Call 2019 Announcement - Maritime and Marine Technologies for a new Era

Deadline: Mar 29, 2019  
CALL EXPIRED

1. Introduction

1.1 Objectives of the ERA-NET Cofund

The overall goal of the ERA-NET Cofund MarTERA is to strengthen the European Research Area (ERA) in maritime and marine technologies as well as Blue Growth. The ERA-NET Cofund MarTERA is a network of 18 ministries, authorities and funding organisations responsible for funding research and innovation projects in maritime and marine technologies from 16 countries.

The consortium has organised and co-funded, in cooperation with the European Commission under Horizon 2020, a joint call for transnational research and innovation projects on different thematic priority areas in 2017 and will launch further calls.

1.2 The objective of the Call

The realisation of a European research and innovation agenda requires a broad and systematic cooperation in all areas of waterborne transport, offshore activity, marine resources, maritime security, biotechnologies, desalination, offshore oil & gas, fisheries, aquaculture etc. for a sustainable development of the maritime and marine sector. Research and innovation activities in these fields cannot be tackled either at national levels alone, or solely by a single sector. Coordinated actions are required for the maritime industry to strengthen Europe’s position in this important and complex economic field in a global market. The focus of development in MarTERA is given to technologies (instead of sectors) due to their potentially large impact to a wide range of application fields.

Sectors with a high potential for sustainable blue economy like waterborne transport, shipbuilding & ship repair, offshore and sub-sea activities, monitoring and observations, can support sustainable growth in the marine and maritime sectors as a whole and use the potential of Europe’s oceans, seas and coasts for jobs, value and sustainability. Technological breakthroughs are of importance for improving ocean governance, which is by itself a big market for maritime industries recalling that European countries spend approximately 1 billion Euros annually on purchasing and running infrastructure to monitor the seas and oceans.

Concentrated and targeted Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) funding on common research priorities will foster maritime and marine technologies in Europe. In this highly competitive sector networking, trans-national collaboration and joint initiatives are the keys to success. The main objective of MarTERA is to address a number of actual challenges that can be identified as follows:

• National and European research in several marine and maritime sectors is often poorly coordinated. Synergies towards implementing common goals could only be achieved through better coordination and harmonizing the foci of funding programmes; While collaborative projects funded by the EC are often quite large and complex to attract participation especially of SMEs, national funding schemes offer limited opportunities to collaborate with foreign partners, especially if cross-border funding is impossible;

• The participation in trans-national projects offers advantages by using respective national funding, to tackle complex projects which cannot be accomplished by one nation alone;

• Transnational projects provide a better chance for innovation to enter into new markets;

• The cross-cutting perspective in technology development can lead to innovations capable of benefiting more than one sector, hence increasing the impact of the funded trans-national projects.

• Bringing industry and research actors across borders together will strengthen Europe’s economic position underpinning Blue Growth.

• Through trans-national cooperation it is feasible to create critical mass and focus excellence on precompetitive breakthroughs, which can benefit marine and maritime industries in general and make them more competitive in the longer term, thereby maintaining Europe’s competitive edge.

The positive effects of cooperation will lead to an increase of marine or maritime investments which subsequently strengthen the industrial innovation and secure jobs. The realisation of a European research and innovation agenda needs a broad and systematic cooperation in all areas of ocean observations and monitoring, waterborne transport, offshore activity, marine resources, aquaculture etc. covering all relevant maritime and marine sectors and regions for their sustainable development.

The ERA-NET Cofund project will continue improving implementation of joint activities and has ambitious goals for funding transnational research. MarTERA aims at further deepening, broadening and strengthening the established transnational cooperation based on the experiences gained and the existing cooperation structures of former ERA-NET Maritime Technologies (MARTEC I and II). With the cooperation of MARTEC and JPI Oceans, a broader variety of topics with a larger amount of funding will be available for the transnational projects.

Funding of the projects is decentralized, so each country participating in the call gives funds to their entities. The proposals submitted to the call must be submitted using a procedure before the strictly-enforced deadline.

The proposals are evaluated in order to identify those whose quality is sufficiently high to give guidance to national recommendations.

