FIDAL Open Calls Round 1 on 5G Evolved Use Cases

Description

The overall goal of FIDAL Open Call is to reach two main added values of the project: •           Involving key actors committed to perform beyond 5G trials in diversified and heterogeneous vertical use cases covering key industrial and societal sectors. •           Ensuring the support of the needed infrastructure to deploy the proposed field trials. The Open Call maximizes the impact and accelerate adoption of FIDAL demonstrating flexibility, user acceptance and technology transfer.  Through the Open Call, FIDAL ensures wide acceptance and achieve sustainability of its results and fosters the further take-up by inviting innovative use cases belonging to the project verticals or compatible, to tune up the FIDAL experimentation framework and associated products as well as the testbeds and large-scale trial facilities. FIDAL proposes technological innovations towards real-life services in the communication area, to enable Europe to achieve a leading position in the standardization process (e.g., 3GPP, ETSI) thus securing a leading position for Europe in the global ICT market over the coming 8-10 years. What is being referred to as Beyond 5G, is set to boast ultra-high speeds, ultra-high capacity, ultra-low latency, ultra-multi-terminal connections and ultra-low power consumption. Combined with an expansion of connectivity would have the power to transform society. This future eco-system is on course to be more collaborative and inclusive than previous generations of network, and FIDAL aims to lead the way by promoting open architectures, large experimentation sites and taking a multi-stakeholder approach. FIDAL utilizes 3 different 5G evolved test networks: see here. The applicants may refer to the FIDAL website to get more familiar with the project concept, approach and testbeds, as well as with the project outcomes so far, and to be informed about upcoming webinars. Downloadable material is at the disposal of the applicants, while the most useful ones would be the project deliverables – as they are continuously published on the FIDAL website in the relative Section. The Application Form is online, available here and requires filling in information regarding the following aspects: ·        Legal and contact information ·        Description of the proposed use case(s) and related trials including proposed additional datasets and users, Key Performance Indicators and Key Value Indicators ; see here: KPIs and KVIs  ·        Proposers Experience ·        Proposers’ plans ·        Expected impact ·        Proposers’ capabilities ·        Resource/budget allocation The applicant shall indicate the estimated allocation of resources (person-months) and costs, specifying a budgetary breakdown per direct cost item (staff, travel and subsistence). A 25% (calculated on direct costs) flat rate as overhead costs may be added. The total costs allocated for the application must be below the ceiling of 150.000 euros for Option 1; 250.000 euros for Option 2. The cost reduction towards the ceiling will not be considered as a preferential criterion for the evaluation of the application. All fields are mandatory to be filled in. The previous categories are broken down into specific questions in the application form, which can be found and submitted here: https:// fidal-fundingbox.com The sub-projects selected during the Open Call will be requested in the contract to provide the following deliverables: ·        Use case requirements ·        Architecture ·        5G evolved features ·        Key Performance Indicators, including measurement data ·        Key Value Indicators, including data and applied metrics ·        Lessons learnt  We will be able to freely use these deliverables within and outside the project.

