European programme "Fundamental Rights and Citizenship"

Call for proposals for action grants: support to transnational projects

Call deadline: 12 March 2014

The call is targeted at European Union citizens or third countries nationals legally residing within the European Union territory and civil society associations, among other groups active in promoting the objectives of the programme. The beneficiaries of the call could be institutions and public or private organisations, universities, research institutes, non- governmental organisations, national, regional and local authorities, international organisations and other non-profit organisations established in the European Union.

The proposals under this call shall focus on the following priorities:
• Rights of the child

• Information on where the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights applies and where to turn to if fundamental rights are violated

• Combating different forms and manifestations of racism and xenophobia

• Fighting homophobia: Enhanced/improved understanding and tolerance

• Training and networking between legal professions and legal practitioners

• Awareness-raising about Union citizenship and the rights attached to it and identification of obstacles to their effective exercise

• Awareness-raising and information about the EU rules on free movement, in particular Directive 2004/38/EC

• Facilitation of the sharing of knowledge and exchange of best practices on acquisition and loss of Union citizenship

• Address the gender imbalance in participation in the European Parliament elections

• Data protection and privacy rights

All proposals must demonstrate that they will generate an added value at EU level as opposed to national or regional level.

Projects should have an initial duration not exceeding 24 months.

Budget: EUR 10 900 000.
The grant cannot constitute more than 80% of overall eligible project costs

For more information please contact us

Creative Europe Programme - Call for proposal

Organisation and implementation of an annual European Union Prize for rock, pop and dance music: The European Border Breakers' Awards

Deadline 31 January 2014

The purpose of this call for proposals is to select an organisation/consortium capable of organising the European Border Breakers' Awards (EBBA) for the European Commission for the period 2014-2018 (as of the 2015 edition with preparatory work in 2014). The work entails the organisation of procedures for the selection of the award winners, the organisation of the award ceremony and the promotion of the awards and their winners. The successful applicant will be invited to sign a framework partnership agreement for a maximum period of four years

The EBBA awards aim to recognize and reward the success of emerging talents in the pop, rock and dance music, who manage to achieve success with their first international release in Europe beyond their home country. 

The objectives of the EBBA awards are:

• further increase the visibility and cross-border success of the winners,

• inspire other emerging artists so that they can achieve international success, as well as

• raise broader awareness in the music industry and among the broader public of the large amount of high quality musical talent in Europe that deserves to be better known and promoted both across the continent and beyond

Budget for the co-financing of this action is estimated at € 400.000. This will cover the work plan for the 2015 edition of the prize.

The call is open to public or private organisations whose chief activity lies in the field of rock, pop and dance music and which have at least five years proven experience in organising activities and events at a European level in this field.

Organisations have to be established in the 28 EU Member States or in Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Montenegro, Serbia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Syria and Israel.

For more information please contact us

European funding: CHIST-ERA

CHIST-ERA - European Coordinated Research on Long-term Challenges in Information and Communication Sciences & Technologies ERA-Net

Call deadline: 21st January 2014

CHIST-ERA is a coordination and co-operation activity supported by the European Union scheme of the FP7. The aim is to reinforce the transnational collaboration between Member States in challenging multidisciplinary research in the area of ICST with the potential to lead to significant breakthroughs. The partner organisations identify emergent scientific fields allowing European researchers to engage in high risk, high impact projects that will bring some advance in science by launching each year a transnational call for research proposals.

The Call 2013 addresses two topics:

1) Adaptive Machines in Complex Environments: Research in this topic addresses this challenge by developing autonomous systems that are perceptive to human requirements and that have the ability to continuously learn, adapt and improve in “real world” complex environments. These systems should be capable of continuous learning, such that they are able to work alongside humans in a reliable, safe and trust-worthy manner.

2) Heterogeneous Distributed Computing: The increase in the number of devices per capita and the challenge of processing ever-increasing amounts of data require new approaches involving researchers working across system levels. For example, hardware and software researchers working together to develop new approaches leading to improved performance, optimisation, reliability, fault tolerance and energy efficiency of distributed systems.

Proposals must be submitted by international consortiums with research partners in at least three

of the following countries: Austria, Belgium (Flanders), France, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom

Funding is based on national rules.

For more information please contact us

Boosting Urban Mobility Plans

BUMP will organize a series of visits to townsn and cities where BUMP projects have been put into practice. Inviting national and international delegations, BUMP will manage and lead these visist to 'BUMP Pioneers'.

These visist aim to enable the knowledge, learning and experience gained through the BUMP project to be shared beyond the participating group and to inspire other authorities to develop their own SUMPs.

Visits will provide a great opportunity for host towns and cities to raise their profile nationally and internationally. By attending these visists, guest delegations will be able to see exemplar mobility projects in action, learn how they developed and understand the conditions needed to replicate such projects where they live. These visits also present attractive opportunities for networking and international cooperation, both for the delegates and the host towns and cities involved

Participation is reserved to local authorities with a population ranging from 40.000 and 350.000. All services will be provided free of charge to the local authorities selected as beneficiaries through a public call. Local authorities will then appoint their representatives as participants in project activities among their planners, environmental and technical officers. 