2. Scope and detail objectives of the Call

There is an urgent requirement for coordinated actions across the EU in order to tackle the challenges arising across a large number of sectors related to the oceans. The need for highly-specialised marine equipment, more efficient and greener waterborne transport systems, clean energy, increased seafood production, technologies for reliable ocean observations, and safe marine and maritime operations etc. calls for substantial innovations with respect to the whole spectrum of marine and maritime technologies.

The selection of topics for funding is done based on the overarching technological challenges, due to their relevance and possibility to benefit a wide range of applications and sectors. The topic area is a natural continuation and expansion of previous activities undertaken by MARTEC I&II and is in alignment with Strategic Areas of the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) of JPI Oceans. The participating organisations have therefore agreed to split the topics of the co-funded call in the following five Priority Areas (PAs):

• PA1: Environmentally friendly maritime technologies

  • Emission reduction:

    • -  Exhaust gas treatment (CO2, SOX, NOX, black carbon etc.)

    • -  Waste and ballast water management,

    • -  Detection and response capacities to oil spills and marine pollutions

  • Energy efficiency:

    • -  Voyage optimisation, on-board power, vessel efficiency and energy management,

    • -  Advanced technologies for the use of new fuels

  • Noise and vibration reduction

  • Innovative propulsion systems

  • Technologies for sensitive regions

  • Life Cycle management

• PA2: Development of novel materials and structures

• Novel materials:

• -  Light, robust and resistant materials

• -  Environmental impact assessment (material testing)

• -  Joining technologies

• -  Intelligent materials and metamaterials -

• • To create critical mass and address the needs for technologies in marine and maritime operations.
• • Biofouling and corrosion prevention:
• - Coatings
• - Advanced technologies • Structures:

• -  Development, monitoring, maintenance and dismantling of maritime structures

• -  Development of technologies for economic and environmental sustainable renewable energy from sea;

• -  Technologies for detection and removal of munition

• -  Sustainable and cost-efficient platforms for offshore technologies, including multi-purpose offshore platforms and vessels

• -  Technologies for extraction of oil and gas in rough and ice-covered areas as well as extreme water depths

• -  Autonomous underwater production and extraction systems for oil and gas

• -  Deep-sea structures

• -  New vessel design

• PA3: Sensors, automation, monitoring and observations

• Sensor developments:

  • -  Robust and efficient for detection, monitoring and observation (for physical, geological, chemical and biological measurements, including remote sensing)

  • -  Sensor fusion technologies covering observation systems, condition monitoring

  • -  Detection and measurement of emissions

  • -  Miniaturisation of sensors

  • -  Data transmission, E-infrastructure and telemetry for data transfer. Remote control platforms

    and systems, including satellite and land based control systems

• Monitoring and automation:

  • -  Underwater technologies for inspection, intervention, monitoring and control (Robotics)

  • -  Development of intelligent and cost efficient systems and devices

  • -  Path planning, guidance, navigation (e-navigation) and control methodologies for ships and other

    marine vehicles, including multiple cooperative vehicles (incl. swarm technologies)

  • -  Innovative, robust and reliable power supply for automated sub-marine technologies

  • -  Underwater navigation and communication

  • -  Intelligent predictive maintenance systems

• Improved models for marine vehicles and structures behaviour

• Deep Sea Mining:

- Environmental-friendly technology for exploitation, exploration and monitoring of deep sea resources

• PA4: Advanced manufacturing and production

  • Top quality, globally competitive and environmentally friendly products

  • Optimisation of production: improved and novel production technologies for flexible manufacturing,

    with focus on organization and networking along the value chain

  • Digitalisation and automation of production

  • New concepts of the recycling-oriented construction, to final disposal vessels/platforms (circular

    economy)

  • Intelligent/innovative interacting components

  • Human machine interaction and Augmented Reality

• PA5: Safety and security

• • Individual safety concepts harmonized with navigational requirements ICT tools for monitoring and optimization of maritime operations (e.g. routing following best weather conditions)

• Hinterland connection through inland waterways

• Early warning and accident management systems

• Evacuation and rescue concepts

• Decision support systems

• Improved operations such as dynamic positioning systems, docking and mooring systems, automation of processes, optimized routing, handling of goods, subsea intervention

The Annexes of this document provide a matrix of the Priority Areas funded by each participating country/region and the National Regulations. Please be aware that not all the Priority Areas are funded by each participating countries/regions. It is required that each partner in a consortium contacts his/her National Programme Managers(s) to be informed about the rules in his/her country/region prior to submission of a pre- proposal and a full proposal.

