Internet of Food & Farm 2020 (IoF2020) - Call 2018

Deadline: Sep 30, 2018  
CALL EXPIRED

OVERVIEW OF THE IOF2020 OPEN CALL

The internet of things (IoT) has a revolutionary potential. A smart web of sensors, actuators, cameras, robots, drones and other connected devices allows for an unprecedented level of control and automated decision-making. The project Internet of Food & Farm 2020 (IoF2020) explores the potential of IoT-technologies for the European food and farming industry.

The goal is ambitious: to make precision farming a reality and to take a vital step towards a more sustainable food value chain. With the help of IoT technologies higher yields and better-quality produce are within reach. Pesticide and fertilizer use will drop or phased out and overall efficiency is optimized. IoT technologies also enable better traceability of food, leading to increased food safety.

Nineteen use-cases organised around five trials (arable, dairy, fruits, meat and vegetables) develop, test and demonstrate IoT technologies in an operational environment in Europe, benefiting both conventional and organic agri-food chains, with the first results expected in the first quarter of 2018.

IoF2020 uses a multi-actor approach focusing on user acceptability, stakeholder engagement and the development of sustainable business models. IoF2020 aims to increase the economic viability and market share of developed technologies, while bringing end-users’ and farmers’ adoption of these technological solutions to the next stage. The aim of IoF2020 is to build a lasting innovation ecosystem that fosters the uptake of IoT technologies. Therefore, key stakeholders along the food value chain are involved in IoF2020, together with technology service providers, software companies and academic research institutions.

The current 19 use cases are a good starting point, but still just a beginning. Therefore, IoF2020 is preparing an open call that will allow us to ask new teams to join our journey within the Internet of Food and Farm to enlarge the IoF2020 ecosystem and create more impact in the European food and farming sector.

This document presents the IoF2020 open call, detailing the request for proposals as well as explaining the underlying procedure for selecting the most appropriate ones.

Chapter 2 is presenting the current 19 use cases of the IoF2020 project, detailing the application areas and IoT technologies being deployed. Chapter 3 is describing the objective of the IoF2020 open call, detailing specific challenges that shall be addressed by the proposals to be submitted. Chapter 4 is detailing the available budget and underlying schedule for proposal submission, evaluation and selection of the most appropriate ones. The chapters 5 and 6 are explaining the eligibility and selection criteria that will be used for evaluating the submitted proposals. Those criteria shall also help the proposers to understand of what is considered relevant for achieving a high impact and assuring subsequent uptake of the proposed undertakings. Chapter 7 finally outlines the funding procedure. Teams submitting a proposal shall reflect this in their overall work plan to facilitate their interaction with the overall IoF2020 team.

THE CURRENT IOF2020 USE CASES AND STAKEHOLDERS

This chapter describes the current IoF2020 project and the 19 use cases that are realised.

The goal of Internet of Food & Farm 2020 (IoF2020) is to make precision farming a reality and to take a crucial step towards a more sustainable and transparent food supply chain. With the help of Internet of Things (IoT)-technologies, farmers of the future are expected to produce higher yields and better-quality food products, with less use of pesticides, fertilizer, and water. Furthermore, IoT technologies also enable better traceability of food, leading to increased food safety.

In 2017, the IoF2020 project has established an initial community with diverse European stakeholders, developing innovative IoT-based solutions for the European food and farming industry. Nineteen use-cases organised around five trials (arable, dairy, fruits, meat and vegetables) develop, test and demonstrate IoT technologies in an operational environment in Europe, benefiting both conventional and organic agri-food chains.

1.1. IOF 2020 USE CASES – GROUPED IN 5 TRIAL AREAS

Figure 1 presents the geographical distribution of the IoF2020 use cases, while they are grouped by subsectors in so-called “trials”. As several use cases are realised in different sites, Figure 1 shows the spread over 28 sites in different European regions. Table 1 in Annex 1 gives a more accurate overview of countries involved.

IoF2020 is searching for additional use cases that will complement the current use cases. At the same time, it is envisaged that proposers will consider the following potentials:

• Extending the technological and business model dimension with aspects that are currently not addressed,

• Leveraging and using current use case work and knowledge,

• Enhancing current achievements based on most recent developments with respect to the state of the art in IoT technology and business processes in food and farming.

IoF2020 is aiming at the realisation of innovative IoT based solutions. Every proposal submitted shall explain its novelty and how it intends to present its results to a larger target audience and specifically to European stakeholders from the food and farming sectors. Therefore, the following shall be highlighted:

• Envisaged solutions shall be deployed in real world settings and used by a sufficient amount of end users in daily practice for a proper validation and collection of results for dissemination.

