JPI Oceans - SOURCES, DISTRIBUTION & IMPACT OF MICROPLASTICS IN THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT

Deadline: Feb 28, 2019  
CALL EXPIRED

Plastics, synthetic polymers virtually unknown prior to their broad commercialization in the 1950s, are nowadays ubiquitous in the environment, and their production continues to rise. The global production of plastics was 299 million tons in 2013, of which 60 million tons were produced in Europe alone. Plastics are used in a wide range of applications from food packaging, to basic household items, personal care products, agriculture and industry. Other sources are the shedding of synthetic fibres from polymers (for instance, in clothing, textiles and fishing related items) and the rubber particles via roadway runoff.

In the joint transnational call “Ecological aspects of microplastics in the marine environment”, launched under the framework of JPI Oceans, four projects were selected for funding from January 2016 for a three year period.Through these research projects the knowledge about the analysis, weathering and, ecotoxicological effects of microplastics in the marine environment has been substantially improved. But not all relevant questions have been addressed in the four projects and the knowledge and understanding about smaller microplastic particles (from 10 µm to very small particles - nanoparticles) is in particular limited.

Building on the results from the joint transnational call “Ecological aspects of microplastics in the marine environment” and recent scientific findings this joint transnational call intends to increase the knowledge about the the relevant sources of microplastics, analytical methods for identifying smaller micro- and (nano-)plastics, monitoring their distribution and abundance in marine systems and their effects thereon as well as concepts to reduce inputs of plastic into the marine environment.

Through this new call, JPI Oceans is aiming to promote European and transatlantic research cooperation on the issue, and contribute to the Regional Seas Conventions, to the implementation of the Belém Statement as well as G7, G20 and UN aims of reducing (micro-) plastic pollution in the ocean.

FOCUS OF THE CALL

This call comprises four main themes:

1. Identification, characterisation and quantification of the major microplastic sources, especially mechanisms and time scales of macroplastic fragmentation

2. New sampling and analytical methodologies - focusing on the smaller (nano-)particles and in situ measurement methods for all matrices (water, sediment, biota)

3. Monitoring and mapping of microplastics in the marine environment including its effects on the marine environment

4. Concepts to reduce inputs of plastics into the marine environment including through new recycling methods, raising public awareness, promoting behavioural change, socio-economic analyses

Please note that not all countries fund all four themes. We therefore strongly encourage you to take a close look at the national funding guidelines before drafting your proposal.

RULES OF PARTICIPATION

A total amount of up to € 9.2 million has been blocked by the Funding Partners. Each participant in a funded consortium will be funded by his or her national partner organisation. For this call funding partners from Belgium, Brazil, Estonia, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden have allocated funding. In addition, researchers based in other countries are able to participate with their own resources.

Proposals need to involve eligible research partners from at least three participating countries. Projects will be funded for up to 36 months. The maximum requested funding per proposal is € 2,000,000.

Applications for funding within this call can only be submitted through this platform. You can download the relevant call documents from this page in the menu on the left hand side!

If you want to register yourself as a coordinator for a transnational research project, please thoroughly read the Guidelines for Proposal Submission beforehand! This will help to ensure your planned project fits within the focus of this call.

Please note that all national funding organisations have specific funding rules. So, we would like strongly encourage you to take a close look at the national regulations. You can download the guidelines from the page funding partners or from the website of the funding organisations!

Only coordinators can upload a proposal. The coordinator needs to register all project partners.

The deadline for submitting proposals is 28.02.2019, 12:00 CET. Applications received after the deadline will not be considered.

If you have any technical problems with your login or the platform, please don´t hesitate to contact us.

1. Background

The Call Announcement of the joint call provides the essential information about the evaluation procedure, eligibility and evaluation criteria. These guidelines briefly explain some technical issues related to the proposal submission.

2. Process overview

The procedure is divided into several steps: submission, eligibility check and evaluation of full proposals. One joint proposal should be prepared by the consortium members. The proposals must be electronically submitted by the project coordinator via the online submission tool available at https://epss-jpi-oceans.ptj.de/Call2018.

Submission of a proposal

The proposal consists of different parts which have to be filled in online. First, the coordinator has to register in the submission tool. A user can be registered several times in the submission tool with the same e-mail account but different usernames, one for each proposal. In this way, a correct assignment to proposals is ensured in the submission tool.

After registration a link will be sent to the registered e-mail account to activate the registration.

The coordinator can enter, edit and save the electronic forms, add partners to the consortium upload the project description and submit the proposal. Partners can enter and edit their own data only.

In addition, the coordinator may reedit and resubmit the proposal before the submission deadline. In this case, only the latest submitted version will be used for evaluation. Proposals can only be submitted and/or modified prior to 12:00 CET on 28 February 2019.

After successful submission the coordinator as well as the partners will receive an automatically generated confirmation of receipt.

Each project coordinator should make sure to register early enough. After the deadline, the website will neither accept modification nor submission of any proposal. The project coordinator should also not underestimate the effort needed to collect the required information from their project partners or fill in the online forms. Therefore it isstronglyrecommendedtosubmitthefirstversionofproposalswellbeforethedeadline.

The information given in the proposal is binding in terms o f consortium composition and maximum requested budget. The project description presents the scientific part. Please keep in mind that the project description should allow experts to evaluate its relevance to the aim of the call and its excellence despite the limited space for details. The project description cannot exceed the limited characters in each section.

The limits in the template are given and have a maximum number of characters (4000 characters are approximately one A4 page of text). Please use only the formatting in the submission tool - remove all formatting before copy the text in the submission tool.

JPI Oceans Call microplastic II

2 Up to five figures can be embedded in the text through place markers. The figures should be uploaded as .jpeg, .gif or .png files and should have a maximum size of 600 pixels.
Only the newest uploaded file will be saved. If the project description is not uploaded to the proposal, that particular proposal will be considered ineligible.

The proposal must be filled out online in the submission tool https://epss-jpi-oceans.ptj.de/Call2018. A template is attached.

If consortium partners are requested to submit separate or different proposal documents towards their national funding organization, the consortium partner(s) concerned shall submit these documents directly to the respective national / regional funding organization.

Eligibility check of proposals

The proposals will be checked whether they can be considered eligible regarding to eligibility criteria as laid down in the Call Announcement. Every partner country has individual funding conditions and eligibility criteria. Please check the national regulation.

Please note: If one partner of a consortium does not fulfil their national/regional eligibility criteria, the whole consortium will be deemed ineligible.

It is the responsibility of the consortium coordinator to verify that the consortium fulfils the Call eligibility criteria andthatallpartnersfulfiltheirnational/regionaleligibilitycriteria. Incaseofuncertaintyregardingeligibility criteria, please contact the National Funding Partners.

If a proposal is ineligible, the Call Office will inform the coordinator.

Each proposal will be at least checked for eligibility at the Call Office and at national level.

All proposals were review from independent referees. An Evaluation Panel ranks the proposals based on the peer- review procedure. A final selection of proposals will be done in a meeting of the management committee. The Call Office will inform the coordinators about the evaluation results of the proposals.