BIO-INSPIRE Teaming & Knowledge Exchange Programme Open Call

Description

The initiative aims to boost innovation capacity and foster knowledge transfer, particularly among bio-based actors from BIO-INSPIRE less advanced regions, by enabling exchanges and study visits with organisations from other European regions sharing common thematic and technological interests. The call allocates a total budget of €300,000 to fund 30 projects, each receiving a €10,000 grant and access to a 6-month collaboration and knowledge exchange programme. The Open Call will be open to any legal entity established in a Horizon Europe eligible country (See section 2 in the Guidelines for applicants), applying as a consortium of up to three partners maximum. Each application must define a consortium of two roles: Guest entity (Coordinator): the coordinating organisation must be established in a BIO-INSPIRE region (Greece, Hungary, Slovakia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria or Poland) and will carry out the main guest activities. Host entity: organisations established in different regions (advanced or less represented regions) that will host the exchange activities. All participating entities must be established in different regions, ensuring genuine cross-regional collaboration and knowledge exchange. All members of the Teaming & Knowledge Exchange Programme consortium applying to the BIO-INSPIRE Open Call will be referred to as ‘Third Parties (TPs)’, and their activities within BIO-INSPIRE will be referred to as ‘subprojects’. The programme will be implemented in two stages: Stage 1 – Plan Phase (up to 2 months): Beneficiaries will develop and submit a Research & Innovation Plan, outlining key challenges, planned bio-based innovation activities and budget. Stage 2 – Exchange Phase (4 months): This phase will focus on the implementation of the planned activities, including a on-site visit at the hosting organisation. The stage will conclude with a Technical Report and a 2-year R&I Collaboration Plan, laying the foundations for long-term cooperation beyond the programme.

Beneficiary & submission

Submission: Only proposals submitted through the Open Call submission tool (F6S platform) at: https://www.f6s.com/bio-inspire-open-call1/apply Evaluation criteria: Criterion 1 – Applicant Profile, Concept and Motivation (25%) Criterion 2 – Team Skills and Expertise (25%) Criterion 3 – (Implementation 30 %) Criterion 4 - Impact and Scalability Potential (20%) Evaluation process: Step 1: Proposals reception: F6S will be the entry point of submission of all applicants. The application will have two parts: a form for administrative and statistical questions and a proposal document with the proposal description. Step 2: Eligibility filter: A filtering to discard non-eligible proposals will be done by the consortium and will result in a short list. Eligibility checks will be verified according to the eligibility criteria described in section guidelines for applicants (i.e: the fit with the call thematic areas, the eligibility of participants or the use of official templates). This step can finish with Rejection letter stating that the applicant is not eligible (and the reason). No additional feedback will be given on the proposal content or Moving application to step 3. Step 3: Remote evaluation of application: A shortlist of eligible proposals will be collected. Each proposal will be evaluated by two evaluators: one will be part of BIO-INSPIRE consortium, ensuring a good fit and alignment with the project's aim and vision; a second evaluator will be external to reinforce the fairness of the evaluation process. An Evaluation Summary Report (ESR) will be prepared, including the score and comments related to the following evaluation criteria. Step 4: Consensus Meeting and final selection: If significant divergences exist between evaluators, a consensus meeting will be needed, organised on a case by case basis if necessary, A final decision panel will be held with all the evaluators to approve the ranking list of proposals.

Further information

All information and documents available in the project website: https://www.bio-inspire.eu/open-calls/