Submission
Joint transnational research and innovation proposals may be submitted to this call by teams working at different entities such as universities (or other higher education institutions) research and knowledge dissemination organisations, non-university public or private research and/or innovation organisations, hospitals or foundations or any healthcare providers, operational stakeholders (e.g. citizens and/or citizen representatives, local communities, schools, municipalities, local/national NGOS, consumer organisations), as well as companies, particularly small and medium-size companies.
The eligibility of the afore-mentioned institutions, organisations, companies, together with details of eligible costs (e.g. personnel, material, consumables, travel money, expenditure) are subject to the administrative requirements of the individual funding organisations participating in this call.
Applicants must adhere to the specific regulations of their regional/national funding partner organisations. The eligibility of the consortium will be then approved by the Call Steering Committee (CSC).
Eligibility rules for the consortia are:
·The consortium must include a minimum of three (3) eligible partners asking for funding from three (3) different EU Member States or Associated Countries whose funding organisations participate in the call. Each of these partners must be eligible and request funding from the respective funding organisation. All three legal entities must be independent of each other.
·Maximum number of partners is nine (9).
·Maximum three (3) eligible partners from the same country.
·For some funding organisations, the maximum number of eligible partners who can be funded in one project is limited to one (see also “Guidelines for Applicants” for individual funding rules).
·The project coordinator must be eligible for funding by a regional/national funding organisation participating in the call.
·Maximum of two (2) collaborators per consortium are permitted. Collaborators are self-funded partners, i.e. partners that do not request funds in this JTC provided from one of the participating funding organisations (i.e. partners from non-funding countries or partners who are not eligible according to national/regional regulations of the participating funding organisations).
·Exception: To facilitate the integration of patient organisations and companies in consortia, they can be added to a consortium as additional partners. Patient organisations and companies can be added as additional partner(s) either on own funds or by applying for funding, if eligible, from the respective funding organisations. The consortia must follow all of the above-mentioned rules regarding the consortia composition without counting the patient organisations or companies, except for the following rule: within one consortium, no more than two (2) partners can request funding from the same funding organisation, including patient organisations and companies. For some funding organisations, the maximum number of eligible partners who can be funded in one project is one.
Each consortium must nominate a project coordinator among the participating eligible partners (NOT a collaborator). The project coordinator will represent the consortium externally, will act as contact person for the Joint Call Secretariat (JCS) and will be responsible during the entire process for the internal scientific management such as the application procedure, coordination of consortium agreement drafting, Data Management Plan, gender equality plan, reporting.
Each principal investigator can submit up to two proposals as mere partner including one as coordinator (i.e. the coordinator of a proposal can only be partner in another proposal). For some funding organisations, the maximum number of eligible partners who can be funded in one project is limited to one (see also “Guidelines for Applicants” for individual funding rules). Applicants are consequently strongly encouraged to contact their national/regional contact points to check their national/regional eligibility rules before submission (see Annex I).
The following conditions apply for collaborators:
·Secure own funding for participation with clear evidence in the proposal that this is already in place.
·A letter of commitment of the collaborator(s) needs to be included as an annex to the proposal.
·A collaborator cannot be coordinator of a consortium nor work package leader.
The call is organised in a one-stage procedure with one Intent to apply (ItA) and one full-proposal document. The full proposal review process will be complemented by a rebuttal stage.
Only consortia who have submitted an Intent to apply (ItA), submitted through the THCS Partnership Online Submission System before, will be permitted to submit a full proposal.
For both, ItA and full-proposal, one joint document (in English) shall be prepared by the partners of a joint transnational proposal and must be submitted to the JCS through the THCS Partnership Online Submission System.
Both, Intent to apply (ItA) and full proposals must be uploaded on the THCS Partnership Online Submission System by the project coordinator.
The deadline for the submission of the Intent to apply (ItA) is April 16, 2024 (14:00 CEST).
The deadline for the submission of the full proposal is May 14, 2024 (14:00 CEST)
No project proposals will be accepted after the submission deadlines. Proposals that do not meet the formal criteria will be rejected from the evaluation process without any further review. The English-language call for proposals is the legally binding version, and proposals must be written in English. All fields in the proposal template must be completed, respecting the page limits and format.
The ItA and the full-proposal template will be available on the THCS website (https://www.thcspartnership.eu/).
If applicable, a proposal should be submitted together with a legal/ethical approval document from the concerned country/region.
