2019 CEF Telecom calls for proposals

Deadline: May 14, 2019  
CALL EXPIRED

Up to €48.2 million is foreseen from the 2019 CEF Telecom Work Programme for grants managed by INEA in the area of Generic Services.

The grants under CEF Telecom will help European public administrations and businesses to hook up to the core platforms of the digital services that are the object of the calls (see list below).

• All the information about 2019 CEF Telecom general objectives and actions planned this year can be found in the Work Programme
• 2019-1 CEF Telecom Virtual Info Day - 7 March
• Read the press releases on the calls:
  2019-1 call
• Follow us on Twitter @inea_eu & LinkedIn to stay informed about the latest call developments

Looking for partners for your CEF Telecom consortium? Join this LinkedIn group

WiFi4EU: more information can be found here.

CEF-TC-2019-1
Automated Translation 
(indicative budget: €4 million)
Deadline 14 May 2019

The priority outcomes of this call for proposals are defined in section 3.7.2.2 of the 2019 Work Programme, namely to support the collection of language tools and resources for specific domains and for under-resourced languages as well as to stimulate the integration and take-up of CEF Automated Translation (AT) services.

Applicants who already received CEF funding under previous CEF eTranslation/Automated Translation Telecom calls and who plan to apply again under this call must clearly explain in the relevant section of application form part D of their proposal (notably section 1 and/or 2.1) how their proposed Action will build upon and/or differ from the Action(s) funded under the previous call(s).

Agence exécutive pour l'innovation et les réseaux /Uitvoerend Agentschap innovatie en netwerken, 1049 Bruxelles/Brussel, BELGIQUE/BELGIË - Tel. +32 22991111

Proposals must focus on one of the three priorities listed below, clearly specifying which one, and address at least two different languages spoken in the Member States and/or EEA countries participating in the CEF Telecom programme.

1. Collaborative language resource projects to facilitate the provision of language resources to CEF AT through ELRC-SHARE. Projects will need to identify, collect and process (e.g. anonymization, aggregation, alignment, conversion, IPR clearance) language resources in the Member States, Iceland, and Norway, or link national language resources or data infrastructures to the ELRC-SHARE repository. The collected resources should be freely and openly available by and beyond the end of the project duration in order to enable sharing of language resources.

   Priority will be given to:

   •   corpora of EU official languages, Icelandic and Norwegian, ready to be made available as free and open resources;

   •   resources in the domains relevant for CEF Digital Service Infrastructures

     (DSIs) or domain-specific multilingual corpora in areas of public interest (e.g. scientific research, health, tax and customs, financial or cultural heritage domains); and

   •   multilingual parallel language resources for language pairs enabling quality improvements in automated translation services for official languages of the Member States, Iceland, and Norway.

     All language resource projects selected under this call will need to demonstrate that they delivered resources to CEF AT through the ELRC-SHARE repository.

2. Collaborative language tools projects to make existing language specific tools freely and openly available through the ELRC-SHARE repository. Projects should address any issues necessary for submitting the tools to the ELRC- SHARE repository (e.g. identification, documentation, conversion, standardisation, normalisation, IPR clearance), thus enabling reuse in other digital public services.

   Priority will be given to language-specific tools with strong multilingual interoperabililty aspects specifically covering under-resourced official languages in the EU Member States, Iceland, and Norway.

   All language resource projects selected under this call will need to demonstrate that they delivered tools to CEF AT through the ELRC-SHARE repository.

3. Integration projects to integrate and/or complement the latest functionalities of the CEF AT Core Service Platform (CSP) into CEF DSIs, pan-European digital public services and public administrations. The integration processes are expected to result in fully functional services within the duration of the project and put in place arrangements for sustainability beyond the project duration and the CEF programme.

   All integration projects selected under this call will need to demonstrate that they integrated and/or complemented the CEF AT service in the addressed service.

All proposals must provide a list of Key Performance Indicators and quantifiable measurements, and present a solid communication and dissemination plan to promote outcomes of the action to wider stakeholders.

Furthermore, proposals addressing priority 3 (integration projects) must specify the number of users targeted by the action, and provide clear evidence regarding the commitment and added value of any DSIs to be covered by the action.

