Horizon 2020: Opportunities for ICT Associations and some practical advice for successful proposals Grigoris Chatzikostas Innovation and Business Development Manager BioSense Center Novi Sad, 30 May 2014

Presentation Structure 2 3 LEIT ICT 2015: Relevant Calls for ICT Associations 1 Practical advice on preparing proposals, consortia and budgets 2 FRACTALS: A case study of successful regional cooperation of ICT Associations

3 1 Practical advice on preparing proposals, consortia and budgets

4 Developing a proposal is a project in itself → And it needs to be managed Three vital first steps Check your proposal aligns with call Select prospective partners Agree the concept and goals with key partners Write this down in one or two pages Keep it focused Early agreement is vital Write this down in one or two pages Keep it focused Early agreement is vital Maybe only 2 or 3 at first Know their skills and capabilities Ideally there is a strategic alignment Maybe only 2 or 3 at first Know their skills and capabilities Ideally there is a strategic alignment You can use the proposal checking service BEFORE you write the proposal You can use the proposal checking service BEFORE you write the proposal Managing the process

5 Study the Call Relevance Available Budget Competition What are you trying to do? Is it exactly what the call asks? How many projects are going to be funded? Expected project budget? Previous relevant projects? Key players? Don’t even start preparing a proposal without satisfactory answers to the above questions! It will be a waste of time and resources…

6 Find the right people… It is good to work with people you already know and trust BUT: Avoid inviting people just because they are your friends… They must fit and add value to the project Sometimes it is necessary to include key players or “big” names BUT: Keep in mind that those partners may try to take advantage of you and the rest of the consortium… Make sure that your consortium captures the entire value chain as required by the call and has sufficient geographical coverage BUT: Don’t involve partners just because they come from high profile countries…

7 …to work with for the next 2-4 years

8 Agree upon the vision, concept and objectives,… What is the top-level goal that you are trying to achieve. Of course, this must be in line with the Call Objectives. Goals are ‘high level’ and generally are not measurable But they are a statement of what your project aims to achieve If you are to achieve this goal, what are the main objectives you must meet? [These are the objectives of the proposal - which will be more specific that the Call Objectives] How will you verify that each objective has been met? What measures will be used? How does each objective relate to the call?

… the work to be done,… How will it be reported and verified? What are the risks that something goes wrong? Who is doing what and when? What work will be done? 9

…and make sure everybody understands the same thing 10

Set up the proposal writing team has comprehensive technical understanding is very fluent and accurate in English has ability to think through detail and spot problems has great imagination and ability to see opportunities How can the above 4 people contribute to writing? Share the workload According to area of expertise One coordinator to keep control Set targets Allow for holidays, illness, other commitments Share the workload According to area of expertise One coordinator to keep control Set targets Allow for holidays, illness, other commitments 11

Set up the proposal writing team Co-authors WP1 WP3 WP4 WP5 Proposal Author (Coordinator) 12

Negotiate the budget TEN FOR THAT? YOU MUST BE MAD…

Preparing a budget… Draw a list of all the categories of cost you will need for your proposed project Draw a list of all the categories of cost you will need for your proposed project E.g. Person-months Capital equipment (relevant to this project) Materials (usable only on this project) Travel and subsistence Events Management time and cost of financial statements E.g. Person-months Capital equipment (relevant to this project) Materials (usable only on this project) Travel and subsistence Events Management time and cost of financial statements Prepare a financial spread sheet for all partners to complete Give partners plenty of notice Figures must be consistent with the financial figures in Part A! Prepare a financial spread sheet for all partners to complete Give partners plenty of notice Figures must be consistent with the financial figures in Part A! 14

Politically correct way to prepare a budget Each partner estimates their cost for each category (this will involve finance/business departments) Gather the cost figures for all categories from each partner There are 3 preparatory stages Identify the cost categories Key stages 15

Effective way to prepare a budget IN PRIVATE Negotiate with each partner IN PRIVATE and don’t let partners know each other’s budget before submission. real contribution in the project. Ask partners about their personnel cost and estimate their budget according to their real contribution in the project. target budget Prepare an overall target budget according to the Call requirements and your strategy on it. Estimate allocation among partners. target budget Prepare an overall target budget according to the Call requirements and your strategy on it. Estimate allocation among partners. Make a realistic estimate of cost based on the tasks 16