3. Call Structure

3.1 Definitions

MarTERA Call Office

The MarTERA Call Office, hosted by Projektträger Jülich, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Germany, is the central contact point for applicants regarding all technical and general issues of the submission.

Steering Committee (SC)

The Steering Committee (SC) will be composed of one representative per participating funding organisations and will be the decision-making body in the framework of this call.

National Programme Manager (NPM)

Each participating funding organisation in this call has nominated NPM(s) to provide information on national/regional funding rules and procedures. It is required that each partner in a consortium contacts his/her NPM prior to the submission of pre-proposals.

Project costs

The total sum of all eligible costs which is necessary for the implementation of the foreseen project. Regarding the conditions for eligibility of costs please contact your NPM.

Funding costs

Reimbursement rate of the eligible project costs which will be applied per partner according to the national/regional programmes.

3.2 Participating countries

The research projects initiated by this call can apply for funding or will get guidance (see National Regulations) from the partner institutions of the MarTERA consortium listed below. The participation of applicants from other countries is allowed, if a national organisation is willing to fund successful national participants. In this case, the commitment of this must be provided upon submitting the pre-proposal.

Applicants should note that, in some countries, several funding organisations participate in the call with different organisational rules and priorities. In these countries also, applicants must pay attention to the National Regulations and contact the NPMs.

The indicative total available budget amounts to 14,6 million €.

The following ministries, authorities and funding organisations from 11 countries agreed to participate in the call:

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3.3 Call process

The call process will be carried out online at the following web pages: www.martera.eu The application process consists of two separate and consecutive steps:

Step 1:

The project coordinator of an applying consortium has to submit a pre-proposal on behalf of the consortium, providing key data on the future project proposal. The deadline for the submission of the pre-proposal is 29.03.2019, 17:00 CET.

Step 2:

Submission of a full proposal by the coordinator of the applying consortium. The deadline for full proposal submission is 06.09.2019, 17:00 CET.

The Annexes of this document provide the contact information of the National Programme Manager (NPM) in each participating country/region and the National Regulations. It is required that each partner in a consortium contacts his/her NPM(s) to be informed about the rules in his/her country/region prior to submission of a pre-proposal and a full proposal.

3.4 Dates and deadlines

Time schedule of the Call

First Step: Submission of pre-proposals
29 March 2019 (17:00 CET)

Deadline submission of the pre-proposals
31 May 2019

Communication of eligibility check and evaluation outcomes to the research project coordinator

Second Step: Submission of the full proposals
06 September 2019 (17:00 CET)

Deadline submission of the full proposals
30 November 2019

Evaluation outcomes and funding recommendations to the research project coordinators
From December 2019

Start of the Contract negotiations
Early 2020

Start of the research & Innovation projects

3.5 Confidentiality & Conflict of Interest

MarTERA ensures complete confidentiality to applicants, i.e. the proposals will only be read by the national/regional funding organisations and the mandated experts responsible for the evaluation of the proposal. Experts appointed for the evaluation will sign a confidentiality agreement and will be asked to declare any conflict of interest. The proposals will be handled by the MarTERA Call Office.

Only the publishable information of the selected projects for funding as listed in chapter 3.6 will be published at the end of the process.

3.6 Publishable

A list of the funded projects will be published at the end of the call process (once the projects have been selected). Therefore applicants should be aware that the following information from the proposals may be published by MarTERA for promotional purposes:

• Project Title and Project Acronym
• Publishable abstract

• Duration of the project

• Total costs and total funding of the research project

• Organisation name and country of each partner

• Name of the Project Coordinator

4. Eligibility Criteria

The following criteria are mandatory and must be fulfilled for the eligibility of any pre-proposal and full proposal:

Type of projects

The research projects submitted to this call can be depending on the National Guidelines/Regulations fundamental research, industrial research or demonstration projects. For further information about this, please see the Priority Areas Matrix.