The project will part-fund the participants' travel, subsistence and accommodation cost.

WP2014-15 Web Entrepreneurs Challenge

Deadline: 23/04/2014

This objective calls for projects to create an environment in Europe that encourages more web entrepreneurs to start a business in Europe and scale it up. The focus of this topic is on entrepreneurs who use web and mobile technologies as main components in their innovation with a positive impact across the continuum of actors for entrepreneurship.

The forthcoming €10M funding will be allocated to projects to accelerate web entrepreneurship in Europe by using new cross-border services co-developed by several local web entrepreneurship ecosystems and hubs working together. Coordination activities to strength the environment for web entrepreneurship in Europe and that exploit synergies across stakeholder communities will also be funded.

The expected impact is to support the emergence of dynamic European ecosystems for web entrepreneurs that also contribute to shaping future web entrepreneurship specific policies, in particular for the implementation of Startup Europe EU initiative

Scope:
a. Accelerate web entrepreneurship in Europe: Online platforms with new services
b. Coordination activities in the area of web entrepreneurs

Grants: 70% of total eligible costs

For more information, please contact us

Call for proposals for 'Career Development'

Deadline: 15 April 2014

The European Commission has published a call for proposals for 'Career development'.

The European Union needs highly trained and qualified researchers to improve the well-being of its citizens and ensure economic growth. In this context, this new call aims to support the EURAXESS Services Network and to complement the efforts made so far in support of researchers' career development in an academic environment.

The call builds on the principle that - based on the knowledge, behaviour and characteristics of an individual researcher - career development advice, coaching, and training could further enable a researcher to aspire to excellence, whether inside and outside academia. Researchers will be provided with tools, best practices, advice and training, and they will be able to set personal targets and demonstrate evidence of achievements.

Indicative budget: EUR 0.96 million

Beneficiaries: At least 3 independent legal entities, each of which is established in a EU member state or Associated country, and no 2 of which are established in the same EU member state or Associated country.

For more information, please contact us

Partnerships with third-country higher education institutions (including scholarships)

Deadline: 3rd March 2014

The programme's specific objectives are:

— to promote structured cooperation between higher education institutions and an offer of enhanced quality in higher education with a distinct European added value, attractive both within the European Union and beyond its borders, with a view to creating centres of excellence,

— to contribute to the mutual enrichment of societies by developing the qualifications of women/men so that they possess appropriate skills, particularly as regards the labour market, and are open-minded and internationally experienced through promoting mobility for the most talented students and academics from third countries to obtain qualifications and/or experience in the European Union and for the most talented European students and academics towards third countries,

— to contribute towards the development of human resources and the international cooperation capacity of higher education institutions in third countries through increased mobility streams between the European Union and third countries,

— to improve accessibility and enhance the profile and visibility of European higher education around the world as well as its attractiveness for third-country nationals and citizens of the Union.

The Erasmus Mundus Programme 2009-2013 is open to higher education institutions and to any organisation active in the field of higher education and research as well as to students, doctoral candidates, teachers, researchers and university staff (academic and/or administrative) from any part of the world.

Budget: EUR 78.657.500

For more information, contact us

RAISING PUBLIC AWARENESS OF DEVELOPMENT ISSUES AND PROMOTING DEVELOPMENT EDUCATION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Deadline for presentation of concept notes: 30 January 2014

The global objective of this Call for Proposals is: to support actions, presented and implemented by

Non-State Actors and Local Authorities, aiming at raising public awareness of development issues and promoting development education in the European Union (EU) and acceding countries, to anchor development policy in European societies, to mobilise greater public support for action against poverty and for fairer relations between developed and developing countries, and to change attitudes to the issues and difficulties facing developing countries and their peoples.

Proposals must address one or several of the following issues:

• Basic living standards
• Drivers for inclusive and sustainable growth
• Sustainable management of natural resources
• Equality, equity and justice
• Peace and security

Detailed newsletter

Call for proposals - Structural support for European public policy research organisations (think tanks) and for civil society organisations at European level - ‘Europe for citizens’ programme (2014-2020)

Deadline Friday, December 20, 2013 

The aim of the present call is to select organisations with European outreach which, through their permanent, usual and regular activities, make a tangible contribution to the objectives of the ‘Europe for citizens’ programme.

The general objectives of the programme are:

• To contribute to citizens’ understanding of the Union, its history and diversity,

• To foster European citizenship and to improve conditions for civic and democratic participation at Union level.

 For 2014, the following thematic priorities have been adopted:

• Strand 1: European remembrance.

• Strand 2: Democratic engagement and civic participation. Categories of organisations

To be eligible for a framework partnership, the organisations must belong to one of the following categories: A. Civil society organisations for European remembrance (strand 1)

B. Civil society organisations working at European level (strand 2)

C. European public policy research organisations (think tanks) (strand 1 and 2)

D. Platforms of pan-European organisations (strand 2)

Budget: 6.76 M€

Applications from non-profit legal entities established in one of the following countries are eligible:

(a) EU Member States

(b) applications from other countries (namely the EFTA countries, the acceding countries, candidate countries and potential candidate countries) are eligible, provided that these countries have signed a memorandum of understanding with the European Commission during 2014

More information - detailed newsletter

CIVITAS 2020: EU FUNDING BOOST TO PROMOTE SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT

Civitas - an acronym for "cities, vitality, and sustainability" - is an initiative funded by the EU's research framework programme to support cities in their efforts to innovate for more sustainable urban mobility.