What if the proposal is not successful? 17

18 2 FRACTALS: A case study of successful regional cooperation of ICT Associations FRACTALS: Future Internet Enabled Agricultural Applications

19 Background Future Internet Public-Private Partnership is a major EU investment, accounting for 500 M€ The two previous phases of FI-PPP developed the infrastructure (Generic and Specific Enablers) Agriculture is a sector that demonstrates relatively low uptake of advanced Internet services In the Balkan region agriculture plays a predominant role, as compared to the majority of more developed European countries and EU on average

20 Strategy 80 m EUR available for projects all over Europe Link with ICT SMEs community Link with the FI-PPP community

21 FRACTALS consortium and complementarity expertise

22 Competitive Advantages ….because it addresses a sector (Agriculture) where digital services based on Internet are not yet provided at a satisfactory level FRACTALS was one of the 16 proposals selected out of 90 applications coming from all over Europe....because it covers a region (Balkans) which has so far been considered as a “White Spot” with respect to benefiting from Future Internet PPP ….because its approach recognizes the importance of producing solutions according to users’ needs, thus all financed applications will go through User Validation from PA 4 ALL, the Precision Agriculture Living Lab of BioSense/UNS

23 FRACTALS at a glance FRACTALS envisions to support the community of innovative ICT SMEs and Web Entrepreneurs (with a focus on Balkan countries) to harvest the benefits of FI infrastructure, by developing applications with high market potential, addressing the needs of the agricultural sector.

24 FRACTALS in numbers Launch 30/11/2014, Deadline 28/2/2015 Call dates Start date Duration of SMEs sub-projects Grant per SME Nr of Grants to be allocated to SMEs Nr of Open Calls Budget allocated to Grants for SMEs Requested EC Contribution Partners Duration 24 months 9 partners (6 countries) 6.9M € 5.52M € k € 6-9 months 01/9/2014

25 Critical Success Factors To run the Open Call in the most transparent and effective way To mobilize the local ICT SMEs to apply with high quality proposals (competition is pan-European) To promote networking and clustering with ICT SMEs from other countries

26 3 LEIT ICT 2015: Relevant Calls for ICT Associations

Show me the money… 27

Project Types in Horizon  Research & Innovation Actions Typical Research Projects (known as STREPs or IPs in FP7) 100% funding  Innovation Actions Close-to-market projects (known as CIP in FP7) 70% funding (100% for not-for-profit partners)  Coordination and Support Actions (CSA) Not actual research but “soft” actions related to research 100% funding  Pre-commercial procurement Actions (PCP) Development of solutions towards concrete public sector needs 70% funding  Public Procurement of innovative solutions Actions (PPI) First buyers of innovative commercial end-solutions 20% funding

H2020-ICT Advanced computing to reinforce and expand Europe's industrial and technology strengths in low-power ICT. Cross-sectorial platform-building, for clustering of related research projects, for structuring the European academic and industrial research communities, for dissemination of programme achievements and impact analysis, and for constituency building and road-mapping for future research and innovation agendas. Specific challenge Scope ICT 4 – 2015: Customized and low power computing to harness the collaborative power of ICT networks (networks of people, of knowledge, of sensors) to create collective and individual awareness about the multiple sustainability threats Coordinating pilots and research activities in CAPs Specific challenge Scope ICT 10 – 2015: Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation Future Internet 3m € 1m €

H2020-ICT Content technologies and information management contribution to the Big Data challenge by addressing the fundamental research problems related to the scalability and responsiveness of analytics capabilities, with special focus on industry-validated, user-defined challenges like predictions, and rigorous processes for monitoring and measurement. to define challenges and prize schemes for verifiable performance in tasks requiring extremely large scale prediction and deep analysis. Specific challenge Scope ICT 16 – 2015: Big data – research developments related to content creation, access, retrieval and interaction offer a number of opportunities and challenges, also for the creative and media industries. Coordination and Support Actions on Convergence and Social Media: Facilitate research and policy exchange in Convergence and Social Media Support R&D programmes/ activities, dissemination of results and organization of scientific and/ or policy events in Convergence and Social Media Specific challenge Scope ICT 19 – 2015: Technologies for creative industries, social media and convergence 1m € 2m €

