MANUNET Transnational CALL 2018

Deadline: Mar 23, 2018  
CALL EXPIRED

1. What is MANUNET?

MANUNET is a network of Governments under the European Horizon 2020 Programme targeted towards achieving co-ordinated calls in order to finance R&D in Manufacturing.

MANUNET is funding transnational research projects in the field of Manufacturing by offering coordinated calls from the participating regional & national governments.

The main objective of MANUNET is to strengthen Europe’s industrial capacities and business perspectives with special focus on SMEs (SMEs as defined in the Annex 1 of the Commission Regulation No 651/20141) by establishing cross-border partnerships through the mentioned co-ordinated calls. Added regional/national value through this transnational co-operation is one of the critical success factors for transnational project support within the MANUNET ERA-NET frame.

2. CALL ANNOUNCEMENT

2.1. Participating countries/regions

The countries / regions listed below (and referred to as programme participants) are participating in MANUNET 2018 Call. Applicants from these countries / regions may expect funding through MANUNET programme. Applicants from other countries / regions may participate in the project consortia at their own expenses.

Countries :

Greece
Ireland
Israel
Luxembourg
The Netherlands Norway
Romania
Russian Federation Spain
Turkey

Regions:

Asturias (ES) Basque Country (ES) Castilla y León (ES) Catalonia (ES) Gelderland (ND) Navarra (ES) Noord-Brabant (ND) Overijssel (ND) Piedmont (IT)(tbc) Puglia (IT) Wallonia (BE)

2.2. Objectives and Topics

The strategic objective of the MANUNET Call 2018 is to enhance the competitiveness of Europe’s Manufacturing Industry by supporting the funding of Manufacturing research projects performed by enterprises and their strategic partnerships. Projects will typically be smaller than projects submitted to the EU Framework Programme and they will benefit from accelerated funding decisions.

The funding objectives of the call are trans-national application oriented and high risk R&D projects related to Manufacturing. The project proposals must clearly demonstrate:

• Transnational, collaborative R&D with a significant degree of innovation and scientific and technical risk

• SME strong participation

• Market orientation

• Application and practical use of manufacturing technologies

• Expertise of the project partners in their respective fields of competence

• Added value through transnational cooperation

• Scale of impact and market positioning of the applicant

The MANUNET Call 2018 for proposals includes all fields in Manufacturing, structured in the following topics:

1. Knowledge-based engineering, information and communication technologies for manufacturing, including technologies for Industry 4.0 (for example industrial robotics, computer-aided engineering and design, automated manufacturing, zero defect manufacturing, product lifetime management, cyber-physical systems, IoT, control, big- data, analytics, connectivity and mobility, augmented reality, cyber security for processes, etc.).

2. Manufacturing technologies for environmental and energy applications including resource efficiency and recycling.

3. Adaptive manufacturing technologies including processes for removing, joining, adding, forming, consolidating, assembling.

4. Additive manufacturing (for example technologies, materials, products etc.)

5. New materials for manufacturing (alloys, lubricants, coatings, textile fibres, construction, composites, insulation, etc.).

6. New manufacturing methods, components and systems (development of demonstrators, devices, tooling and equipment, logistic systems, etc.).

7. Other technologies, products and services related to the manufacturing field.

The following figure indicates the supported topics per participating country/region.

(TABLE NOT AVAILABLE )

However, the respective regional/national thematic programme focus must be taken into account. To obtain detailed programme priorities it is strongly recommended to check Annex 2 and Annex 3 or contact your regional/national funding agency.

2.3. Eligible Project Structure

All MANUNET projects should be designed on the following principle:

• Consortia must comprise at least 2 separate legal entities from 2 different EU

  Member States or Associated Countries participating in the call.

• Consortia must include at least 2 independent SMEs which can belong to the

  same country/region.

• Large companies, academic research groups, universities or other public

  organisations may also participate according to their regional/national financing

  regulations, as long as there are 2 independent SMEs.

• The composition of the consortium should be efficient in size in order to

  accomplish the objectives proposed. However, we expect small medium projects with no more than 4 or 5 partners.

2.4. Project Budget and Size

No overall budget limits have been defined at MANUNET level, but regional/national limits regarding the level of funding will apply. Efficient and small to medium size consortia projects are expected (2-3 countries).

2.5. Project Duration

The project duration should be appropriate to the objectives of the research, but not exceeding 24 months in total.

2.6. Dates and Deadlines

Call opening
Wednesday 30th January 2018

Deadline for pre-proposals
Tuesday 23th March 2018, 17:00 (CET)

Feedback to applicants
May 2018

Deadline for full proposals
Thursday 12th July 2018, 17:00 (CET)

Communication of the evaluation results
Early October 2018

Start of projects
Contact national/regional agency

2.7. Funding Rules

Funding is provided according to the “nationality principle”, meaning that each participating national/regional funding agency funds their respective national/regional applicants in a particular project partnership. Funding is subject to national/regional eligibility regulations and project partners should check their eligibility for funding prior to submission (see Annex 2 and Annex 3).