Since the start in 2002, Civitas has supported more than 700 demonstration activities in around 60 cities (within a total network of 200 cities who learn from those demonstration activities), with a total investment of more than €200 million from the EU. This leveraged an additional investment of close to €1 billion from local and regional authorities, and from private partners.

On the 30th of September, European Commission signed a grant agreement worth €4 million with a consortium of 14 European research institutes, associations and consulting companies - including 10 SMEs - for a three-year project known as "Civitas Capital".

Civitas Capital will:

 - pool existing knowledge through groups dedicated to specific topics who will produce best-practice guides;

 - issue recommendations on future Research and Development priorities which the Commission will integrate in its 2014–2020 research programme;

 - develop training packages and organise placement and exchange of urban mobility professionals — around 500 professionals will be trained or offered a placement;

 - manage an activity fund of close to €500,000 to support the transfer of measures to other cities, allowing more cities to implement successful urban mobility measures;

 - create five additional national and regional networks and continue to manage the five existing ones — these networks increase the dissemination of know-how and best practice within their language group or geographical group;

 - develop a knowledge centre that will be available to all stakeholders through the Civitas website — a one-stop-shop where all material produced for and by Civitas will be available to all, for learning and reapplication. 

Horizon 2020, the new EU's research framework programme will support several initiatives on sustainable mobility and transport

Civitas Brochure

Promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights — universal access to reproductive health

Deadline for submission of Concept note: 10 December 2013 

The overall objective of this call for proposals is to contribute to poverty reduction and to improving the wellbeing of populations in developing countries through better reproductive health and informed family planning choices. 

 Priority will be given to measures that 

 1. clearly identify and target the most vulnerable people with the least access to reproductive health; 

 2. collaborate closely with the public sector in the country where the action takes place, including them as a partner,and support the implementation of public policy and capacity building designed to give better access to Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH).

Contribution : € 2 000 000 - € 6 000 000 

funding: 80% of the total eligible costs of the action 

In order to be eligible for a grant, the applicant must: 

• be legal persons and 
• be non-profit-making ands
• be a non-governmental organisation or a local authority and have at least five years’ experience of working in the field relevant to this call for proposals and 
• be established in a Member State of the European Union or in a developing country where the action is taking place

In addition to the categories listed above, applicants from the following countries are also eligible: Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway;  Turkey, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia. 

Furthermore, for actions proposed and taking place exclusively in the least developed countries, applicants from Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland and United States may also apply. The specific objective is to contribute to improved universal access to reproductive health, in developing countries which have the worst indicators.

European Internship in Cultural Heritage & Virtual Museums

Within V-MOVE, the international training programme undertaken by V-MUST.NET,  8 Internship placements are offered by Europe partner institutions of the European Transnational Virtual Museum Network in the field of digital Cultural Heritage or Virtual Museum development.

Beneficiaries will be worldwide post-graduate or early career professional/ researcher, not applying for position offered with their own country.

The Funding amount will be up to € 2000 towards travel and accommodation costs.

Registration Deadline must be completed by 15th December 2013.

Application Form and more Details about the Call for Applications are available at: www.v-must.net/opportunities/call-mobility-2013-2014 

The YouPro Project – Helping Young People to Promote EU Businesses through Social Networking

The You.Promote Business Project (YouPro Project) pairs young people not employed or in education or training (NEET) who have social media marketing skills with small-to-medium sized enterprises who are seeking to improve their competitiveness. 

The project aims to get NEETs back into work by training them as social media marketing and promotion consultants for SMEs. The project involves six educational institutions across Europe and is funded by the European Community. 

The purpose of the project is to tackle three of the European Union’s biggest challenges: 

- Ability of young people to access the job market 

- Inclusion of young people in society 

- Competitiveness of small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and micro-sized organisations 

The project aims to tackle these issues by creating a training and work placement scheme that pairs young people not in education, training or employment (NEETs) with SMEs seeking to create or improve their presence in online and social media.

More information

Eurotransbio programme

Deadline for submitting the project proposals is 31st January  2014 

Eurotransbio (ETB) programme calls for innovative near to the market Research, development and innovation projects in all fields of modern biotechnology (health, agro/food, industrial biotech, environment, marine/aquatic solutions) 

ETB’s mission is to foster the competitiveness of the European biotechnology industry by supporting research intensive SMEs and their strategic partners (large industries, public and private research organizations/universities) with the aim of achieving a thriving European biotechnology industry. 

Consortia coordinated by an SME and consisting of at least two enterprises belonging to two different countries participating in the 9th ETB Call [Austria, Belgium (represented by the regions of Flanders and Wallonia), Finland, France (represented by the region of Alsace), Germany, Italy, Russia, and Spain (represented by the regions of Andalusia and Basque Country)]  and coordinated by an SME can apply for ETB funding.