Please note that the regional/national funding organisations may require additional documentation from applicants. These are specified in the regional/national regulations. Such additional national/ regional documentation cannot be submitted through the THCS Partnership Online Submission System but must be submitted directly to the relevant funding organisation. It is the responsibility of each project partner to ensure that all the necessary documents are submitted on time to the appropriate recipient. Details can be found in Annex I.
The CSC, which is comprised of all funding organisations participating in the call, will take all lawful steps to ensure confidentiality of the information and documents obtained during the evaluation and selection procedure of the joint call.
Project partners will be funded by their relevant regional/national funding organisation. Eligible costs, funding rules and the type of studies allowed vary between the respective funding organisations (see Annex I). Each project partner must be involved in the budgeting of their planned tasks. For information on the specific funding rules and eligibility criteria of the regional/national funding organisation - Carefully read Annex I and the regional/national announcements of the call. In addition, applicants are strongly advised to contact their relevant funding organisation contact person before submitting a proposal; please note that for some countries/regions it might be mandatory.
Evaluation:
The THCS Partnership’s JCS will check the proposals to ensure that they meet the call’s formal criteria (e.g. date of submission; number and legal form of participating partners and countries; inclusion of all necessary information according to the respective templates in English). The JCS will also forward the proposals to the regional/national funding organisations, which will perform an eligibility check of compliance with their respective regulations. Funders can provide some time to comply with the eligibility criteria. Proposals not meeting the formal criteria described above at the end of both eligibility checks will be rejected. Proposals passing this step will be forwarded to the Peer Review Panel for evaluation.
The selection of projects is based on the principle of peer review. Experts in the field(s), hereinafter referred to as reviewers, carry out written evaluations and will participate in an online panel meeting. Reviewers operate independently and confidentially, without exchange with third parties. They only have at their disposal the information included in the submitted proposal on the closing date and time of the call.
Each proposal will be reviewed by at least three reviewers with qualifying expertise fitting the topic of the submitted application.
The adequacy of the proposals submitted to the call will be assessed by the reviewers. Proposals considered not relevant to the call topics and objectives by all reviewers will not be discussed during the panel meeting and then will not be considered for funding, regardless of their scientific quality.
The reviewers will assess the proposal and provide a written evaluation form with scores and comments for each evaluation criterion (see evaluation criteria below). The reviewers will meet in a Peer Review Panel (PRP) to discuss all eligible proposals (see Section 9.4 for details on eligibility), to produce an assessment report for each full proposal and a ranking list of proposals recommended for funding based on updated scores defined during the panel meeting.
In the event of absence of reviewers, the reviewers' respective proposals will be distributed between the other panel members.
Prior to the PRP, there is the rebuttal stage. In this stage, each coordinator is provided with the reviewers’ assessments. The rebuttal allows applicants to comment on factual error or misunderstandings that may have occurred in the review process and to reply to reviewers’ questions. However, issues not related to reviewers’ comments or questions cannot be addressed and the work plan cannot be modified at this stage.
The applicants will have a (1) week for this optional response to the reviewers’ comments. Answers sent after the notified deadline, or not related with reviewers’ comments or questions will be disregarded.
Evaluation criteria - Scoring system:
0 = Failure.
The proposal fails to address the criterion in question or cannot be judged because of missing or incomplete information.
1 = Poor.
The proposal shows serious weaknesses in relation to the criterion in question.
2 = Fair.
The proposal broadly addresses the criterion, but there are significant weaknesses that need corrections before the project can be realised.
3 = Good.
The proposal addresses the criterion in question well, but a number of improvements are necessary.
4 = Very good.
The proposal addresses the criterion very well, but minor improvements are possible.
5 = Excellent.
The proposal successfully addresses all aspects of the criterion in question.
Evaluation scores will be awarded for each of the three main criteria: excellence, impact, and implementation. Each individual reviewer will independently give scores for each criterion. The three criteria are weighted equally and the maximum overall score of the three evaluation criteria that can be achieved in the remote written evaluation is 15 points. Proposals that after the rebuttal stage have received an overall score below 10 and/or have at least one individual criterion score below 3 (after averaging individual reviewer scores) are ineligible for funding and will not be discussed during the panel meeting. The final score for the proposal for each criterion is agreed upon by the panel members after the PRP discussion.
Evaluation criteria:
1.Excellence
Potential to further the state of the art:
·The extent to which a clear and pertinent need for the project is made plausible.