For some countries/regions additional documents or data may be required by the indicated national/regional contact points.

Applicants are strongly advised to contact their regional/national contact person (Annex 2) and request information on the specific national/regional requirements.

3. APPLICATION PROCEDURE

The MANUNET application process will be in 2 stages. Proposals must be prepared and submitted electronically using the MANUNET electronic submission system (ESS) accessible at (https:\\submission.manunet.net). For more information about the submission procedure a ESS User’s Manual is available under https://submission.manunet.net/preproposal/Content/files/2018_ESS_Users_manual.pdf

The ESS provides proposal templates to be filled in. Only fully completed proposals can be submitted. A full explanation of the proposal template and information requested can be found in the ESS User’s Manual. The ESS will generate a .pdf document of your proposal for download.

The coordinator should fill in the webtool on behalf of the whole consortium and submit the proposal. Thus, only one online proposal per project is needed. Only proposals submitted in the ESS before the closure of the call will be considered for evaluation.

Proposals shall be submitted in English. Other languages shall not be accepted.

All budget data indicated in the online form have to correspond to those indicated in the regional/national application.

National/regional funding organisations and evaluators shall maintain strict confidentiality with respect to the proposals and the whole evaluation process.

3.1. First stage: pre-proposals

Submission: In the first stage (mandatory for all applicants), the Coordinator of the project has to submit electronically a pre-proposal through the ESS (https:\\submission.manunet.net).

Content of the pre-proposal on-line form: the pre-proposal form briefly addresses summary, consortium description, project merits, cost calculation and results and exploitation. The Pre-Proposal gives an overview on the whole project. A more detailed description of the pre-proposal on-line template is available in the ESS User’s Manual.

Evaluation: Pre-proposals that are submitted correctly and within the deadline will be checked for eligibility at transational level (see 2.3 Eligible project structure) by the Call Secretariat. Following this, each funding agency will formally check proposals involving applicants from their country/region against national/regional eligibility criteria.

The Pre-Proposal phase will be used to guarantee that only high quality proposals which are in line with national/regional requirements are invited to the Full-Proposal stage: in phase 1 the funding agencies will verify the preliminary quality of proposals.
In order to ensure a reasonable balance of requested and available national/regional budgets, all Funding Agencies will be requested to avoid oversubscription in the full proposal phase exceeding a factor of 2.5. 2

Applicants will be provided with feedback after the review of their Pre-Proposal, including a recommendation to submit (or not) a full proposal.

3.2. Second stage: full proposals

Submission: Coordinators of the projects eligible for the second step of the MANUNET assessment procedure will be able to access the electronic submission system in order to submit the full proposal.

As a rule, changes with respect to the objectives, consortium or project costs of the pre- proposal will not be allowed in the full proposal (unless they will be agreed and authorised by the funding agencies). Any other change from pre to full proposal must be first confirmed and approved by the involved funding organisations.

Content of the full proposal on-line form: the full proposal contains the following sections: summary, consortium description, description of work, cost calculation and results and exploitation. More details are expected with explanations in depth. The full proposal gives an overview of the whole project and describes all national project parts.

A more detailed description on the full-proposal on-line template is available in the ESS User’s Manual.

Project monitoring: in the full-proposal form in the ESS, project coordinators will have to consent to provide the data that will be required for the monitoring of the project, both during the project implementation and after the project ends.

Evaluation: Only full proposals that are submitted correctly and within the deadline will be considered for evaluation. Full proposal will be evaluated at national/regional level according to the following common criteria: excellence, impact, quality and efficiency of implementation. Further evaluation rules are set at regional/national level (see regional/national calls). Regional/national evaluation results will be shared and discussed by all the funding agencies involved, thorough a transnational coordination meeting (TCT). The decision for granting will result from the transnational coordination meeting and will be based also on the amount of budget made available by each funding agency.

Common evaluation criteria are fully described in Annex 1.

Project coordinators will be informed about the selection/rejection decision by the Call Secretariat.

4. DECISION

4.1. Funding

4.1.1. Contract

Funding contracts are dealt directly between the project partners and their national/regional funding agencies (programme owners).

4.1.2. Start and Installments

A consortium agreement between the project partners is required for funding (after final funding decision). The purpose of the consortium agreement is to clarify:

• responsibilities of the partners;

• decision processes inside the project;

• management of any change of partners, in agreement with regional/national rules;

• IPR issues.

There is no formal requirement on how to draft a Consortium Agreement for a proposal in this Call. A template and additional material can be found at http://www.desca- 2020.eu/latest-version-of-desca

5. MONITORING

5.1. Regional/National Project Monitoring

The progress of each individual contract will be monitored by the respective regional/national agencies. The respective coordinating agency will perform a leading role in the project monitoring.

5.2. Change in Active Projects

Any substantial change in an ongoing project must be reported immediately to the involved agencies. The project partners should be aware that changes might have effects on funding. The involved agencies can also report any substantial change with regard to the status of partners from their region/country.