• Proposals shall balance novelty and maturity of the envisaged IoT based solutions for being able to involve real end users. Envisaged solutions must not just aim at a “proof of concept”, but being able to clearly validate a specific feature promising to realise a clear value proposition for the related end users.

• The reuse of results and knowledge provided by the current 19 use cases and envisaged cooperation of the stakeholders shall be explained. This needs to be reflected in the work plan, further detailing the envisaged support and effort it will imply for the existing use case teams.

• Reuse of existing results and knowledge shall also detail potential issues with respect to the usage of datasets and/or intellectual property that current end users would be expected to provide for a proper implementation of your solution.

• The envisaged novelty can be realised in the deployed IoT based technology, the envisaged business model and/or in the business processes to be realised by the end-users.

1.2. MAIN USE CASE CHARACTERISTICS

IoF2020 encourages proposers to learn from the use case results that were delivered in the first quarter of 2018 as well as to join the series of events with IoF2020 partners to discuss collaboration potentials with existing use cases in detail.

Table 1 in Annex 1 lists the nineteen use cases for each trial and indicates the application areas addressed, the chain roles and the countries involved. More information about the use cases can be found at the IoF2020 website (https://iof2020.eu/trials). There are also public deliverables available from the website with more information about the use cases (http://www.iof2020.eu/about/deliverables).

Table 2 in Annex 1 provides an overview of the enabling technology that is initially deployed in the 19 use cases. Please take into account that each proposal needs to explain the expected impact of an IoT based solution. Therefore, simple repetitions of similar solutions are not searched for, but as soon as a proposing team sees a significant added-value when validating use case results and knowledge in e.g. clearly deviating settings/context, with additional business models, very large amounts of end-users (e.g. farmers) or also complementary IoT based solutions proposals would be considered relevant.

However, please also check the eligibility and selection criteria in chapter 5 and 6. At the same time, please also use the opportunity to get in direct contact with the IoF2020 project and possibly even the use case teams during the upcoming event series, presenting the current solutions and offering to discuss potential solutions.

1.3. STAKEHOLDER INVOLVEMENT

Figure 2 provides an overview of the various stakeholders that are involved in the current IoF2020 ecosystem. The key stakeholders are part of the use cases, but also other groups (e.g. policy-makers, general public) are included through all kind of communication and dissemination activities. More information can be found at www.IoF2020.eu and deliverable 5.3 Ecosystem Building Strategy.

Figure 2: Overview of the stakeholder groups that are involved in the IoF2020 ecosystem

Teams proposing additional use cases shall reflect on which stakeholders will be relevant for their activities as well as outline those specific stakeholders that will be directly involved from their side. Please detail this also for stakeholders that would not become a direct participant signing a contractual agreement with IoF2020. A letter of intent (LoI) signed by such stakeholders could extend the explanation in the proposal. Such a LoI could shortly outline the envisaged type of involvement and might even highlight tangible support that would be offered (e.g. amount of effort for supporting the project realisation that would be offered in kind, infrastructure that could be used by the proposers, end users that would be involved in tests, or also budget that would be invested.

OBJECTIVE OF THE OPEN CALL AND MAJOR CHALLENGES

IoF2020 looks for proposals that present in a convincing way a high impact on the supply chain, a high level of technical feasibility & innovation as well as a strong economic sustainability. Proposals should be supported by a coherent team of stakeholders that represent the entire IoT supply chain (technology providers, service integrators, end-users, etc.). As IoF2020 is following the multi-actor approach, proposals submitted by single parties will not be considered.

Increasing impact

The primary objective of the Open Call is to increase the scale and impact of the IoF2020 initiative. The Open Call will allow new use case teams to join our journey within the Internet of Food and Farm to enlarge the number of IoF2020 stakeholders and create more impact on the European farming and food sector. The new use cases should substantially enlarge the number of actual IoT-users, in areas and production sectors with growth potential. New use case teams are preferably led by partner from the private business sector. The participation of innovative SMEs in use cases is encouraged and could enable SMEs to test innovative technologies and services.

Major challenges

For the Open Call we are looking for highly impactful and market-ready IoT innovations that will be validated and demonstrated, following the multi-actor approach in:

1. IoT use cases in new regions

Figure 1 and Table 1 clearly show that the eastern part of Europe is not or less covered, and, to a lesser extent, also the northern part of Europe. Applications for new use cases in EU member states that are not yet involved in IoF2020, including associated countries, are therefore encouraged to apply.