H2020-ICT Robotics The priorities in this specific challenge are based on input from the PPP in Robotics, also building on the results of previous calls. Community building and Robotic competitions: - Supporting the European robotics community (networking, education) - Support International cooperation - Coordinating work on the next generation of cognitive systems and robotics to reinforce future multi- and inter-disciplinary cooperation - organizing robotic competitions Specific challenge Scope ICT 24 – 2015: Robotics The objective is to keep Europe's position at the forefront of advanced micro- and nano- electronic technologies developments. - International cooperation with USA and Asia in the areas of standardization - Development of common roadmaps - Awareness actions targeted at young students. Specific challenge Scope ICT 25 – 2015: Generic micro- and nano- electronic technologies Micro- and nano-electronic technologies, Photonics 4m € 3m €

H2020-ICT Micro- and nano-electronic technologies, Photonics Further major S&T progress and R&I investments are required for sustaining Europe's industrial competitiveness and leadership in photonic market sectors where Europe is strong. To link with on-going support actions providing access to advanced R&I services and capabilities with the aim to make them also accessible to researchers or to establish a network of innovation multipliers Specific challenge Scope ICT 27 – 2015: Photonics KET By investing more on innovation and in particular on KET deployment projects and integration platforms as well as in micro-nano-electronics, photonics and manufacturing, there will be a direct impact on Europe's global competitiveness as well as on Europe's capability to offer new solutions for some of the major societal challenges it faces. Cooperation of scientists, technology developers and providers, and end-users for accelerating the deployment of bio- photonics and micro-nano-bio solutions in the health sector. Specific challenge Scope ICT 28 – 2015: Cross-cutting ICT KETs 3m € 1m €

H2020-ICT ICT Cross-Cutting Activities to overcome the fragmentation of vertically-oriented closed systems, architectures and application areas and move towards open systems and platforms that support multiple applications. Measures for development of ecosystems driven by European players around the platforms (e.g. communities of open API developers for low cost applications) and activities to increase societal acceptance and foster specific education. Specific challenge Scope ICT 30 – 2015: IoTs and Platforms for Connected Smart Objects 1m €

H2020-ICT International Cooperation actions The challenge is to provide for discussions with third countries on areas of common interest and to provide support to collaboration within the ICT research and innovation domains. The twofold target is: - to support dialogues between the European Commission/the EU and strategic high income partner countries and regions, - to foster cooperation with strategic high income third country organizations in collaborative ICT R&D both within the EU's Framework Programmes (Horizon 2020) and under relevant third country programmes. Specific challenge Scope ICT 38 – 2015: International partnership building and support to dialogues with high income countries 3m €

H2020-ICT International Cooperation actions ICT 38 – 2015: International partnership building and support to dialogues with high income countries Proposals must cover these two aspects which could include in particular: the organization of events synchronized with dialogue meetings, enhance cooperation on ICT policy and regulation through monitoring of the targeted region/country, workshops or any other relevant activity, strengthening of cooperative research links through the set-up of sustainable cooperative mechanisms or platforms between European organizations and relevant leading third country organizations, reinforcement of industrial cooperation on ICT research and development, increased co-ordination at EU level with horizontal Framework Programme instruments to promote international cooperation (such as BILAT, INCO-NET and ERA-NET Cofund)

H2020-ICT International Cooperation actions ICT 38 – 2015: International partnership building and support to dialogues with high income countries Targeted high-impact countries/regions: 1)Subgroup 1: North America (Canada, USA) 2)Subgroup 2: East Asia/Oceania (Australia, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan) Expected impact: Reinforcement of strategic partnerships with key third countries and regions in areas of mutual interest Increased visibility for EU ICT R&D activities and research excellence Increase visibility for EU ICT policy and regulations Support provided for European organizations/individuals in accessing third country programmes.

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