Scope

• -  The proposed research and innovation project must be consistent with the scope and objectives of this call and with the national/regional thematic priorities of the countries/regions involved in the project (see Priority Areas matrix). National/regional priorities are described in the National Regulations and/or can be communicated by the National Programme Managers (NPMs).

• -  The proposed project must relate to (at least) one of the sub-themes listed in the Priority Area Matrix of this call.

• -  The proposal should be novel and not correspond with on-going or completed projects funded by other instruments, programmes or projects.

Consortium composition

• -  Project consortia consisting of at least two independent eligible legal entities from at least two different European Member States or associated countries listed in chapter 3.2 can apply for funding. Legal entities/consortia from Belarus are eligible for funding as well but they must have in their consortia at least two independent eligible legal entities from at least two different European Member States or associated countries listed in chapter 3.2.

• -  The project proposals must involve industry. As national funding rules are applied, some topics or partners may not be eligible in all participating funding organisations (e.g. some programmes fund only academic but no industrial partners and others request industry involvement). The eligibility of a partner can be assessed by checking the Matrix of Priority Areas or by contacting the National Programme Managers (NPMs).

• -  The proposals should strive to be balanced between the countries involved in the project as far as the volume of work is concerned.

• -  In every proposal, one of the entities has to act as coordinator who has the responsibility for submitting the proposal.

• -  There is no upper limit of eligible consortium size. Consortia may involve as many partners as necessary to achieve the project goals. However, applicants should be aware that a higher number of represented countries in a consortium will not automatically result in a positive evaluation of the proposal. There is also no upper limit of partners from the same country, unless stated otherwise in the National Regulations.

• -  Partners who are not eligible for funding, including partners from countries not participating in this call may participate at their own expense or if they have their own separate source of funding. The applicants have to prove (letter of intent/commitment) the willingness of other partners to fund their own activities. They have to follow the rules given in this Call Announcement. However they cannot coordinate a project and their contribution to the project should not be vital. They are not taken into account in the minimum requirement of eligible partners and countries in the MarTERA eligibility criteria.

• -  The eligibility of each applicant has to be checked according to the national criteria published in the National Regulations before submission.

Budget

National/regional programme specific rules apply. Contact your national/regional funding agency for further information. The national/regional funding organisations can provide detailed feedback on possible eligibility and budget criteria.

• -  The project costs for individual project proposals must meet the project goals and take into account the national eligibility criteria about minimum and upper limits of costs.

• -  The budgetary issues, including potential restrictions for funding should be checked in the National Guidelines and by contacting the National Programme Managers (NPMs).

• -  The total amount of funding requested from a national funding organisation in a proposal may not be higher than the total available budget of this organisation.

• -  Project consortium costs should be balanced.

Project duration

• -  The project duration is max. three years (36 months).

• -  The earliest possible starting date for projects will be fixed at the beginning of the contract negotiations with the national funding organisations.

• -  Additional national/regional regulations may apply to permitted lengths, possible start and end date of projects.

Submission

• -  The pre-proposal and the full proposal must be submitted correctly and completely before the respective deadlines via the MarTERA Online Submission Tool (www.martera.eu) according to the Application procedure (chapter 5) and the Guidelines for Proposal Submission (see MarTERA web pages). Applicants should note that failure to comply with the submission rules will cause ineligibility of the project and therefore exclusion from the application process.

• -  The proposal must be written in English.

• -  Each pre-proposal submitted correctly and on time will be checked for eligibility as a whole. This means that failure of one partner within the consortium to meet the criteria will cause the entire project to be rejected. Each applicant is therefore strongly recommended to contact his NPM to ensure eligibility.

  The above criteria apply to all partners. These represent the minimal requirements and do not exclude more specific criteria. Partners from countries/regions participating in the call must also meet the national criteria as outlined in the National Regulations. Details can be requested from the NPM.

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