Beneficiary & submission

FIDAL is inviting SMEs, start-ups, research institutes, large enterprizes, non-profit entities, groups of entrepreneurs, app developers and infrastructure owners to undertake a set of beyond 5G trials in a multitude of domains compatible to the FIDAL ones: •        Media •        Entertainment •        Emergency Services •        Time critical applications and services   FIDAL allocates € 6,000,000 to provide financial support to the selected applicants divided in two different Open Calls. The funding rate for selected projects is 100 % of the eligible costs for all types of organizations. The rate is 100 % for profit-making as well as for non-profit legal entities. FIDAL allocates for this first Open Call the maximum of € 4,000,000. Each of them will run indicatively for a period of 12 months (this indicative period may be changed upon further notice) and receive a funding up to €150.000 (under option 1) or €250.000 (under option 2). Proposers’ organizations can submit multiple proposals; however, only one proposal per organization might be selected for funding in this Open Call. A specific Helpdesk opencall@fidal-he.eu is active to support the applicants. FIDAL gives two options to the applicants of the Open Call : 1.            Submit single beneficiary proposal for new use case and related field trials using FIDAL experimentation framework, toolkits and Network Applications supported by the existing infrastructures coming from FIDAL initial Consortium. 2.           Submit proposals from groups of collaborating and complementary partners to produce new use cases and perform trials using additional services and testing facilities. Under option 2 the applicant may propose the integration of external testbeds implementing new services, besides using FIDAL ones, only if it provides a clear value to the project e.g. access to a large number of users participating in the proposed trial(s). The integration of the testbed will be performed by the applicant and has to be clearly described in the proposed implementation plan. FIDAL consortium believes that large projects involving the inclusion of large number of trial users, usage of a significant amount of new datasets, FIDAL services, onboarding of external infrastructure, etc. will provide significant results. Elegibility The call for applications is accessible to legal entities located in eligible countries. These entities must be established in the Member States of the European Union or associated countries, following the rules of Horizon Europe. Following the Council Implementing Decision (EU) 2022/2506, as of 16th December 2022, no legal commitments can be signed with Hungarian public interest trusts established under Hungarian Act IX of 2021 or any entity they maintain. Applicants must maintain complete independence from project partners, their affiliated entities, and any controlled companies. Institutions, organizations, or other legal entities funded by or affiliated with a FIDAL partner are ineligible. After closing the application phase (20 December 2023), all received applications will be first filtered according to their eligibility status; for all non-eligible applications, no further evaluation will take place. Extra information may be requested by the applicants to validate their legal entity status characterization (i.e., to fill in documents related to the “Declaration of Honour on exclusion criteria and absence of conflict of interest”). As regards eligibility rules for participation and funding in the Open Calls, the General Annexes to Horizon Europe for the Work Programme 2023-2024 apply. Implementing the Decision (EU) 2022/2506 on measures for the protection of the Union budget against breaches of the principles of the rule of law in Hungary, that took effect on 16 December 2022, the Hungarian entities are not eligible for funding. Proposers’ organizations can submit multiple proposals; however, only one proposal per organization might be selected for funding in this Open Call. The rules for participation and funding in the Open Calls are subject to the General Annexes to Horizon Europe for the Work Programme 2023-2024. Submission Applications should be submitted electronically via the Funding Box tenders portal electronic submission system (Accessible https://fidal.fundingbox.com ). Paper submissions are not possible. Applications should be submitted using the forms provided inside the Funding Box electronic submission system. The structure and presentation should correspond to the instructions given in the forms. Applications will be discharged if not complete and if they don’t contain all parts and mandatory Annexes and supporting documents. The evaluation is limited to 60 eligible proposals; the priority is given by the time stamp of the completion and submission of the proposal. The online Application Form shall be completed any time after the launch of the Open Call (15 September 2023) until 20 December 2023 (05:00:00 PM CEST). The form will be deactivated on 20 December 2023 at 05:00:00 PM CEST. Any applications received after the specified deadline will be automatically rejected. It is highly advised that applicants submit their applications well in advance of the deadline to account for any potential technical or connectivity issues and ensure timely delivery. Upon receipt of the application, FIDAL will send a confirmation receipt to the provided email address. This confirmation serves as acknowledgment that the email was received on time but does not certify that the application is complete and suitable for evaluation. Feasibility check In case of Option 1, the Open Call proposers should contact the FIDAL consortium and share their intentions in order to verify the feasibility of the proposals to be implemented in the scope of the project. To perform the feasibility check, a short description of the planned experiment (max 1 page) must be sent to opencall@fidal-he.eu. The proposers should include here goals, objectives, identify the preferred FIDAL testbed(s) and outline what they want to do and outline the experiments elements of your proposal.  Please refer to the description here of the available FIDAL testbeds and ensure that the required resources are within the description of the available testbeds. Please describe the resources that you will need from the testbed(s) and provide a justification on why specific resources will be required. and how the integration would be done (APIs, interfaces, etc.). The project will answer in few working days. Feasibility check deadline: 15 November 2023 at 17:00 (CEST). Evaluation The following aspects will be considered and evaluated. The criteria that will be evaluated are presented in bullet form: •           Capacity of the proposer to perform the field trial (Threshold 3/5; Weight 2). •           Relevance for FIDAL and for 5G evolve Threshold 3/5; Weight 2) •           Industrial and/or scientific innovation (Threshold 3/5; Weight 1). •           Clarity and methodology (Threshold 3/5; Weight 1) •           Impact for market and society (Threshold 3/5; Weight 1) •           Technology expertise, security practices and quality (Threshold 3/5; Weight 1) Each criterion is scored on a scale from 0 to 5, as follows: 0 – The proposal fails to address the criterion under examination or cannot be judged due to missing or incomplete information. 1 – Poor. The criterion is addressed in an inadequate manner, or there are serious inherent weaknesses. 2 – Fair. While the proposal broadly addresses the criterion, there are significant weaknesses. 3 – Good. The proposal addresses the criterion well, although improvements would be necessary. 4 – Very good. The proposal addresses the criterion very well, although certain improvements are still possible. 5 – Excellent. The proposal addresses successfully all aspects of the criterion. All submitted proposals will be evaluated using criteria similar to Horizon Europe. Evaluations will be organized in three steps. Initially, each proposal will be assigned to at least two external expert evaluators: independent experts not belonging or involved in the FIDAL consortium. After individual evaluation, the experts will have a consensus telco to agree on a common evaluation text and a score. Finally, to smooth out any human factors, all evaluators will have a common panel telco together with a project’s representative to rank and short list the proposals. The successful applicants will be informed by the contracting party within January 2024, and they will be put in contact with the suitable testbed. 

Further information

Granted applicants will be asked to sign an appropriate Non-Disclosure Agreement. The selected applications will start the contracting phase, which should end within the official kick-off of activities (indicative planned date: within April 2024). A different contractual period may be agreed during the contracting phase. As the experimenter will be linked to the FIDAL consortium as Third Party receiving financial support, specific arrangements are given by the EC with respect to financial costs and payment schemes. As a 3rd Party, the proposing party needs to include an overview of the estimated costs in its proposal at the time of submission. Costs consist of personnel costs, direct costs (such as travel, consumables, etc.) and indirect costs (25% flat rate). The project contribution to the selected third parties will be 100% of the declared costs, in accordance with the corresponding rules for participation in the SNS JU programme. The costs incurred by a third party must adhere to the regulations and principles outlined in the Horizon Europe program and must be properly documented in the third party's financial records. This means that the rules pertaining to cost eligibility, identification of direct and indirect costs, upper funding limits, as well as controls and audits, must be followed. The costs of a Third Party have to comply with the rules and the principles mentioned in the Horizon Europe AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement (see https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/common/guidance/aga_en.pdf), in the same way as the beneficiaries, and must be recorded in the accounts of the 3rd Party. In other words, the rules relating to eligibility of costs, identification of direct and indirect costs and upper funding limits apply. Equally those concerning controls and audits of the European Commission. The payment is scheduled in three parts, subject to the level of development of the action, the submission of deliverables and the accomplishment of KPIs as reflected in the description of the trial: •           20% of the assigned Grant after 1 month from the Grant signature against presentation of a detailed plan of activities •           65% at completition of the contracted activities •           15% when the EC will accept FIDAL’s final results For further details, please refer to: FIDAL project website FAQs