A consortium may involve as many additional partners (e.g. SMEs, Large Industries (LI), and Research Organisations (RO) belonging to the participating countries/regions) as necessary to achieve the project goals.  

Budget: EUR 21.000.000

For more information, contact us

Second European Social Innovation Competition

Do you have an idea to fight high unemployment? Do you think you could improve the working conditions of people stuck in low-paid jobs – whether because of their gender, age, social status or handicap? Do you know how to enhance opportunities for the 27 million Europeans currently out of work? Then the second European Social Innovation Competition is for you! 

The Competition, launched in memory of Diogo Vasconcelos, invites Europeans to come up with new solutions to reduce unemployment and minimize its corrosive effects on the economy and our society both now and in the future.

The three winning projects will be awarded financial support of EUR 30,000. 

But there's more. Winners of the first edition emphasize that the Competition has given them the chance to develop a great idea, to bring legitimacy to their work, and last but not least, to make their solution accessible to more people. Don’t keep your great ideas to yourself. 

As one of the winners says: "Should you have an idea, work on it and take your chance. The same could happen to you. You could end up winning."

Delivering on skills for growth and jobs

Progress call for proposals

Deadline: 15th January 2013

The overall objective of the Call is to is to encourage new forms of collaboration through partnerships between public and private actors on the labour market (such as public and private employment services, companies including SME’s, chambers of commerce, training and education providers, social partners, labour market intelligence entities) to address persistent skills shortages and mismatches to help fill the gap between labour supply and demand in the EU. 

The activities should aim to achieve the following technical objectives: 

1. Delivery to the end users of specific employment service(s) leading to sustainable placements in jobs and apprenticeships or other measureable outcomes by a mixed set of actors, including measures to support labour mobility at national and European level. 

2. Provision of analytical and methodological evidence based findings related to the form and working method of the partnership between the co-operating organisations experienced during the development and implementation of the actions, including an assessment of success and failure factors, challenges and solutions for shortcomings. 

3. Development of concrete labour market intelligence tools, allowing for the identification of skills gaps and needs resulting from structural shifts to a low carbon economy, as well as their impact on changing skills sets. Measures to be financed under this call should be concrete and action oriented and carry a true added value in terms of making a difference where rolled out.

Detailed newsletter

Grants for Information measures relating to the common agricultural policy (PAC)

Deadline: 30 November 2013

The European Commission co-finances information measures relating to the common agricultural policy that aim, in particular, at:

a. explaining, contributing to, implementing and developing the policy, 

b. promoting the European model of agriculture and helping people understand it, 

c. informing farmers and other parties active in rural areas, 

d. raising public awareness of the issues and objectives of that policy. 

The Commission accepts applications only from legal entities that have been established for at least two years in an EU member country 

Examples of eligible organisations: 

•  non-profit organisation (private or public), 
• public authorities (national, regional, local), 
• European associations, 
• universities, 
• educational institutions, 
• research centres,
•  companies (for instance communication media companies)

 For citizens, the priority themes will deal with general topics about the CAP and should focus on its three core elements: food safety, sustainable management of our natural resources and the development of our rural areas. 

The objective of these actions is to inform a large number of people about the basic issues of the reformed CAP. 

The actions should include several of the communication activities or tools listed below (the list is not exhaustive): 

• production and distribution of multimedia or audiovisual material, 
•  production and distribution of printed material (pub­lications, posters, etc.), 
• setting up Internet and social network tools, 
• media events,
• conferences, seminars or workshops, 
• events type ‘city farm’ which help to explain the importance of agriculture to the urban population, 
• events type ‘open doors’ aiming at showing to the citizens the role of agriculture, 
• static or mobile exhibitions or information points.

Budget: EUR 3,000,000

For further information contact us

New 2014 2020 Erasmus + programme

Erasmus+ is the new EU programme for education, training, youth and sport proposed by the European Commission on 23 November 2011. The proposal is now under discussion by the Council (28 Member States) and the European Parliament who will take the final decision.

It would start in 2014 and would significantly increase the funds allocated for the development of knowledge and skills. Erasmus+ is based on the premise that investing in education and training is the key to unlocking people's potential, regardless of their age or background. It helps them to increase their personal development, gain new skills and boost their job prospects.

Erasmus+ would bring together all the current EU and international schemes for education, training, youth and sport, replacing seven existing programmes with one. This will increase efficiency, make it easier to apply for grants, as well as reducing duplication and fragmentation. It is due to start in 2014. Up to 5 million people, almost twice as many as now, could get the chance to study or train abroad with a grant from Erasmus+. Among them would be nearly 3 million higher education and vocational students. Full-time Masters' students would also benefit from a new loan guarantee scheme set up with the European Investment Bank Group.

Erasmus + Leaflet 

Call for proposals - ACP-EU Energy Facility II - Energy and Fragility

Deadline 14th February 2014  

The Global objective of this Call for Proposals is to contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) on poverty alleviation, as well as of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) objectives on energy, while helping to fight against climate change. The Specific objective of this Call for Proposals is to increase and improve access to modern, affordable and sustainable energy services for rural and peri-urban poor by focusing on renewable energy solutions as well as on energy efficiency measures.

