1. BiophotonicsPlus Photonic appliances for life sciences and health Transnational call for proposals 2012

2. Overview WHAT - Purpose and scope of BP+ WHO - Rules of participation HOW - Application procedure WHERE - Website

3. WHAT: Purpose and scope of BP+

4. Purpose Biophotonic applications offer a broad range of innovative solutions, but many potential improvements have not yet been validated and established in environments close to the application, such as clinics and doctor’s surgeries. Thus, the BP+ call mainly aims at stimulating R&D projects which translate existing biophotonic technology and methods into appliances and put them into clinical, medical or industrial practice. To this end, up to 15 million EUR government grants in total will be awarded to innovative project proposals under this competition.

5. Application areas addressed  Medicine / healthcare  Pharmaceutics  Environmental protection / surveillance  Food and water safety  Cosmetics  Veterinary medicine

6. Scope There will be two funding lines under the BP+ call: Line A. Translation into practical applications  primary funding line (use of the about 80 % of the available funds);  addresses end-user-oriented industrial research projects. Line B. Investigation on new tools or methods  secondary funding line (use of up to 20 % of the available funds);  smaller projects only (up to 1 M€ total costs);  addresses projects at an early stage of industrial research.

7. Line A. Translation into practical applications Appropriate projects shall: start from and build upon an already proven principle (PoP); aim at a specific outcome, preferably a photonic appliance; include the development of a pre-commercial demonstrator; include the validation of the outcome of the project (e. g. real environment testing of the demonstrator or full concept for clinical study); involve end-users (clinics or industry) as full or as associated partners is strongly recommended.

8. Line B. Investigation on new tools or methods Appropriate projects shall: be dedicated to application-oriented approaches at an early stage of the value chain; have a concrete use or application in view; investigate on a clearly new and innovative method;* include the proof of principle (PoP) in the project activities; preferably involve end-users, e. g. as associated partners. *Note:Project proposals addressing only incremental improvements will be considered out of scope!

9. General rules The following general rules apply to project proposals under both lines:  Proposals must clearly address either Line A or Line B.  The center of gravity of the proposed work must be on optical and photonic technologies.  Projects must address at least one of the indicated application areas.  Project duration must not exceed 3 years.

10. WHO: Rules of participation

11. BiophotonicsPlus is supported by the European Commission, DG CONNECT under the ERANET-Plus scheme. However, it is NOT a FP7 call for proposals but it is conducted and implemented under the responsibility of the participating countries and regions. Thus, specific rules of participation apply!

12. Geographical coverage The BiophotonicsPlus competition will be open to proposers from the participating countries and regions:  Germany  Israel  Tuscany (Italy)  United Kingdom  Flanders (Belgium)  Catalonia (Spain)  Latvia In exceptional circumstances, partners from additional countries may be involved in the project without funding from BP+.

13. Participants / consortia must be eligible according to the eligibility rules of their respective country or region.§§ Please note that specific restrictions exist for the participation of research institutes and universities in most of the participating countries and regions. National/regional eligibility

14. At least two independent partners/organisations (separate legal entities, usually enterprises) from at least two participating countries/regions have to be involved in the project. Minimum number of partners

15. Not more than 75 % of the total eligible project costs shall be incurred by any single organisation or by organisations from a single participating country/region. Balance

16. Project duration shall be between 24 and 36 months. Project duration 24 > 36

17. The project results have to be exploitable in the Participating Countries and Regions and/or in the EU. Exploitation

18. All applications, contractual documents and reports at consortium level (bi- or multinational) must be written in English. Language

19. HOW: Application procedure

20.  A two stage procedure will be applied  A two stage procedure will be applied consisting of pre-proposal stage (1 st stage) and full proposal stage (2 nd stage).  Applications have to be submitted electronically  Applications have to be submitted electronically (online) by the project coordinator on behalf of the entire consortium.  Further details or annexes may be requested  Further details or annexes may be requested from individual participants by the national or regional agencies.  Please check!  Grant agreementswill be closed bilaterally  Grant agreements with successful projects will be closed bilaterally between the individual participants and their responsible national or regional agencies/sponsors. Application procedure in brief

21. 4-page “light” proposals containing: 1.consortium description, 2.abstract of the workplan 3.finance plan  Mandatory condition for the subsequent submission of a full proposal.  An eligibility check (nationally and transnationally) will be performed.  Feedback letters will be sent to the coordinators.  No applicant will be formally excluded in the 1 st stage.  Submission deadline: 17 December 2012 (17:00 CET) Pre-proposal (1 st stage)

22. 30-50 page full proposals containing a structured description of: 1.objectives and state-of-the-art 2.work plan and resources 3.impact and exploitation / validation plan 4.participants / consortium members  Signed commitments of all partners and national annexes are required.  After a final eligibility check, an international peer review will be applied.  Submission deadline: 9 April 2013 (17:00 CET) Full proposal (2 nd stage)

23. Timeline

24. WHERE: Website

25. Get all you need from the BP+ call website:  Call/competition paper (as from 1st October 2012)  Eligibility rules  Partner search facility  Information on relevant events  National and regional contact points  Access to the online submission tool (as from 1st October 2012)

26. www.BiophotonicsPlus.eu

27. Contact (project coordinator) Sebastian Krug VDI Technologiezentrum GmbH krug@vdi.de