StandICT.eu 2026 – 5th Open Call

StandICT.eu will run 9 Open Call cycles. Each call will be open for 60 days for proposal submission. At the end of the sixty-day period all proposals received through the StandICT.eu grants platform will be screened for eligibility, evaluated by an external pool of evaluators (EPE), scored, and ranked for funding. This process usually lasts for approximately 35 days at the end of which all applicants shall be notified whether their proposal has been retained for funding or not and provided with access to a Consensus Report compiled by the EPE.

Please do note that each application is independently evaluated by three members of the EPE and undergoes quality control by a fourth member of the pool after consensus is reached to guarantee maximum fairness and transparency. As the EPE are highly-skilled experts whose qualifications are assessed through an open call process their decision is binding and any redress requests or complaints will be dealt with strictly in relation to the procedural aspects of the evaluation and not on the merits of scientific or technical judgement of the experts.

5th Open call Timing

• Launch: 24^th of June 2024;

• Deadline: 23^rd August 2024, 17:00 CEST;

• Evaluation: Each proposal is evaluated by three members of the External Pool of Evaluators and after consensus the evaluation undergoes a quality check by a fourth member of the pool;

• Notification of Outcome: Applicants will be notified on the outcome of their proposal and provided with feedback from the External Pool of Evaluators in an Evaluation Consensus Report by the end of September 2024.

If your proposal is retained for funding, upon notification you will be provided with the information and instructions to prepare and sign the contract for the funding. Please note that a deadline of 10 business days from notification will be applied to confirm your intention to take up the contract to enable the funds to be re-allocated to other successful applicants.

Who can receive financial support

Potential applicants are Standardisation specialists, defined as professionals with proven expertise and experience in Standardisation activities e.g. previous contributions to standards developments, participation in various SDO groups working, previous or current chairs etc. in the respective priority area.

The target of StandICT.eu 2026’s Open Calls are European Specialists who:

• Have profound knowledge in one of the priority areas supported by the open calls;

• Have experience regarding developments of standards, e.g., in SDOs, in reputable organisations and Standardisation communities, or when creating harmonised standards in open source developments;

• Are individuals or natural persons residing in European Member States and Associated Countries;

• Are not receiving support from other instruments (PPPs, EU or national R&I projects) for the proposed activities. In particular, open calls will target representatives from SMEs and academia.

Type of contributions

Three types of proposals can be funded under the StandICT.eu Open Calls, as shown below.

o Proposal type: LT – Long term contribution (with travel option)

Description: Contribution to ongoing standards development as a chair, convener, rapporteur or member of an SDO WG. E.g. comments on standards development and drafts, attending meetings also as an observer, paying membership fees

Maximum Contract Duration: 6 months

Funding Range: up to €10,000

o Proposal type: ST – Short-Term contributions (with travel option)

Description: Contribution to standards documentation e.g. liaison to WG, comments on standards drafts, participation at meeting paying membership or registration fees.

Maximum Contract Duration: 3 months

Funding Range: up to €5,000

o Proposal type: OS – One-Shot contributions

Description: Support to ensure participation at workshop or event (e.g., participant, observer, presentation)

Maximum Contract Duration: 3 months

Funding Range: Up to €3,000

Please do note that the maximum funding requested per proposal cannot exceed that indicated for the respective type of application (LT, ST, OT), nor can the duration exceed that indicated.

The initial eligibility screening will be undertaken by the Consortium to assess compliance to the call. Proposals which are ineligible for any reason or which do not meet the call criteria will be identified as such and the applicant will receive an automatic notification from the system. The consortium will consolidate all eligible proposals and submit them to the external evaluators (selected from the External Pool of Evaluators – EPE) to undertake the formal evaluation.

The proposals will have to clearly demonstrate:

• Added value to existing SDO activities;

• Impact of work on European interests and the standard in question;

• Expertise of the applicant in the respective priority area;

• Expertise of the applicant in standardisation, e.g. previous contributions to standards developments, participation in other groups working on architectures, APIs, guidelines in the respective priority area

Eligible Costs

Personal Working Effort (this cannot exceed the EU maximum daily rate of 450 Euro).