1. Reduce Fragility, Post-conflict recovery: actions iwill specifically target areas affected by post-conflicts impacts and/or natural hazards (such as droughts, floods, etc.) impacts. Will be considered for funding only actions providing access to energy services to not less than 10,000 people by the end of the project duration whilst priority will be given to projects demonstrating higher efficiency through providing access to a higher number of people. 

2. Geographical Focus: concentrate on the target group, i.e. poor people living in scattered settlements, villages, rural areas of the following target countries: Burundi, Central African Republic, Liberia, Mali and Somalia. 

3. Ownership: anchor ownership of a project to the beneficiary and to ensure the coherence and alignment of the project with Local, National or Regional Development Plans and other sector-specific, poverty reduction and energy-related policies. 

Budget € 15,000,000. The initial planned duration of an action shall not exceed 48 months.

For further information, please contact us

Competitive Call for additional beneficiaries

Call deadline: 6 November 2013 

The Human Brain Project (HBP) is a ten-year, large-scale European research initiative whose goal is to understand the human brain and its diseases and ultimately to emulate its computational capabilities. The ramp-up phase of the project (October 2013 to March 2016) has received €54M of funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme. HBP has reserved a portion of its ramp-up phase funding for specific tasks to be carried out by new beneficiaries who will join the consortium in 2014. 

These new beneficiaries will be selected from proposals submitted in response to this Competitive Call. The project will only consider proposals for research. Other kinds of activity will not be funded. 

Call topics 

1 - Human and mouse neural channelomics and receptomics 

2 - Genotype to phenotype mapping of the mouse brain 

3 - Identifying, gathering and organizing multimodal human and nonhuman neuroscience data 

4 - Cognitive architectures 

5 - Novel methods for rule-based clustering of medical data 

6 - Neural configurations for neuromorphic computing systems 

7 - Virtual robotic environments, agents, sensory & motor systems 

8 - Theory of multiscale circuits 

The following are eligible to participate in the HBP Competitive Call: any legal entity established in an EU Member State or an associated country or created under EU law; any international European interest organisation; any legal entity established in an FP7 international cooperation partner countries (ICPC). International organisations, other than an international European interest organisation, or a legal entity established in a third country other than an associated country or international cooperation partner country may also participate but without EU funding.

For further information, please contact us

Med Programme: Call for Proposals on Integrated Maritime Approach

Deadline: 10 January 2014 

The call shall be targeting four priorities, namely: 

 1) Maritime Innovation and economic development, 

 2) Environment protection, 

 3) Transport and accessibility

 4) Governance and policy response. 

With respect to the first 3 priorities, partners should either have experience within previous Med projects or other European cooperation projects. 

Priority 4, on the other hand, is only open to national and local authorities and previous participation in Med or EU funded projects is not necessary. 

The total budget for this call amounts to EUR 5 million.

For further information, please contact us

SMEs in Horizon 2020

Horizon 2020 aims to enhance the participation of SMEs (also micro-SMEs), addressing all forms of R&D and types of innovation (non-technological and service innovations), towards exploitation and commercialization. SMEs should get access to international networks, new markets and customers and qualified staff. Better conditions for SME participation are envisaged. 

The concept of SMEs in Horizon 2020: Whereas mainstreaming SME support is offered via the new SME instrument that will be implemented in the societal challenges as well as in the enabling and industrial technologies, specific support is provided via different measures. Research intensive SMEs are tackled by Eurostars 2 (Article 185 initiative), targeting market oriented innovation of R&D performing SMEs with a bottom-up approach. 

The innovation capacity of SMEs will be enhanced by awareness raising, information and dissemination training and mobility activities, networking and exchange of best practice. In addition, specialised innovation support on IP-exploitation, networks of procurers, tech transfer offices and strategy design is completing this specific support. 

Download the Horizon 202 leaflet

FI-CONTENT 2 OPEN CALL FOR ADDITIONAL BENEFICIARIES

Deadline: 8th January 2014

The FI-CONTENT 2 project, currently active in the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research and technological development, announces its Open Call for new beneficiaries. FI-CONTENT 2 is part of the Future Internet PPP (FI-PPP) program, a joint action by European Industry and the European Commission.

The FI-CONTENT 2 project aims at establishing the foundation of a European infrastructure for promoting and testing novel uses of audio-visual content on connected devices. The partners will develop and deploy advanced platforms for Social Connected TV, Mobile Smart City services, and Pervasive Games. To assess the approach and improve these platforms, user communities in 6 European locations will be activated for living lab and field trials. 

The objective of the open call is to recruit around five to ten new content usage driven partners to complement the three platforms that the FI-CONTENT 2 project is building, by creating new applications or providing missing technologies to extend the platforms' capabilities. It is expected that the new partners will contribute to one or more of the following topics: 

Social Connected TV Platform
• Device Discovery,
• Cross-Device Communication,
• Interactive Content and Services,
• Service and Platform APIs,

• Search and Discovery;

Smart City Services Platform:

• Real-time Translation of text and audio of any Smart City Guide Content,

• Word Spotting / Summarization of Smart City Guide Content,

• Service Continuity / Complementarities Between Devices,

• Rich-Media Ad-Insertion,

• Platform Enrichment (Data and Content);

Pervasive Gaming Platform

• Augmented Reality Tracking,

• Reality Mixer,

• Games with Things,

• Content Creation and Integration,

• Game Social Platform.

