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Call key data
Framework Partnership Agreement for a European Networked Catalyst Fund for Social Innovation in Support of the Missions
Funding Program
Horizon Europe: Missions
Call number
HORIZON-MISS-2024-CROSS-01-02
deadlines
Opening
18.04.2024
Deadline
25.09.2024 17:00
Link to the call
Link to the submission
Call content
short description
The action aims at putting the EU Missions in a better position to achieve their societal and environmental transition objectives by improving the funding environment for the upscaling social innovation in the EU and associated countries.
Call objectives
Leveraging social innovation yields solutions that prove more adapted to society, locally and regionally, as well as more robust. In short, social innovations are “innovations that are social in ends and means.” They materialize as new products, services, and models that simultaneously meet social needs more effectively than alternatives and create new social relationships or collaborations. Social innovation involves not only citizens, but also public authorities, business and industry, and academia in the design, development, and execution of innovations. Social innovation is not only good for society, but also enhances society’s capacity to act. Social innovation engages and empowers citizens, results in a greater sense of agency and greater buy-in by citizens, industrialists, and public authorities, democratic participation, enhances the resilience of communities, increases the relevance, acceptance, and uptake of innovation, and helps foster lasting changes in individual behaviours, social practices, as well as governance models. In short, social innovation acts as a system changer.
As such, social innovation processes are relevant to all EU Missions. The Commission expects social innovation to mobilise additional stakeholders and stakeholder communities such as philanthropic funders at European level for the benefit of the EU Missions.
The availability of philanthropic and other funding for social innovation is highly skewed within EU Member States and Countries associated to Horizon Europe and philanthropic and charitable funders face particular challenges to invest ‘cross-border’. The EU wants to contribute to establishing a better funding environment for social innovation in the context of missions across the EU and associated countries by enhancing the networking and experience sharing of funders (notably by the action described in topic HORIZON-MISS-2024-CROSS-01-01) and aims at collaborating to that end with interested funders by establishing long-term partnerships (framework partnership agreement / FPA).
Article 130(2) of EU Financial regulation provides: “The purpose of a financial framework partnership agreement shall be to facilitate the achievement of policy objectives of the Union by stabilising the contractual terms of the cooperation. The financial framework partnership agreement shall specify the forms of financial cooperation and shall include an obligation to set out, in the specific agreements signed under the financial framework partnership agreement, arrangements for monitoring the achievement of specific objectives.”
Framework partnership agreements (FPAs) are implemented through Specific Grant Agreements (SGAs). Based upon an FPA, a procedure to award a SGA (included in this work programme part as "Specific Grant Agreements for a European Networked Catalyst Fund for Social Innovation in Support of the Missions") provides an EU grant in line with the presented action plan to realise the joint objectives. This EU grant of EUR 2 million shall top-up the own means at least EUR 4 million of the individual or group of funders. The FPA award procedure as presented here has no budget. The budget and rules on funding are set out in each SGA and depend on the specific type of action.
The Commission plans to establish 5 FPAs to ensure widest possible geographic coverage and make social innovation funding more prominent and more accessible across the EU and associated countries.
The expected duration of the FPA is of four years. Having concluded an FPA does not entitle entities to be awarded an SGA.
The call targets funders of social innovation. Funders of social innovation may include foundations, philanthropists, national research and innovation funding agencies, other public bodies, or private investors.
To apply for the action, interested individual eligible entities or groups thereof should demonstrate that they have a track record as social innovation investors/financiers or that they have funded social innovation projects. Applicants do not need to be involved in the CSA HORIZON-MISS-2024-CROSS-01-01.
To apply for the action interested individual eligible entities or groups thereof shall describe the unique contribution the partnership would make towards (1) the outcomes specified in this topic, and (2) the wider impacts, in the longer term, specified in the respective destinations in the work programme and submit an action plan serving the above-mentioned objectives - namely advancing the EU Missions by financing the scaling up social innovation projects and increasing the impact of Horizon Europe funding by attracting additional non-EU funds in the form of private and public contributions - for the use of the grant that the Commission could award them via an SGA. The action plan should include the following:
- prospect identification and selection, and investment decisions: how they plan to identify promising projects and select the ones that they invest in; the Commission invites applicants to refer to the Mission Implementation Plans when developing prospect identification and selection, and investment decision criteria;
- funding strategies and practices including selection and award procedures in place or to be put in place to award grants to final beneficiaries that scale-up social innovations: how they plan to finance social innovation. The funding strategy presented shall be based on an exemplary EU grant of up to EUR 2 million complementary to own and other funds (see below) primarily to be granted to third parties over a period of up to 4 years (the maximum duration of the FPA). The amount here describes shall serve only as justification of the strategy, it does not constitute a formal financial proposal.
- financial architecture: how they plan to finance the upscaling of social innovations including the leverage that they can secure with the grant awarded by Horizon Europe through the SGA; the Commission expects applicants to match each EUR 1 granted by the EU with EUR 2 by non-EU sources as a minimum.
- monitoring and reporting: how they plan to monitor and report on the upscaling of social innovation projects;
- measuring and communicating impact: how they plan to measure and communicate on the impact achieved.