Where justified and appropriate for the use case, eDelivery deployment may be part of the proposals3. For the purposes of this call, an Access Point must be an implementation of the CEF eDelivery AS4 Profile (developed by e-SENS and now maintained by CEF) 4 and to pass connectivity5 testing test from the connectivity testing service offered by the eDelivery Core Service Platform.

Results expected from the financial assistance

The benefits and expected outcomes of this call for proposals are defined in section 3.7.2.3 of the 2019 Work Programme. The actions funded under this call for proposals should result in benefits such as helping achieve the Digital Single Market by lowering language barriers, rolling out interoperable pan-European public online services, boosting the quality, response capacity and efficiency of public sector translation services, and ensuring secure connections.

The collaborative projects will continue to strengthen the involvement of Member States, Iceland, and Norway in the identification, collection, processing and sharing of language resources. They will also result in the integration of automated translation technology into existing public online services.

CEF-TC-2019-1
eIdentification (eID) & eSignature 
(indicative budget: €5 million)
Deadline 14 May 2019

The priority outcomes of this call for proposals are defined in section 3.2.2.2 of the 2019 Work Programme.

Applicants who already received CEF funding under previous CEF Telecom eID & eSignature calls and who plan to apply again under this call must clearly explain in the relevant section of application form part D of their proposal (notably section 1 and/or 2.1) how their proposed Action will build on and/or differ from the action(s) funded under the previous call(s).

The goal of this call is to consolidate the eIDAS3-based ecosystem across the European Union to the benefit of all citizens and sectors across the EU and EEA countries.

Agence exécutive pour l'innovation et les réseaux /Uitvoerend Agentschap innovatie en netwerken, 1049 Bruxelles/Brussel, BELGIQUE/BELGIË - Tel. +32 22991111

Under this call, proposals will be funded that address one or more of the following three objectives:

A. eIdentification:

1. eID DSI integration: Integrating the eID DSI (Digital Service Infrastructures) in existing e-services/systems/online platforms in various public or private sectors.

2. Attributes enablement: Enabling attributes, mandates and authorities to be associated with electronic identities for cross-border use through the eIDAS node.

The proposals under objective 1 and 2 should aim to enhance the services provided to the citizen in different sectors, such as (but not limited to) financial, transport, shared economy or mobile communications, as well as to sustain EU policies where trusted identification or verification of attributes is needed (e.g. tackling disinformation, proof of age for the protection of minors).

All proposals should:

•   List and explain the type of e-services/systems/platforms being connected and their specific cross-border use cases;

•   Prove and demonstrate that by the end of the Action, the e- services/systems/online platforms covered by the proposed Action are integrated with an eIDAS node, and that cross-border authentication using nationally issued eIDs from at least five EU Member States/EEA countries is available in a production environment4 for those e-services/systems/online platforms;

•   Provide an explicit endorsement in the form of a letter from the relevant Member State representation of the eIDAS Cooperation Network to demonstrate the commitment of the eIDAS node operator to assist the proposed Action with the connection to the eIDAS node. The endorsement should be provided for each Member State whose eIDAS node is needed for the connection. This endorsement should be provided at the latest once the proposal is selected for funding, except for consortia composed exclusively of private entities that need to provide this endorsement letter together with their application (please see point 6.1).

If attributes enablement is covered by the action (i.e. objective 2 above), the proposed action should ensure that information on the attributes, mandates and authorities associated to the citizens using those eIDs is also made available to the e- services/systems/online platforms.

B. eSignature:

3. Uptake and reuse of eSignature: Developing systems for Member States and the private sector for the use of electronic signatures and electronic seals in line with the eIDAS Regulation (signature/seal creation and/or validation).

For proposals addressing this objective, the developed systems should be able to demonstrate their use of the eSignature DSI Building Block's DSS open-source library5 (either by incorporating the library's code, or as a reference implementation) to create and/or validate electronic signatures and electronic seals compliant with the eIDAS Regulation and related standards.

Results expected from the financial assistance

The benefits and expected outcomes of this call for proposals are defined in section 3.2.2.3 of the 2019 Work Programme.

The eID Generic Services support public and private bodies providing online services to integrate those services with the eIDAS interoperability nodes. This will enable them to accept foreign eIDs, and when applicable, attributes, mandates and authorities information associated to the eID, from the trustworthy and secure identification and authentication environment set up by the eIDAS regulation. Thanks to the combination of both forms of support, EU citizens will be free to rely on the eID that they already use at national level to securely access digital services provided in other Member States, thus realising the Digital Single Market.