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) will be managed according to the corresponding Grant Agreement, Consortium Agreement and Collaboration Agreement, which the new partners shall adhere to.

Expected duration of participation in project: beginning of April 2014 to end of March 2015 (12 months)

Total EC funding available for new partners: up to 1.35 Million Euro 

Number of new partners to be selected: around 5 to 10

For further information, please contact us

Progress Call for proposals for social policy experimentations supporting social investments

Deadline for submitting proposals: 16/12/2013 

This call focuses on methodological aspects of the different phases of social policy innovations, policy reforms or policy adaptations. Social policy experimentation within this call should aim at measuring the impact of a relevant social policy intervention and be based on a sound methodology. The scope is to attract proposals designing social policy interventions in line with the social investment package which contains three policy reform strands to help member states adapt their social protection systems to the societal challenges. 

These include: 

• activating and enabling benefits and services to support people’s inclusion in society and the labour market; • social protection systems to respond to people’s needs throughout their lives; 

 •effective and efficient spending to ensure adequate and sustainable social protection. 

Applicants must be established in the EU, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey or Serbia. 

Proposals must be submitted by a consortium of stakeholders involved in the process of social policy innovation. The lead applicant must be a public authority at central, regional or lovel level or bodies governed by public law. Co-applicants must be public authorities, bodies governed by public law, civil society organisations or private sector organisations. It is encouraged to include academic structures. 

The budget for this call is €3.5 million. 

Grants are worth between €700,000 and €1 million covering up to 80%of eligible costs for a period between 24 to 36 months.

Detailed newsletter

Preparatory action - Supporting the demand and supply side of the market for social enterprise finance

Deadline for submitting of proposals: 15 November 2013.

The objective of the preparatory action is to identify, develop, promote and disseminate the good practice of national, regional or local governments and of financial intermediaries in assisting young social entrepreneurs at times of high youth unemployment. 

Strand A: Establishment of social finance partnerships

This strand is particularly relevant for actions in countries in which the social finance market is not developed yet. It aims at addressing situations in which no suitable social finance instrument is in place, with a lack of investors prepared to launch or participate in a financial instrument.

Strand B: Establishment of social finance instruments and mechanisms 

This strand is particularly relevant for actions in countries with a relatively low level of development of the social finance market. It aims at addressing situations in which there is no suitable social finance instrument in place and potential investors and intermediaries lack expertise that can guide the drafting of contractual agreements needed for setting up a financial instrument. 

 Strand C: Establishment of collaborative funding models for social enterprises 

This strand is particularly relevant for actions in countries in which different types of actors are already operating in the social finance market, but in isolation. As a result, these different types of social finance providers (foundations, social investors, public authorities, notably ESF managing authorities) apply a broad range of incoherent and unrelated eligibility criteria return expectations, conditions for repayment, requirements for accounting and reporting etc. 

Strand D: Development of investment readiness support for social enterprises 

This strand addresses the insufficient investment-readiness of social enterprises. Even in countries where there is a large pool of capital willing to invest in social enterprises, investments often remain complicated as social enterprises are not "investment ready". This can be explained sometimes by their low interest in repayable financial instruments due to an orientation towards the so-called grant economy, but also by a lack of necessary documents such as impact reports or business plans and insufficient experience in making proposals for external financing, or for combining different sources and types of finance (e.g. grants/loans 

For all strands, the focus should be on social ventures that aim at social impact, are financially sustainable, want to scale up (including through franchise) and, for that purpose, want to raise between EUR 100 000 and EUR 500 000. 

The total budget: EUR 1 million. The EU grant is limited to a maximum co-funding rate of 80% of the total eligible costs.

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URBACT Call for Proposals for the Creation of Pilot Networks

Deadline 04 November 2013

URBACT Call for proposals is now open for the creation of up to 4 Pilot Networks for the transfer of good practice in the field of integrated and sustainable urban development.

In URBACT II, the focus of exchange networks has been on fostering integrated and participative approaches to urban policies through sharing experience and practices, and improving local policies (production of Local Action Plans). The full chain of identification, transfer and validation of "good practices" in the field of urban policies has barely been explored. It is proposed to experiment this "capitalisation of good practices" process with small scale pilot projects under the current programme so as to explore tools and processes to be embedded in URBACT III. T

The pilot Transfer Networks shall aim to: 

1. Support the validation of good practices through the transfer (re-use) by cities in the framework of a transnational exchange and learning project. 

2. Identify key elements of success for the transfer of the selected practices 

 3. Explore how transnational cooperation can support the identification, validation, dissemination and active in-take of good practices in the field of integrated sustainable urban development (in the perspective of the URBACT III programme, with a focus on the EU2020 objectives).