Although the ecosystem and context in other countries can be very different from the countries where current use cases take place, it is encouraged to learn from the existing use cases reusing IoT innovations and technologies that are already developed and tested. New use cases can of course also choose to combine their own equipment with useful elements from current IoF2020 solutions. In this way it is expected that the impact of current IoF2020 solutions will be maximized.

2. Post-farm use cases and other sectors

We are welcoming use cases from EU member states already involved in IoF2020, that extend the impact of IoF2020 in the post-farm segments of the supply chain. Complementary areas could be in e.g. logistics, processing, retail and in particular the end-consumer. Use cases addressing other subsectors (other crops, animals, etc.) are also encouraged, as well as use cases addressing new business models with focus on SMEs.

From Table 1 it can be concluded that current use cases are focusing on the farm level. In particular, this holds for the arable and dairy trial. Although a fair number of use cases are including logistics and processing, they are still primarily focused on the farm level, when looking deeper into the activities. Only a few use cases are including consumer aspects.  

Applicants do not have to choose between the two challenges but can also address both challenges at the same time, which also has consequences for the available budget (see next section).

Technology is moving fast in the IoT domain and IoF2020 should account for that. Table 2 in Annex I shows that already quite some IoT technologies and applications are being deployed in the current use cases. At the beginning of Annex I a list of new technologies and applications is presented based on a quick scan of the current use cases. Including new technologies and applications will be encouraged in proposals for use cases. On top of that, proposals for realising IoT based solutions shall aim at interoperability, replicability and reuse of the envisaged results. To achieve this, specifically the following aspects shall be considered when elaborating the proposals:

• Interoperability:

IoT based solutions that will be submitted in the open call shall make use of established open standards as far as possible. Proposals shall explain on how the solutions will avoid a vendor lock-in by pointing out key interoperability points in the architecture and which standards-based mechanisms will be used at those points, or where the teams are actively contributing aligning to the current work of related standard development organisations (e.g. AEF, AgGateway, ETSI, GS1, ISO, ITU-T, UNCEFACT).

• Replicability:

The IoF2020 project will offer an IoT catalogue that will present the solutions deployed and validated in the scope of the project. Also the proposals selected in the scope of the open call need to confirm that they will provide access to their lessons learnt, best practices, tutorials, guidelines and an overview of deployed technical components. Open Source licenses and free access to the developed software components is not a must, but considered desirable. However, a tangible business model is considered a prerequisite that shall finally correspond to the selected licensing scheme and envisaged commercialisation strategy.

• Reuse:

Proposals shall explain on how they assure to reuse existing technological components to avoid reinventing the wheel. Reuse of results developed and/or validated in the initial IoF2020 use cases including open initiatives like FIWARE as well as from other open sources initiatives will be evaluated positive.

Hence, a general objective of the proposed use cases shall be to validate IoT based solutions in a way that they will facilitate an understanding by different stakeholders on how IoT and related technologies can be applied in the food and farming industry, with a view of creating interoperable and portable solutions. Therefore, the identification of “interoperability points” shall be mapped to the use case’s architecture.

A generic IoF2020 architecture and related interoperability points are described in Deliverable 3.3, which is available on the IoF website.

AVAILABLE BUDGET AND CALL SCHEDULE

Based on the specific challenges that were described in the previous chapter the IoF2020 Open Call budget is subdivided into two separate tranches according to the abovementioned specific challenges:

1) New EU regions: ± 3.5 Mio Euro

2) Post-farm stakeholders and other sectors : ± 2.5 Mio Euro

The requested funding for each proposal may vary between 300 - 500 kEuro depending on the challenges that are addressed:

- Proposals focusing on challenge 1 (new regions) and only reusing and validating experience, results and knowledge of an existing use case in a new region are eligible for requested funding of up to 300 kEuro.

- Proposals focusing on challenge 2 are eligible for requested funding of up to 300 kEuro.

- If proposals additionally introduce new mature IoT technology or include test beds in more countries, a larger requested funding of up to 500 kEuro can be requested.

- Proposals covering both challenges (for example: post-farm/other sectors in a new region) are eligible for requested funding of up to 500 kEuro. The budget for financing such proposals will come from the two tranches equally (i.e. 50-50%).

Current planning

The IoF2020 open call will open in June 2018. The deadline for proposals is 30 September 2018. The selection process and the contracting will take place in October, November and December 2018 so that the new use cases can start in January 2019.

Schedule

June 5, 2018
Open call official text publication

September 30, 2018
Deadline for receiving applications

October 31, 2018
Communication of the evaluation results to applicants

December 31, 2018
Contracting with successful proposals and prepayment

January 1, 2019
Start of new use cases

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

In order to be eligible, participants have to comply with the following eligibility criteria:

- Preregister your proposal on the IoF2020 website before 31 August 2018 17:00 CET through the online form on the IoF2020 website (www.iof2020.eu/opencall).