The eSignature Generic Services support the actual use of those tools in electronic signature systems. Thanks to such support, awareness and uptake of electronic signatures will increase, in particular qualified electronic signatures, thus increasing interoperability and mutual recognition of electronic signatures across the EU.

CEF-TC-2019-1
eDelivery
(indicative budget: €1 million)
Deadline 14 May 2019

The priority outcomes of this call for proposals are defined in section 3.4.2.2 of the 2019 Work Programme, namely to promote the uptake and speed up the use of the eDelivery technical specifications amongst both public and private entities.

Applicants who already received CEF funding under previous CEF Telecom eDelivery calls and who plan to apply again under this call must clearly explain in the relevant section of application form part D of their proposal (notably section 1 and/or 2.1) how their proposed Action will build on and/or differ from the Action(s) funded under the previous call(s).

The objective of the call for proposals is to support the deployment and operation of Access Points and Service Metadata Publishers, as well as the upgrading of data exchange solutions to support and duly comply with the CEF eDelivery standards.

Agence exécutive pour l'innovation et les réseaux /Uitvoerend Agentschap innovatie en netwerken, 1049 Bruxelles/Brussel, BELGIQUE/BELGIË - Tel. +32 22991111

This call will specifically support proposals addressing one or more of the following activities aiming to:

a. Deploy Access Point(s) (AP). The operation of these Access Points(s) may also be supported for up to one year. An AP is an implementation of the CEF eDelivery AS4 Profile.3

b. Deploy Service Metadata Publisher(s) (SMP). The operation of these Service Metadata Publisher(s) may also be supported for up to one year. The SMP is an implementation of the CEF eDelivery SMP profile4 on top of the OASIS SMP technical specifications.

c. Upgrade data exchange solutions (such as Commercial Off-the-Shelf - COTS, Open-Source Software - OSS, and other) to support and duly comply with the CEF eDelivery standards, e.g. adding or configuring functionality to the data exchange solution to support the CEF eDelivery standards (encryption algorithm, four-corner model support, support of dynamic discovery, etc.). This activity may include interoperability testing with other vendors.

Proposals must clearly explain which policy domain(s), type of documents and use cases the planned deployment and operation will support, and, where applicable, are encouraged to:

•   be aligned with the requirements set in the eIDAS Regulation5 to allow their use for the provisioning of ERDS (Electronic Registered Delivery Services), including qualified services

•   comply with the requirements set in relation to deployment and/or operation of APs and SMPs within other sectorial European Regulations (e.g. eInvoicing, transport, environment, energy, health, public eProcurement, justice)

The reuse of eDelivery in other services not listed as CEF DSIs6, i.e. in any policy sector and at any administrative level, will also be supported under this call in order to facilitate the set-up of a number of new Access Points and/or SMPs and upgrade additional data exchange solutions.

Proposals addressing activities (a) and (c) can cover the transition from the AS2 to the AS4 message exchange protocol within the PEPPOL eDelivery network7 or any other similar initiative.

The deployment and operation of an Access Point and/or an SMP (i.e. activities (a) & (b) above) must include:

•   The installation of the software (Open Source or commercial) in a production environment8 (server, network, storage including the deployment of the necessary security infrastructure and other sectorial specific constraints, etc.)

•   For Access Points: By the end of the action, the deployed AP(s) must have successfully passed the connectivity test(s)9 from the connectivity testing service offered by the eDelivery Core Service Platform.

•   For SMPs: When applicable, the confirmed connectivity to a Service Metadata Publisher (SMP) and Service Metadata Locator (SML) by the eDelivery Core Service Platform.

All proposed actions addressing activity (c) (upgrade of data exchange solutions) must have, by the end of the Action, successfully passed the conformance tests10 from the conformance testing service offered by the eDelivery Core Service Platform.

Results expected from the financial assistance

The benefits and expected outcomes of this call for proposals are defined in section 3.4.2.3 of the 2019 Work Programme. The actions funded under this call for proposals should result in cost savings by benefiting from common services and proven technology, performance gains by replicating the use of proven technology, as well as better access to expertise, including the mobility of human resources across projects using eDelivery.