More generally, these pilot Transfer networks shall allow the programme to explore how URBACT III could, building on transnational cooperation, foster and support the mapping, re-use and validation of good practices. 

The budget of the Pilot Transfer Networks will range from 250.000 to 400.000 EUR depending on the number of partners involved. Cities will need to consider their financial contribution to the project as co-financing is fixed at a maximum of 70% for competitiveness regions and 80% for convergences regions 

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XIFI Competitive Call for additional Project Partners

Submission deadline: 27 November 2013 

XIFI (eXperimental Infrastructures for the Future Internet), a project currently active in the Seventh Framework programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities contributing to the creation of the European research area and to innovation (2007-2013) requires the participation of new partners to carry out certain tasks within the project. In particular the tasks pertain to the expansion of the infrastructure nodes of the FI-PPP capacity by the involvement of providers and operators of additional infrastructures at locations considering the requirements of the early trial projects of the FI-PPP. 

Maximum budget available for new beneficiaries 2,170,000 € 

Maximum funding request per proposal 200,000 € 

The major objective of XIFI with this Open Call is to enlarge the infrastructure capacity of the FI-PPP by additional nodes aiming at achieving: 

• Balanced geographical distribution of infrastructures across Europe
• Increased heterogeneity of infrastructures and diversity of service capabilities 
• Greater diversity of access technologies including reach to Internet of Things infrastructures 
• Larger scale for Europe-wide early trials in the FI-PPP

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Community Networks Testbed for the Future Internet

Connected communities: A future internet, built by the people for the people 

 Deadline: 19 October 2013 

The CONFINE project is designing, building and operating a distributed testbed to support experimental research in community networking: Community-lab.net.

Topics of interest for this open call are around community networking, on aspects such as but not limited to:

• Wireless mesh networks 
• Wireless MAC and routing protocols 
• Services and applications for community networks 
• Cross-layer designs
• Hybrid networks with wireless and optical fibre links 
• Tools for bootstrapping and running community networks 
• Performance modelling and evaluation 
• Quality of service provisioning 
• Quality of experience in community networks 
• Community network security and privacy 
• Large-scale management and data collection infrastructures 
• Incentive models for encouraging users and businesses to participate in community networks 
• Socio-technical-economic experiments for community networks 
• Legal aspects of community networks 
• Increasing public awareness about the potential of community networks
• Engaging citizens and local administrations in community network developments

For further information, contact us

European Mobile and Mobility Industries Alliance 2013

Deadline for submitting applications 04/11/2013 

The main objective of the call for proposals is to develop large-scale demonstrators of Copernicus and the European GNSS-based services.

For the purpose of this Call, a large-scale demonstrator will be required to: 

 1. Demonstrate how innovative, added-value services based on Copernicus and the European GNSS could address in an effective manner societal challenges. In this respect, the intention is to support the achievement of targets defined by the Europe 2020 strategy, supporting smart, inclusive and sustainable growth, while ensuring complementarity with the priorities foreseen under the future Horizon 2020 programme and to test the envisaged approach; 

2. Demonstrate how innovative, added-value services based on Copernicus and the European GNSS could support the emergence of new industries in a region or metropolitan area. The potential for export of the developed services to other European regions must also be demonstrated. Take-up of Copernicus services should consider, at least, the already functioning projects stemming out of the 7th Framework Programme. 

Each large-scale demonstrator can propose to tackle only one of activities (1) / (2) or both (1)+(2). 

The large-scale demonstrator shall encourage activities with a strong and visible impact. It shall be based on a holistic approach that brings together a large number of regional innovation actors to create a favourable eco-system for innovative mobile services based on Copernicus and GNSS. 

Regional and metropolitan governments and business communities are thus called upon to create supportive technical infrastructures and business conditions that facilitate the take-up of innovative services based on Copernicus and the European GNSS in a given region or metropolitan area, paving the way for their possible deployment in other regions.

Budget: € 2 375 000

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European Centre for Press and Media Freedom

Deadline:15 October 2013

The present call invites proposals that address violations of media freedom and pluralism not only with a theoretical approach but also by providing practical support to journalists.

The proposals should cover in particular the following functions:

• monitor and document violations of media freedom and pluralism, [with a particular focus on impeding or restricting journalistic activities]
• prepare reports of such violations taking account of the need ensure anonymity where appropriate
• raise awareness for violations of media freedom and pluralism, including through organisation of public events and dissemination of information inter alia through a website
• provide a point of contact for journalists [and other professionals from the media sector] who experience or experienced violations of media freedom and pluralism
• explore ways to provide support to journalists facing challenges from such violations and organise support as appropriate
• prepare written documentation of successful approaches towards organising and providing such support
• organise related training

The activities should be anchored in structures that are independent from the Commission and Member States and accessible to journalists and other professionals from the media sector across all types of media. In case where such structures already exist, activities carried out in the framework of those structures which do not fall under the functions described above should not call into doubt the independence of those structures.