·The extent to which the proposed work is ambitious, novel, and goes beyond the state-of-the-art, demonstrating the innovation potential and the transformative dimension for health and care system;
· Novelty and boldness of hypotheses/research and innovation questions;
· Potential for development of new knowledge beyond the current state of the art, including significant theoretical, methodological, experimental or empirical advancement
. The quality of the proposed R&I activities:
·Quality of the research and innovation questions, hypotheses and project objectives, and the extent to which they are clearly and adequately specified;
·Credibility and appropriateness of the theoretical approach, research and innovation design and use of scientific methods. Appropriate consideration of interdisciplinary and intersectoral approaches;
·The extent to which appropriate consideration has been given to societal responsibility, ethical issues and gender dimensions in research and innovation content;
·The extent to which appropriate consideration has been given to embed the project in an ecosystem approach and research appropriate organisational/business models;
·The extent to which appropriate consideration has been given to involvement of stakeholders/end-users;
·The extent to which end-user knowledge and perspectives are appropriately included and ethical concerns regarding user-involvement have been taken into account.
2.Impact
Potential impact of the proposed research and innovation:
·The extent to which the planned outputs of the project address UN Sustainable Development Goals or other important present and/or future scientific and societal challenges;
·The extent to which the planned outcomes have the potential to significantly influence policy decisions and regulations and can contribute to an informed decision-making process, leading to evidence-based policy and regulatory developments;
·The extent to which measures or indicators of project success are described in the application.
·The extent to which the planned outputs of the project address important present and/or future challenges for the sector(s);
·The extent to which the competence developed, and planned outputs of the project will provide the basis for economic and societal value creation in European business and/or development of the public sector;
·The extent to which the potential impacts are clearly formulated and plausible.
Communication, engagement and exploitation:
·The extent to which the measures to maximise the impact of the project are clearly formulated and plausible;
·Quality and scope of communication and engagement activities targeted towards relevant stakeholders/users in an ecosystems-wide approach;
·The extent to which the partners are involved in dissemination and utilisation of the project results;
3. Implementation
The quality of the project coordinator and project consortium:
·The extent to which the project coordinator has relevant expertise and experience and demonstrated ability to perform high-quality research and/or innovation;
·The degree of complementarity of the participants and the extent to which the project consortium has the necessary expertise needed to undertake the research effectively.
·The extent to which the project partners are complementary and essential within the proposed solution value chain/ecosystem;
The quality of the project organisation and management:
·Effectiveness of the project organisation, including the extent to which resources assigned to work packages are aligned with project objectives and deliverables
·Feasibility of time schedule and appropriate access to necessary data and materials;
·Appropriateness of the allocation of tasks, ensuring that all participants have a valid role and adequate resources in the project to fulfil that role;
·The extent to which critical risks, relating to project implementation, are identified and appropriateness of the proposed risk mitigation measures;
·Appropriateness of the proposed management structures and governance;
· Appropriateness of the partners' contribution to the governance and execution of the project.
After the PRP meeting, members of the Ethics Review Board (ERB) will remotely check the full proposals that are recommended for funding by the PRP and selected for funding by the CSC, for alignment with ethical norms and regulations. If necessary, tasks that need to be performed and documents that need to be submitted by the consortium will be listed. The Ethics experts may put forward additional conditions that need to be fulfilled by applicants. Only those proposals approved by both, the CSC and the ERB (complying with all central Horizon Europe and regional/national ethical requirements), will be funded.
The final decision, based on the ranking list established by the PRP, available funding and the ethical clearance, will be taken by the CSC. In case several projects with an equal overall score cannot be awarded due to budgetary constraints, the CSC will prioritise according to the following core principles, in the order listed below:
Aim is to allocate as much of the budget as possible and that all funders are involved in the projects funded.
2.Score of Excellence
If 1 cannot lead to an optimum selection with the highest budget allocation, the project with the highest excellence score will be considered first.
3.Maximising inclusion of SMEs
If 1 to 2 above cannot lead to a selection, then the involvement of the highest number of SMEs in the proposal will make that it is considered first.
4.Gender balance
If 1 to 3 above cannot lead to a selection, then the gender balance among PIs within the consortium will be considered.
Project coordinators having submitted an eligible proposal will be informed about the funding recommendation regarding their proposal by the JCS. The projects coordinators are responsible to communicate this information to their project partners.