Cross-border multi-KET projects for integration of clean production in manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises. H2020-INNOSUP-03-07-08-2017

Deadline: Apr 29, 2020  
CALL EXPIRED

Guide for Applicants

This document serves as a guide to allow an applicant SME to quickly assess all relevant information about the open call for micro grants.

Call identifier/ title: H2020-INNOSUP-03-07-08-2017 / Cross-border multi-KET projects for integration of clean production in manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises.
Project full name: Pan-European Access for manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on technology services for clean production through a network of premier KET Technology Centres (TCs) with one stop shop access including Enterprise Europe Network and discourse with policy makers on Regional Innovation Systems (RIS3)

Call opening: 1st June 2018
Call closing: 29th April 2020, 17:00 CET
Cut-off Dates: 8 cut-off days at 17:00 CET on 31st July 2018, 31st October 2018, 31st January 2019, 30th April 2019, 31st July 2019, 31st October 2019, 31st January 2020, 30th April 2020
Expected duration of a micro grant project: up to 6 months
Total EU funding available for third parties: EUR 2.000.000
Maximum amount of financial support for each third party: EUR 50.000 (provided as lump sum). A micro grant covers 70% of the total project costs. The remaining 30% have to be provided by the applicant SME. Submission language of the micro grant proposal: English
Internet address for full call information: https://www.ket4sme.eu/micro-grants
Registration and Submission: www.ket4sme.eu/micro-grants
E-Mail: info@ket4sme.eu

Introduction

KET4CleanProduction is a coordination and support action (CSA) funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme. The project fosters the use of advanced manufacturing technologies and related key enabling technologies (KETs) by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to upgrade their production processes towards resource- and energy efficiency. To support this goal, the project aims at

 creating an open innovation ecosystem with a one-stop-shop web platform (www.ket4sme.eu), and has an open call for proposals for financial support (EUR 50.000 per SME) to

 facilitate the access of manufacturing SMEs to technology services and facilities for clean production innovation and

 enable cross-border cooperation with two international KET Technology Centres in clean production. During phase 1 (project month 1 to 18), services will be offered by 13 KET technology centres (TCs) of the consortium (see table below), whereas 17 more KET TCs are expected to join in Phase 2 (project month 19 to 36).

Acreo Rise ACREO AB Sweden

BBEPP Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant vzw Belgium

BZN Bay Zoltán Alkalmazott Kutatasi Kozhasznu Nonprofit KFT. Hungary

CEA Commissariat a l Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives France

Fraunhofer Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. Germany

HS Hahn-Schickard-Gesellschaft für angewandte Forschung e.V. Germany

JOANNEUM Joanneum Research Forschungsgesellschaft mbH Austria

JSI Jožef Stefan Institute Slovenia

LEITAT Acondicionamiento Tarrasense Associacion Spain

LIN INL Laboratorio Iberico Internacional de Nanotecnologia Portugal

Tyndall University College Cork; Tyndall National Institute Ireland

VTT Teknologian tutkimuskeskus VTT Oy Finland

WARWICK The University of Warwick United Kingdom

Eligibility criteria

1. The applicants must be an SME, compliant to the EU definition1: less than 250 employees; generates no more than EUR 50 million in annual turnover or EUR 43 million in total assets.

2. The call is open to all SMEs in one of the EU member states or H2020 associates countries.2

3. The applicant must be a single company, not a consortium.

4. The SME must explicitly select two KET TCs that are registered (1) on the KET TC mapping by the European

   Commission’s DG Growth3 on and (2) on the KET4CP mapping4 before submitting a micro grant proposal.

5. At least one of the KET TCs within a micro grant proposal must be located in another member state other

   than the applicant SME.

6. Co-financing of 30% must be ensured by the applicant SME (Declaration of Honour).

7. The applicant SME must be active in the manufacturing sector.5

8. The types of activities that qualify for receiving financial support have to focus on: the integration of

   advanced manufacturing technologies and combination with multi-KETs seeking one or several of the following clean production objectives (a related objective can be specified by the applicant):

   •   the development of new production processes;

   •   the improvement of the manufacturing of existing products by reducing production costs;

   •   the improvement of the manufacturing of existing products by reducing the reliance on raw

     materials;

   •   the improvement of the manufacturing of existing products by reducing the consumption of energy;

   •   the diminution of the adverse impacts on the environment by reducing the generation of waste and

     pollution.