More specifically, the use of eDelivery contributes to the expansion of eIDAS ERDS and the use of secure encrypted communication among public administrations, businesses and citizens. The new Access Points will also allow more public administrations to exchange information (cross-border) in more policy domains.

CEF-TC-2019-1
eInvoicing 
(indicative budget: €6.2 million)
Deadline 14 May 2019

The priority outcomes of this call for proposals are defined in section 3.5.2.2 of the 2019 Work Programme. The call aims to provide support to the adoption of compliant eInvoicing solutions by public and private entities, which will facilitate the implementation of the European standard on electronic invoicing (EN) and the set of ancillary standardisation deliverables, as mandated by the eInvoicing Directive.3

With the publication of the European Standard (EN) in the Official Journal of the EU on 17 October 2017,4 Member States entered into the implementation phase and therefore

have the obligation to receive and process electronic invoices - even in countries where the uptake of e-Invoicing is less developed. The deadline for complying with this obligation at the national central level is 18 April 2019. For the sub-central level, if a Member State decides so, it can extend the deadline to 18 April 2020.

In this context, reinforced support is needed in particular for Member States lagging behind in terms of uptake of eInvoicing and adoption of the EN.

Applicants who already received CEF funding under previous CEF Telecom eInvoicing and eDelivery calls and who plan to apply again under this call must clearly explain in the relevant section of application form part D of their proposal (notably section 1 and/or 2.1) how their proposed Action will build on and/or differ from the Action(s) funded under the previous call(s).

Priority will be given to entities that were not financed under the eInvoicing Calls of the CEF Telecom Work Programmes 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018.

Under this call, proposals will be funded that address one or more of the following three objectives:

1. Uptake of eInvoicing solutions compliant with the EN and its ancillary deliverables by public authorities (central, regional, and local) in the countries lagging behind in terms of eInvoicing maturity.

   Proposals funded under this objective are expected to increase the national readiness to accept and process EN compliant invoices. All proposals submitted under this objective should include relevant national or regional public authorities responsible for the implementation of the eInvoicing Directive (2014/55/EU).

2. Update of existing eInvoicing solutions (provided by the public and/or private providers) to achieve compliance with the EN and its ancillary deliverables. This objective can cover the update for the compliance with only one Core Invoice Usage Specification (CIUS).

3. Implement innovative solutions that allow advanced eInvoicing/eProcurement functionalities using the EN to be achieved. This objective could include (but is not limited to) proposals aiming to fully digitalise the processes from the order to the payment, using robotics or other innovative solutions such as real-time eInvoicing/reporting to monitor the performance of the contract.

All proposals must:

•   Clearly specify which objective is being addressed by the proposal;

•   Provide information on the volume of invoices received and processed by the public authorities and/or solutions providers (on a yearly basis);

•   Commit to ensuring full compliance with the EN and to implement both syntaxes (UBL 2.1 and CII) of the EN;

•   Address eDelivery for the purpose of document delivery either by deploying the eDelivery Building Block, or by proving the use of eDelivery through a service provider for cross-border communication as the minimal accepted scope;

•   Prove that by the end of the Action, the systems used are able to receive and process EN complaint eInvoices in a production environment5;

•   Pass eInvoicing conformance testing, as provided by CEF eInvoicing Building Block6, and eDelivery conformance and/or connectivity testing as provided by eDelivery Building Block7, before the end of the proposed action.

If the deployment of eDelivery is included in the proposal, the level of funding requested for eDelivery should be proportionate to the scope of the eInvoicing objectives.

Support will be given to eDelivery activities aiming to:

a. Deploy Access Point(s) (AP). The operation of these Access Point(s) may also be supported for up to one year. An AP is an implementation of the CEF eDelivery AS4 Profile.8

b. Deploy Service Metadata Publisher(s) (SMP). The operation of these Service Metadata Publisher(s) may also be supported for up to one year. The SMP is an implementation of the CEF eDelivery SMP profile9 on top of the OASIS SMP technical specifications.

c. Upgrade data exchange solutions (such as Commercial Off-the-Shelf - COTS, Open-Source Software - OSS, and other) to support and duly comply with the CEF eDelivery standards, e.g. adding or configuring functionality to the data exchange solution to support the CEF eDelivery standards (encryption algorithm, four-corner model support, support of dynamic discovery, etc.). This activity may include interoperability testing with other vendors.