Travel costs.

Event registration fee(s).

Membership fee(s) for SDO & SSO organisations.

Evaluations (for each proposal) will be performed using the following, four criteria principle (with a core score from 1 to 10):

• Criterion 1: Soundness of the proposal and foreseen impact on ICT Standardisation (30%);

• Criterion 2: Technical excellence & relevance of the activities proposed (30%);

• Criterion 3: Experience and qualifications of the applicant (20%);

• Criterion 4: Economics of the proposal (20%).

The final scoring and ranking will be automatically determined by averaging the scores provided by the three independent members of the External Pool of Evaluators. In the event of a tie between 2 or more proposals, the proposal bearing the earliest “time stamp” of submission will be eligible for funding.

StandICT.eu will provide € 2,925,000 of crucial funding to support the participation of European standardisation specialists in key international and global SDOs. Through nine open calls this funding will enable the specialists to contribute to and help create a fully integrated European Standardisation Ecosystem, thereby strengthening Europe's position in global standardisation initiatives.

The topics and priorities for the series of StandICT.eu 2026 calls which will run from May 2023 until June 2025 are defined through continuous monitoring and careful analysis of the international ICT standards landscape with the involvement of Standards Development Organisations (SDOs) and National Standards Bodies (NSBs), key EC advisory groups including the High-Level Fprum on European Standardisation (HLF) and the EU Multi-Stakeholder Platform for ICT Standardisation (MSP), respected bodies such as StandICT.eu’s Expert Advisory Group (EAG) and Forum for European Strategy on ICT Standards (FOREST).

IMPORTANT PLEASE READ BEFORE SUBMITTING AN APPLICATION

The financial support provided through the StandICT.eu open calls is restricted to individual specialists residing in European Member States and Associated Countries, therefore applications from more than one individual or natural person or out with the above mentioned countries will be immediately disregarded and ineligible for funding.

Also, in accordance with the EU financial regulations, no individual may be awarded more than € 60.000 euro (sixty thousand euro). This limit applies cumulatively across all the StandICT.eu 2026 Open calls and the overall budget of € 2,925,000 (two million nine hundred and twenty-five thousand euro). In practice, an individual may apply and be awarded funding under different calls, but only be contracted for a total of € 60.000 euro. If the limit is reached, no further contracts can be awarded to that individual.

3^rd Part

5th Open Call Topic Priorities

Applications that address any of the topics mentioned below taken from the Multi-Stakeholder Platform Rolling Plan for ICT Standardisation will be considered of equal validity and merit during the evaluation process.

Due to their current strategic importance applications focusing on the topics of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Product Passport are highly encouraged.

Topics List

o FOUNDATIONAL DRIVERS

Data Economy

Cybersecurity/Network and Information security

E-Privacy

o KEY ENABLERS

5G and Beyond (6G)

Cloud and Edge Computing

Big Data & Open data

IoT Internet of Things

Electronic identification and trust services (including e-signature)

E-infrastrucutre for data and computing intensive service

Broadband infrastructure mapping

Accessibility of ICT products and services

Artificial Intelligence

European Global Navigation Satellite Systems (EGNSS)

Quantum Technologies

o SOCIETAL CHALLENGES

E-Health, Healthy living and ageing

Digital skills

Digital learning

E-Government

E-call

Pandemic Preparedness

Safety, transparency and due process online

Emergency communications and public warning systems

o INNOVATION FOR THE DIGITAL SINGLE MARKET

E-Procurement

E-Invoicing

Retail payments

Preservation of digital cinema

FinTech & RegTech Standardisation

Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies

Metaverse including Citiverse

o SUSTAINABLE GROWTH

Smart Grids and Smart Metering

Smart and Sustainable Cities

ICT Environmental impact

European Electronic Toll Service (EETS)

Intelligent Transport Systems

Digitisation of European Industry

Robotics and autonomous systems

Construction building information modelling

Common information sharing environment (CISE) for the EU Maritime domain

Water management digitalisation

Single European Sky

U-Space

Circular Economy including Digital Product Passport