The Commission invites applicants to consult the Horizon 2020 European Social Catalyst Fund pilot. Entities that are awarded an FPA could foresee collaborating with the networking, capacity building, and learning structure established by the HORIZON-MISS-2024-CROSS-01-01 CSA: “A European Social Innovation Networking and Capacity Building Action for a European Social Innovation Networked Fund.”
Blending Horizon Europe and non-EU resources would constitute a meaningful innovation in terms of EU co-investment schemes for social and environmental good.
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Expected results
The action shall strengthen the engagement of social innovation actors including philanthropy in the missions.
Successful social innovation projects with a real potential for scaling to advance the EU Missions will benefit from structured and networked funding environment.
Eligibility Criteria
Regions / countries for funding
Moldova (Moldova), Albania (Shqipëria), Armenia (Հայաստան), Azerbaijan (Azərbaycan), Belarus (Беларусь), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosna i Hercegovina / Босна и Херцеговина), Faeroes (Føroyar / Færøerne), Georgia (საქართველო), Iceland (Ísland), Israel (ישראל / إِسْرَائِيل), Kosovo (Kosova/Kosovë / Косово), Montenegro (Црна Гора), Morocco (المغرب), New Zealand (Aotearoa), North Macedonia (Северна Македонија), Norway (Norge), Serbia (Srbija/Сpбија), Tunisia (تونس /Tūnis), Türkiye, Ukraine (Україна), United Kingdom
eligible entities
Education and training institution, International organization, Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) / Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Other, Private institution, incl. private company (private for profit), Public Body (national, regional and local; incl. EGTCs), Research Institution incl. University, Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME)
Mandatory partnership
Yes
Project Partnership
To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the following countries:
- the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions
- the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States
- third countries associated to Horizon Europe - see list of particpating countries
Only legal entities forming a consortium are eligible to participate in actions provided that the consortium includes, as beneficiaries, three legal entities independent from each other and each established in a different country as follows:
- at least one independent legal entity established in a Member State; and
- at least two other independent legal entities, each established in different Member States or Associated Countries.
Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from non-associated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations) is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call topic.
A ‘legal entity’ means any natural or legal person created and recognised as such under national law, EU law or international law, which has legal personality and which may, acting in its own name, exercise rights and be subject to obligations, or an entity without legal personality.
Specific cases:
- Affiliated entities — Affiliated entities (i.e. entities with a legal or capital link to a beneficiary which participate in the action with similar rights and obligations to the beneficiaries, but which do not sign the grant agreement and therefore do not become beneficiaries themselves) are allowed, if they are eligible for participation and funding.
- Associated partners — Associated partners (i.e. entities which participate in the action without signing the grant agreement, and without the right to charge costs or claim contributions) are allowed, subject to any conditions regarding associated partners set out in the specific call conditions.
- Entities without legal personality — Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees to protect the EU’s financial interests equivalent to those offered by legal persons.
- EU bodies — Legal entities created under EU law including decentralised agencies may be part of the consortium, unless provided for otherwise in their basic act.
- Joint Research Centre (‘JRC’)— Where provided for in the specific call conditions, applicants may include in their proposals the possible contribution of the JRC but the JRC will not participate in the preparation and submission of the proposal. Applicants will indicate the contribution that the JRC could bring to the project based on the scope of the topic text. After the evaluation process, the JRC and the consortium selected for funding may come to an agreement on the specific terms of the participation of the JRC. If an agreement is found, the JRC may accede to the grant agreement as beneficiary requesting zero funding or participate as an associated partner, and would accede to the consortium as a member.
- Associations and interest groupings — Entities composed of members (e.g. European research infrastructure consortia (ERICs)) may participate as ‘sole beneficiaries’ or ‘beneficiaries without legal personality’. However, if the action is in practice implemented by the individual members, those members should also participate (either as beneficiaries or as affiliated entities, otherwise their costs will NOT be eligible.
other eligibility criteria
To maximise impact for enhancing access to scale up funding for social innovation, a balanced portfolio of framework partnership agreements will be concluded, not only in order of ranking, but also with the ambition to maximise geographic coverage of EU Member States and associated countries by the portfolio of FPAs, provided that the applications attain all thresholds.
Additional information
Topics
Relevance for EU Macro-Region
EUSAIR - EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region, EUSALP - EU Strategy for the Alpine Space, EUSBSR - EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, EUSDR - EU Strategy for the Danube Region
UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs)
Additional Information
All proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funders & Tenders Portal electronic submission system (accessible via the topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section). Paper submissions are NOT possible.
Proposals must be complete and contain all parts and mandatory annexes and supporting documents, e.g. plan for the exploitation and dissemination of the results including communication activities, etc.
The application form will have two parts:
- Part A (to be filled in directly online) contains administrative information about the applicant organisations (future coordinator and beneficiaries and affiliated entities), the summarised budget for the proposal and call-specific questions;
- Part B (to be downloaded from the Portal submission system, completed and then assembled and re-uploaded as a PDF in the system) contains the technical description of the project.
Annexes and supporting documents will be directly available in the submission system and must be uploaded as PDF files (or other formats allowed by the system).
The limit for a full application (Part B) is 70 pages.
Call documents
Horizon Missions 2023-2024Horizon Missions 2023-2024(2860kB)
Contact
RTD-HORIZON-EUROPE-MISSIONS@ec.europa.eu
Website
National Contact Points for Horizon Europe
Website
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