Proposals addressing eDelivery activities (a) and (c) can cover the transition from the AS2 to the AS4 message exchange protocol within the PEPPOL eDelivery network 10 or any other similar initiative.

Results expected from the financial assistance

The benefits and expected outcomes of this call for proposals are defined in section 3.5.2.3 of the 2019 Work Programme.

Proposals submitted under objective 3 should result in a better processing of invoices and/or assistance for future procurement procedures.

The Actions funded under this call for proposals should result in an increased uptake and use of the CEF eInvoicing DSI by supporting public authorities, especially regional and local authorities, in meeting the requirements of the eInvoicing Directive, as well as uptake by the market, mainly in the countries lagging behind. The support provided through CEF will also promote innovative solutions, integrating eInvoicing in the e- procurement chain or favouring real time eInvoicing/reporting/payment.

CEF-TC-2019-1
Europeana
(indicative budget: €2 million)
Deadline 14 May 2019

The priority outcomes of this call for proposals are defined in section 3.1.2.2 of the 2019 Work Programme.

Applicants who already received funding under previous CEF Telecom Europeana calls and who plan to apply again under this call must clearly explain in the relevant section of application form part D of their proposal (notably section 1 and/or 2.1) how their proposed Action will build on and/or differ from the Action funded under the previous call(s).

The objective is to provide support to cultural institutions and other public and private partners to continue to increase the amount of high quality content and metadata accessible through Europeana and suitable for reuse. To this end, the call allows cultural institutions to develop new ways to make accessible such content through the creation of curated collections, exhibitions or any other personalised ways of engaging users, as well as to increase awareness and usage of Europeana.

Proposed Actions selected for funding under this call must present a thematic approach in the aggregation, curation and presentation of cultural heritage content in Europeana. The focus of the content should be of pan-European interest with potential to attract high attention, and increase visibility and user engagement. Relevant topics may include cultural diversity, fight with discrimination, social exclusion and poverty, gender issues and equality, youth empowerment, freedom of expression, access to verifiable and trustworthy information, migration and others. This list of relevant topics is not exhaustive.

To fulfil this objective, actions funded by this call must include at least one of the following activities:

1. Aggregation of new thematic high quality curated content and metadata with rich descriptions in order to develop curated collections, exhibitions, or other personalised ways of generating rich user experience and high audience engagement. This material should be carefully selected and curated around important and relevant topics of pan-European significance. If necessary, this may include limited and targeted digitisation of content that can be made available for free re-use.

2. Using existing Europeana selected content to create or enrich high quality curated thematic collections and exhibitions on a relevant topic, as indicated above. If necessary, this may include activities aiming at increasing the quality of existing content and metadata (e.g. enhancing the structure, richness, and multilingual capacity) available through Europeana, especially regarding item descriptions.

In addition to the above mentioned activities, actions may also include activities such as:

1. Promoting capacity building and digital innovation amongst cultural institutions by providing training and expert support to them on the preparation and publication of thematic content in Europeana and online, and on improving the quality of the content and metadata that they make available;

2. Raising awareness of the benefits of sharing high quality digital heritage content on Europeana and on other platforms, and opening it up for reuse;

3. Raising awareness in order to encourage the use of Europeana across Europe, especially by the general public. To this end, curated collections or exhibitions highlighting content of particular interest for various audiences or through user engagement activities may be used. Moreover, the thematic content may be showcased on third-party websites and platforms, blogs, and social media, thus bringing rich Europeana content closer to the users;

4. Using operational, smart and innovative methods and techniques to curate and/or enrich content and metadata (e.g. AI-driven techniques that improve data in an automated or semi-automated way, eliminating time and resource intensive manual tasks).

Where relevant, proposals must address the following:

•   Specify the selected theme and the related curatorial and presentational approach to be followed. Demonstrate the pan-European significance of the selected theme.

•   Clearly identify the quality and quantity of the existing digital Europeana content and metadata to be improved/used, and the new high quality content and metadata to be included.

•   The content must be at least Tier 2 of the Europeana Publishing Framework3 and allow free online access to the digitised objects. Providing content of higher quality and allowing for some reuse is encouraged.

•   If the proposal aims at digitisation of content, this content must be at Tier 4.

