innovation Ecosystems (EIE)

HE Main Work Programme 2023–2024 – 13. General Annexes

HE Programme Guide

HE Framework Programme and Rules for Participation Regulation 2021/695

HE Specific Programme Decision 2021/764

EU Financial Regulation

Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment

EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement

Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual

Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions

Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement

Projects results are expected to contribute to four (4) or more of the following expected outcomes:

• Improved integration of research institutions, Higher Education Institutions, vocational schools, and similar organisations into Europe’s innovation ecosystems by establishing better links with start-ups and start-up networks, accelerators and incubators, business angels and investor communities;
• Improved flows of knowledge, skills, and talents between educational institutions and other innovation ecosystem actors at various levels of development, including in the deep tech[1] field in line with the New European Innovation Agenda[2];
• Improved skills of all involved ecosystem actors to increase innovation potential, inter-sectoral mobility, and market uptake of new technologies; Targeted are skills necessary and responsive to innovation and labour market needs on digital, green, and entrepreneurial skills, networking skills, risk taking, and in particular in the deep tech field;
• Improved connections of educational institutions to high-quality remote testing, validation, and up-scaling of innovations delivered by research and technology infrastructures across the EU;
• Improved competence of students, graduates, researchers, and workforce to launch, run, and lead successful and profitable start-ups, including in the deep tech field;
• Enhanced availability of local talents equipped with skills to support business acceleration and digitalisation[3];
• Enhanced entrepreneurial activity in developing innovation ecosystems and their upscaling and interconnectedness across the EU supported by citizens and local initiatives in order to build innovative solutions to current and future challenges;
• Increased engagement and connectedness with other ecosystem actors (e.g. other educational institutions, Technology Transfer Offices, Research and Technology Organisations, local and regional enterprises, private companies, start-ups, early-stage companies, accelerators, incubators, etc.) within and between regions;
• Increased youth (self) employability and gender balance in collaborations.

Target group(s): Research and innovation ( related actors such as vocational schools, higher education institutions, public authorities in the field of education and employment, innovation agencies, SMEs, deep tech companies, the European Innovation Council (EIC) and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) start-ups and industry, research performing organisations, knowledge and technology transfer offices and associations, students and researchers.

Educational and research institutions are considered key places for knowledge production and innovation, and should be well connected within and beyond their respective regional innovation ecosystems. By increasing the connectedness of educational and research institutions, host regions will be able to increase their competitive advantage by fostering and possibly attracting talent, high-tech companies, and boosting innovation output in the area;

However, due to the diverse innovation landscape in Europe, educational and research institutions from better-connected innovation ecosystems benefit from more local accelerators with greater funding opportunities and more qualified business support services compared to their counterparts in other areas, including rural or peripheral areas.

The action should foster the creation of innovation ecosystems with educational and research institutions, or strengthen their existing links. Proposals should outline activities for supporting educational and research institutions to take a greater entrepreneurial role, e.g. through boosting innovation and entrepreneurship within their activities. The action should also ensure that educational and research institutions’ assets and vision are articulated clearly and in line with respective regional specialisations (such as smart specialisation strategies), so they can easily be integrated into innovation ecosystems and economic value chains.

The proposals should leverage best practices of the private and public sector in the EU's well performing innovation hubs and enhance collaborations between businesses with R&I actors in educational and research institutions. The proposals should build on the educational and research institutions' focus areas and relationship to innovation, matching regional and business interests (and where relevant complement smart specialisation strategies), in order to maximize each stakeholders’ strengths and accelerate progress. The proposals should outline activities that will foster connectedness of the innovation ecosystems while preventing brain drain and encourage talent to stay in emerging regions, including rural areas. Only by providing local talents, including female talents, with knowledge and opportunities to contribute to the local private sector or develop their own businesses, local innovation ecosystems can expand based on sustainable and inclusive growth. The proposals should valorise high levels of technical skills, including in deep tech, in developing innovation ecosystems with hands-on knowledge and experiences in business management and international scale-up processes.

The action supports co-designed programmes of activities of at least two (2) years, proposed jointly by educational institutions, research institutions, and other R&I actors from ‘emerging’ and ‘moderate’ innovation ecosystems and the private sector from innovation hubs (‘strong innovators’ and ‘innovation leaders’), to ensure better connectedness between higher education institutions and research organisation with other actors of innovation ecosystems, for example:

• Engagement of business experts into the implementation of networking activities and building innovation ecosystem around the university/research institution;
• Engagement of students, graduates, researchers and workforce from various disciplines and departments into the innovation ecosystem, with a focus on networking and building networks around educational and research institutions as centres of gravity, and engaging in companies’ structures and business processes;
• Engagement of students and researchers in start-ups from both their immediate local environment and beyond (regional, national, transnational) working with various actors from the innovation ecosystem to experience what starting and running a venture entails, such as raising funds, pitching events, creating, editing, and adapting business models in the creation process from idea to market, etc.;
• Creation of synergies between students, graduates, researchers, innovators, education institutes, research performing organisations, and business partners, locally, at EU level, and globally targeting the creation of networks and communities of practices in the field of deep tech to stimulate the market uptake of results and new technologies, as well as their co-creation.

The proposed programmes of activities should ensure gender-balanced participation opportunities.

To ensure that the impact of the action goes beyond consortium members and their respective countries, it is encouraged that the selected consortia work closely with innovation agencies from their respective territories and beyond, and seek synergies with relevant EU initiatives in the field of university-business cooperation, such as knowledge and innovation alliances under the Erasmus+ programme or the EIT Knowledge Innovation Communities (KICs) to allow for complementarities and possible use of already existing EIT KICs' knowledge, expertise, networks, communities or platforms such as those developed under the EIT Initiative on Innovation Capacity Building for Higher Education[4]that focuses on strengthening partnerships between higher education and businesses including developing innovation and business support services.

[1]Deep tech innovation aims to provide concrete solutions to our societal problems by finding its source in a deep interaction with the most recent scientific and technological advances and by seeking to produce a profound impact in the targeted application areas.

[2]A New European Innovation Agenda COM(2022) 332 final.

[3]More information on entrepreneurial competences under the Entrepreneurship Competence Framework.

[4]More information under "Pilot Call: HEI Initiative - Innovation Capacity Building for Higher Education."