- Submit your proposal (in English) before 30 September 2018 17:00 CET through the online submission form on the IoF2020 website (www.iof2020.eu/opencall). The proposal must be structured according the proposal template. The consortium declaration must be signed and added to the proposal.

- A new use case should apply the multi-actor approach, including the entire IoT value chain (i.e. technology providers, business integrators, end-users) and includes at least 1 SME. Thus, proposals submitted by single parties will not be considered.

- Technology readiness level (TRL): use cases must have a minimum starting TRL of 6 and target TRL of 8-9.

- Each partner in the team should have a substantial input in the project of at least 10% of the total budget. Subcontractors can also participate, up to a maximum of 10% of the total budget.

- Private partners in the team will receive funding for maximum 70% of the total costs of their contribution in the project. At least 30% of the costs should be brought in by themselves. (see H2020 funding rules for Innovation Actions: http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/docs/h2020-funding-guide/grants/applying-for-funding/find-a-call/what-you-need-to-know_en.htm)

- All partners must be legal entities established and based in one of the EU Member States or an H2020 Associated country as defined in H2020 rules for participation. However, end-users outside the EU or associated countries are welcome to be involved as end-users/customers of the proposed solution (e.g. representing stakeholders in the agri-food value chain), while not receiving any budget. It would also be considered positive if such end-users would offer their support (e.g. in terms of person effort, infrastructure, budget) in realising the proposed new use case.

- Be directly responsible for the preparation, management and execution of the plan.

- Do not receive any other funding for the same activities in the project.

Current IoF2020 beneficiaries are excluded from application. The current IoF2020 beneficiaries will however be able to support the new use cases with up to 8% of the proposal budget. If you expect an added value by an involvement of the existing IoF2020 partners, please clarify this in your proposal, after agreement with the current IoF2020 beneficiary involved. Shortly detail this with the following:

- Envisaged type and purpose of involvement of current IoF2020 partners

- Expected amount of effort that would be required

- Type of results and knowledge that would be requested, also explaining in which way it would be (commercially) used

- Amount of meetings, trips or other activities required by existing partners

SELECTION CRITERIA

Independent external evaluators (both business and technical evaluators) will analyse and evaluate each proposal. Each proposal will be evaluated by one business evaluator and one technical evaluator.

The criteria for selecting and awarding the best proposals are:  

1. Suitability of the overall proposal

Concerns the general fitness of the proposal concerning the topic of the IoF2020 call, the composition of the consortium and what will be delivered for the requested budget.

2. Geographical impact: cross-border test beds

Concerns the coverage of the involved stakeholders over different member states, especially test-beds in which the proposed solution is validated and demonstrated. If in new regions existing test beds are already available, it is encouraged to use those.

3. Business impact: business plan and scalability

The proposed product or service should be accompanied by a viable business model that is scalable in the future. Proposals need to confirm that they will provide access to their lessons learnt, best practices, tutorials, guidelines and an overview of the realised solution.

4. Technology impact and use of standards

The proposed product or service must consist of an innovative, credible IoT concept and make significant use of data. Proposals for realising IoT based solutions shall demonstrate

a) interoperability,

b) replicability,

c) reuse of the envisaged results.

Results shall be presented to a wider stakeholder audience as well as presenting the results in the IoF2020 related IoT catalogue.

5. Sustainability impact

IoF2020 has committed itself to improvement of sustainability, e.g. by achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals. It should be indicated how the proposal contributes to improving sustainability in a realistic manner.

6. Financial impact

This demonstrates financial support from public or private resources either from outside or within the proposing consortium. Proposers need to provide tangible evidence for the committed external financial support in specific relation to their submitted proposal. General statements or basic funding sources for organisations are not considered as a specific commitment. The related payment transfer needs also to be proven along a potential use case realisation according the envisaged contract fulfilment. The later absence of such financial support could lead to the termination of the contract and/or reduction of related payments.

Annex II provides the sheet with selection criteria that will be used by the evaluators containing more specific information, also on weighting and rating.

FUNDING PROCEDURE

1.7. FUNDING IN PHASES

The duration of new use cases will normally be 2 years, with a minimum of 1 year. The contracts will be deliverable-based. The selected proposals will receive funding for a first phase (pre-payment: 40% of total budget). After satisfactory completion of the first (number of) deliverable(s), including the interim report, the proposals will get the second payment (30%). After satisfactory completion of the second (number of) deliverable(s), including the final report, the third and last payment (30%) will follow.