9. The technology services include:

   •   research and innovation activities in the range from Technology Readiness Level (TRL)6 4 to 8, with a focus on higher TRLs.;

   •   research and innovation activities at state-of-the-art technology facilities, including for example demonstration, testing, pilot production and related engineering activities.

10. The technology services may include feasibility studies, where necessary. However, they will be complemented by non-technology expertise and advice to SMEs, as necessary to ensure the success of the projects and maximize their impacts for the SMEs, achieving one of the following business KPI’s:

    •   advice on business planning,

    •   market analysis,

    •   advice on training of workers on their involvement in the company project,

    •   advice on the work organisations at the factory floor,

    •   brokerage to private finance for further investment etc.

Procedure of the open call for micro grants

The application procedure consists of the following 5 steps:

Step 1:

Registration on the web platform

Step 2:

Submission of a technology request

Step 3:

Submission of a micro grant proposal

Step 4:

Evaluation and feedback to the micro grant proposal

Step 5:

Implementation and follow-up on the micro grant project

1. Registration on the web platform

First, each SME needs to register on the web platform of the KET4CP project (www.ket4sme.eu) to be able to submit a technology request or a micro grant proposal. The KET TCs and their services can be seen on the web platform itself within the publicly accessible map. After the registration, the registered SME will gain access to download all submission documents and establish interactive communication with other registered users, such as KET TCs and partners in the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN).

2. Submission of a technology request (TR)

To find a right KET TC partner for a collaborative project a registered SME can submit a technology request (TR). A template for a TR and a TR guide is available for download. Interested SMEs should download a technology request from the KET4CP web platform via www.ket4sme.eu/micro-grants and send it per e-mail to info@ket4sme.eu with the subject “KET4CP | Technology request | Submission”.

Following this submission, within a short time (one-two weeks) the SME will receive a short list of expression of interests (EoI) listing KET TCs with a proposed solution. The SME is in charge of choosing its preferred offered solution from this short list within one week (5 working days) and inform the project coordinator via info@ket4sme.eu about its decision on the best suitable EoI. After the SME decision, the project coordinator (Steinbeis S2i) will inform the main contact person (KET TC facilitator volunteer) on the SME’s decision and the KET TC facilitator volunteer proceeds with contacting the SME directly to prepare the micro grant proposal.

3. Development and submission of the micro grant proposal

The KET TC Facilitator Volunteer will support the SME in writing the micro grant proposal (MGP). The KET TC Facilitator Volunteer and the SME will decide on the possible concept for the proposal including at least another KET TC. The second KET TC might be already chosen from the expression of interest.

A micro grant proposal form can be submitted at any time while the call for proposals is open until 29 April 2020 or until the maximum funding capacity of the project is reached. The MGP must be submitted electronically in PDF format (max. size of 5.0 MB) via www.ket4sme.eu/micro-grants. Proposals must be submitted by the cut-off date in order to be considered for the respective evaluation round. Late proposals can only be considered in the next cut-off date. If the last cut-off date has passed (29 April 2020), the proposals will not be evaluated anymore.

The micro grant proposal consists of the following documents, which are provided on the KET4CP web platform at

www.ket4sme.eu/micro-grants

•   Micro Grant Proposal Form, including Declaration of Honour (to be signed by the applicant SME)

•   Ethic Issues Table

•   Service Offers of two KET technology centres (to be signed by applicant SME as declaration to accept this KET-TCs' offer in case of micro grant approval)

Interested SMEs should download these documents via the KET4CP web platform (www.ket4sme.eu/micro- grants) and send them as one PDF document per e-mail to info@ket4sme.eu with the subject “KET4CP | MGP | Submission”. The SME will receive an e-mail acknowledging the receipt of the submission.