•   Demonstrate how selected content has the potential to generate interest, engagement, and where possible reuse, among precisely defined target users, including their specific needs.

•   Conform to the Content Strategy,4 Publishing Guide,5 as well as Policy,6 and Product Specifications7 for Thematic Collections.

•   Ensure that all digital objects and rich metadata produced as part of the Action are ingested and available on Europeana.

•   Contribute data to Europeana through existing aggregation infrastructures8.

•   Applications that use Europeana data must use the Europeana APIs9.

•   Ensure that any code proposed to be integrated with the Europeana Core

  Service Platform is consistent with the existing (stylistic and architectural) conventions adopted in Europeana’s use of a given programming language and/or application framework, and according to the Europeana development guidelines10.

•   Demonstrate the ability and include a plan for communicating the results to target users.

•   Present a credible plan that will ensure technical and financial post-project sustainability, including measures to ensure availability of the selected content and the resulting applications for at least three years after the end of the Action.

Results expected from the financial assistance

The benefits and expected outcomes of this call for proposals are defined in section 3.1.2.3 of the 2019 Work Programme. The Actions supported will increase the amount of high quality data accessible through Europeana that is suitable for reuse, increase personalised curated content (exhibitions and collections), broaden the awareness and usage of Europeana, and improve the end-user experience.

CEF-TC-2019-1
EU Student eCard
(indicative budget: €1 million)
Deadline 14 May 2019

The priority outcomes of this call for proposals are defined in section 3.3.2.2 of the 2019 Work Programme.

The objective of the call for proposals is to support cross-border student mobility through the development of solutions, based on the reuse of the eIDAS eID and if applicable of other CEF Building Blocks (such as eSignature, Automated Translation or eDelivery).

Applicants who already received CEF funding under previous CEF Telecom eID & eSignature calls and who plan to apply under this call must clearly explain in the relevant section of application form part D of their proposal (notably section 1 and/or 2.1) how their proposed Action will build on and/or differ from the Action(s) funded under the previous call(s) and how the solutions developed in those Actions will be used and/or extended.

The solutions targeted by the proposals should enable:

•   Cross-border online access to academic and non-academic e-services for students provided by the host Higher Education Institutions (HEI) and other entities; and

•   As far as possible, the electronic transfer of student information among the involved parties (students, sending HEI and hosting HEI) in a trusted manner.

  Proposals shall link and integrate, to the extent possible, with the work of the Erasmus+ projects, such as the European Student Card3, Erasmus Without Paper4 and EMREX5. The aim is also to broaden the use of the eIDAS eIDs to universities that do not use them yet and have a high number of incoming and/or outgoing ERASMUS+ students.

  All proposals should:

•   List and explain the type of e-services being connected and their specific cross- border use cases;

•   Prove and demonstrate that by the end of the Action, the e-services covered by the proposed Action are integrated with an eIDAS node, and that cross-border authentication using nationally issued eIDs from at least five EU Member States/EEA countries is available in a production environment6 for those e- services;

•   Provide an explicit endorsement in the form of the letter from the relevant Member State representation of the eIDAS Cooperation Network to demonstrate the commitment of the eIDAS node operator to assist the proposed Action with the connection to the eIDAS node. The endorsement should be provided for each Member State whose eIDAS node is needed for the connection. This endorsement should be provided if the proposal is selected for funding.

•   As far as possible, proposals are expected to reuse other existing CEF building blocks such as eSignature (for the use of the eSignature DSI Building Block's DSS open-source library), eDelivery (deployment and operation of Access Points and Service Metadata Publishers, as well as the upgrading of data exchange solutions to support and duly comply with the CEF eDelivery standards), and/or eTranslation (to integrate and/or complement the latest functionalities of the CEF Automated Translation Core Service Platform).

  Proposals selected under this call are expected to collaborate with the project that will be selected in the framework of the Core Services Platform Call CEF-TC-2019-4.

Results expected from the financial assistance

The benefits and expected outcomes of this call for proposals are defined in section 3.3.2.3 of the 2019 Work Programme.

The solutions developed by the Actions will allow automatic recognition of student status and identity, electronic exchange of academic data, as well as secure access to universities' online services based on the Once-Only Principle. Students will be able to electronically apply to the participating Higher Education Institutions across borders without having to go physically to an office and go through all the administrative paperwork.