The total budget earmarked for the co-financing of projects is estimated at EUR 1.000.000

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Proposal of 2015 as European Year for Development

The EU's proposal that 2015 should be the European Year of Development has been adopted by the Commission and will now be considered for adoption by the Council and European Parliament. 2015 will be a pivotal year for development; it is the last year for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the year in which the major decisions will be taken on what their replacements will look like.

The EU is the biggest donor of the official development assistance (ODA) in the world. Four years after the adoption of the Agenda for Change (the European Commission's blueprint to refocus its development aid to make sure that it reaches those sectors and countries which need it most), 2015 is the ideal time for donors and stakeholders to come together to look at what has been achieved so far, and most importantly, what still needs to be done. Despite the current economic downturn, support for development remains high across the EU, with some 85% of EU citizens saying that Europe should continue helping developing countries despite the economic crisis, according to a recent Eurobarometer survey. 

The European Year of Development 2015 will be a key opportunity to raise awareness of development across Europe, and to show European taxpayers know that every euro spent on development benefits both people living in some of the world's poorest countries, and EU citizens themselves.

(source: European Commission)

Funding for victims of torture

DEADLINE: 22 October 2013

The main objective of this Pilot Project is to create a new line of funding for the final benefit of victims of torture (EU or non-EU citizens) present in the Union.

 

The funding should cover the following actions designed, developed and implemented in EU Member States:

• 
  to create rehabilitation centres for victims of torture or to support the existing ones by providing funds for their rehabilitation costs and their other activities;
  
• to provide access to multidisciplinary support and counseling, including physical and psychotherapeutic treatment, psycho-social counseling, legal services, and socioeconomic support to the victims;
• to support international networking between rehabilitation centres in order to build capacities, support the exchange of good practices among specialists, allow peer supervision as a means of prevention of vicarious trauma, etc.;
• to support activities which aim to empower torture victims themselves and, in general, to support the ability of torture victims to integrate into society in European countries.

 

The total budget earmarked for the co-financing of projects is EUR 2.000.000.

The minimum grant will be EUR 175.000 and the maximum grant will be EUR 350.000. Financial contribution from the European Union cannot exceed 90 % of the total eligible costs of the action.

 

Eligible organisations are: national, regional and local authorities, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), public or private bodies, university departments, research centres that are constituted with a legal personality and are duly registered in one of the eligible countries.

 

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RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURES

DEADLINE: 3 December 2013

 

The overall objective of the Research Infrastructures Part of the 'Capacities' specific programme is to optimise the use and development of the best research infrastructures existing in Europe, and to help to create in all fields of science and technology new research infrastructures of pan-European interest needed by the European scientific community to remain at the forefront of the advancement of research, and able to help industry to strengthen its base of knowledge and its technological know-how.

Within the scope of this EU action, the term 'research infrastructures' refers to facilities, resources, systems and related services that are used by research communities to conduct top level research in their respective fields. This definition covers: major scientific equipment or set of instruments; knowledge-based resources such as collections, archives or structured scientific information; ICT-based e-Infrastructures (networks, computing resources, software and data repositories) for research and education; any other entity of a unique nature essential to achieve or enable excellence in research. Research infrastructures may be 'single-sited' or 'distributed' (a network of resources).

Call n.12: Support actions on policy development, including international cooperation, for e-Infrastructures.

Indicative budget: EUR 2.50 million

 

Proposals will aim at providing policy support for e-Infrastructures, in one of the following areas: 

 

• bringing together national and pan-European e-Infrastructure and research infrastructures initiatives and stakeholders (in particular e-IRG and ESFRI) in view of better meeting common research infrastructure needs through e-infrastructure offerings, 
• investigating the feasibility of EU-wide network of HPC competence centres to provide services to industry, in particular to SME's, 
• fostering an increased European role and participation with relevant stakeholders in global data infrastructure initiatives, in particular the Research Data Alliance (RDA); this includes facilitating European industrial involvement in order to exploit emerging opportunities for products and services based on the increased availability of interoperable data, 
• developing a roadmap for broadening e-infrastructures deployment to support the participation of the citizens in all phases of the scientific development process, including the definition of research goals.

 

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NGO operating grants for 2014 under the Financial Instrument for the Environment (LIFE+)

DEADLINE: 15 October 2013

This call for proposals aims at co-financing the operating costs of European environmental NGOs in relation to activities provided for in their 2014 annual work programme that involve contributing to the implementation and/or development of EU environmental policy and legislation in Europe.

The main focus of the proposed work programme should relate to one or more of the following thematic objectives:

• protect, conserve and enhance the Union’s natural capital
• turn the Union into a resource-efficient, green and competitive low-carbon economy
• safeguard the Union’s citizens from environment-related pressures and risks to health and wellbeing

In addition, the extent to which proposals address the following annual priorities will be given special consideration:

• Waste
• Climate change mitigation and adaptation

Which kind of Organizations can apply? Organizations independent and non-profit-making, primarily active in the field of environmental protection and enhancement with an environmental objective; organizations active at a European level either singly or in the form of several coordinated associations and which are legally established in one of the EU member states.

Finance available: €9.000.000 ( typical grant award around € 300.000; maximum € 900.000) The rate of overall EU assistance shall not exceed 70 % of the applicant's eligible expenses for the grant year.

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