No additions or changes within the MGP will be considered after the submission. Applicant SMEs are only allowed to submit one MGP per cut-off date. Upon submission of a micro grant proposal applicant SMEs will receive an email acknowledging the successful submission of their MGP. No guarantee is given at any of these steps that a MGP will be granted.

4. Evaluation and feedback on the micro grant proposal

After each cut-off date (every three months) the proposals are being evaluated by an external evaluation board. The first evaluation round begins on 31st July 2018. Each MGP will be assessed by three designated experts after excluding a potential conflict of interest and ensuring confidential handling of the proposal (A non-disclosure agreement between evaluators and coordinator will be signed).

The evaluation principles, criteria and the scoring scale used are aligned with the Horizon2020 programme and tailored to the objective of the KET4CP micro grants. This means it will consider general H2020 criteria such as

•   Criteria 1: Excellence (considering the soundness of service concept and its innovation potential);

•   Criteria 2: Impact (considering impact including industrial relevance and business strategy);

•   Criteria 3: Quality of implementation (considering quality of work plan and resource deployment).

There will be a threshold score of 4 for each criterion (in total 12 out of 15). Each criterion will carry a score on a scale from 0 to 5 (giving full point scores):

The proposal fails to address the criterion under examination or cannot be judged due to missing or incomplete information.

1 Poor
The criterion is addressed in an inadequate manner, or there are serious inherent weaknesses.

2 Fair
While the proposal broadly addresses the criterion, there are significant weaknesses.

3 Good
The proposal addresses the criterion well, although improvements would be necessary.

4 Very good
The proposal addresses the criterion very well, although certain improvements are still possible.

5 Excellent
The proposal successfully addresses all relevant aspects of the criterion in question.

Based on the external evaluators’ reports, the project coordinator will produce a ranked list of proposals, including all proposals with scores above the qualifying score (total of 12 out of 15) to identify the top-ranked proposals which will be offered funding. The external evaluators will recommend a priority order for proposals with the same score.

Approximately one month after a cut-off date the applicant SME will receive a notification stating the outcome of the evaluation, including a short evaluation summary for the submitted micro grant proposal and the decision on the reception or not for a micro grant.

Each SME can apply multiple times by submitting a micro grant proposal, but applicants are only allowed to submit one MGP application per cut-off date and can receive the financial support through a micro grant only once during the KET4CP project lifetime.

If the evaluation for a micro grant is successful, the applicant SME will receive an invitation to sign a mono- beneficiary grant agreement (GA) with the coordinator of the KET4CP project. This GA needs to be signed by the applicant and returned to the KET4CP project coordinator within 14 days.

5. Implementation and follow-up on the micro grant project

After the signing of the mono-beneficiary grant agreement the micro grant project can start. The coordinator makes a 50% upfront payment to the applicant SME (pre-financing). The SME has to transfer 50% upfront payment to the KET TCs within one week after signing of the mono-beneficiary grant agreement. The remaining 50% of the micro grant have to be paid by the SME to the KET TCs latest 1 week after receiving the second instalment of the micro grant. The second instalment will be transferred from the KET4CP project coordinator upon successful approval of the micro grant implementation report (submitted by SME after the project ends).

Once the micro grant project implementation is completed (latest after 6 months after the starting date), the applicant SME with assistance from the KET-TCs has to submit a micro grant implementation report latest within 1 month after project end. The implementation report form is provided on the web platform and includes a technical report (comprised of a public abstract and a more detailed report on key performance indicators achieved).

In the follow-up of the micro grant project phase, the SME further commits to providing feedback on the service that the KET TCs have delivered with the financial support of the micro grant. In detail, the SME agrees to be re- contacted by the consortium for dissemination and communication activities, for example such as to provide a success story, video, or testimonial ...). The SME is also requested to show commitment to be interviewed, for example within the KET4CP Project.

SME Helpdesk

An SME helpdesk is provided in the form of an FAQ section on the KET4Clean Production web platform www.ket4sme.eu highlighting the most frequently asked questions from SMEs. If any further questions appear, SMEs can contact the project coordinator by e-mail via info@ket4sme.eu.