Open Call for Financial Support to Third Parties as a mechanism to increase the number of Rural-Urban Enablers available to end-users

Description

Selected projects of the RURBANIVE Open Call will have an implementation timeframe of 12 months. The 12-month implementation period will be divided into 3 phases: Phase 1 – Design [Deliverable: Activity plan], Phase 2 - Development [Deliverable: RUE solution demonstration] & Phase 3 - Validation [Deliverable: Report on market or community associated activities]. In all selected sub-projects, payments are deliverable based, meaning that the sub-grantees must deliver a specific report after the end of each phase in order to receive the payment (no pre-financing is foreseen). A review process will follow each phase of the implementation. Once a deliverable is received, it will be assessed by RURBANIVE’s Open Call Advisory Board members. A request for the deliverable's update may occur with specific requirements for what should be modified. Based on the results of the review and acceptance of respected deliverables, payment will be made towards the subgrantees in the following modalities: Phase 1 – Design (Del. Activity Plan) Payment of 20% of the total fund, Phase 2 – Development (Del. RUE demonstration) Payment of 50% of the total fund & Phase 3 – Validation (Del. Report on market or community associated activities) Payment 30% of the total fund.

Beneficiary & submission

RURBANIVE’s Open Call for proposals will be submitted digitally through the opencalls.fund platform developed by reframe.food. Interested Applicants should visit RURBANIVE’s website (https://rurbanive-project.eu//rurbanive-open-call/) for any updates and the FAQ section available in the opencalls.fund platform as well as on RURBANIVE’s website. Submissions received through any other channel will be automatically discarded. Documents required in subsequent phases will be submitted via dedicated channels (e.g. via email or via the opencalls.fund), which will be indicated by the RURBANIVE consortium in the contracting phase. In case multiple versions of the same application are submitted, only the last version will be evaluated. All the previous ones will be discarded. Throughout the entire process, the confidentiality of applicants' identities and the contents of the proposals will be rigorously upheld. Any details pertaining to the proposed solution will be handled with the utmost discretion. By applying to RURBANIVE Open Call consortia automatically accept the terms and conditions of the Open Call as described in the Open Call Kit. Evaluation After the RURBANIVE Open Call is closed, an eligibility check process will be carried out by the RURBANIVE Advisory Board to discard non-eligible applications. Following the eligibility check, a remote evaluation will be done by carefully selected external reviewers. Each proposal will be reviewed by two (2) external evaluators with specific technical and/or business expertise related to the topics of the call. All eligible proposals will be assessed by two expert evaluators against the following award criteria: i) Concept and feasibility, ii) Technology readiness and innovation development, iii) Impact & Exploitation & iv) Organisational capacity and sufficiency in the team’s background. All award criteria have the same weight. Each award criterion can be scored from 1 to 5 with a threshold of 3 points in each category, and a minimum of 12 points in total.

Further information

RURBANIVE Open Call encourages technology & service providers to develop and apply their own RUE within the 6 RURBANIVE domains, increasing the number of RUEs available to end-users: i) improving logistics, and shortening value chains, ii) ecosystem and biodiversity restoration, iii) regional circular bioeconomy development, iv) user engagement, empowerment, society and territorial awareness, v) culture, landscape and heritage access and promotion & vi) enhanced mobility. RURBANIVE through this Open Call (OC) will provide Financial Support to Third Parties (FSTP) as a mechanism to increase the number of RUEs available to end-users (e.g. actors from the rural-urban environments such as Local & Regional Administrations, Civil Society, Cooperatives, Associations, NGOs, Local Action Groups, Chambers and other Trade representative organizations, etc.) and accelerate network expansion through the technology & service providers (e.g. entities such as SMEs and other private pro-profit or non-profit organisations, technological spin-offs, research institutions etc.). The Open Call will result in at least 6 sub-projects (max 100k euro per sub-project – with the funds dispersed amongst the consortia members, with at least one technology & service provider and at least one end-user, as mentioned above). In total, a 600k euro budget will be allocated to financial support to third parties.