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    A microenterprise, a small or medium-sized enterprise (business) as defined in EU Recommendation 2003/361. To qualify as an SME for EU funding, an enterprise must meet certain conditions, including (a) fewer than 250 employees and (b) an annual turnover not exceeding EUR 50 million and/or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 43 million. These ceilings apply only to the figures for individual companies.

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    • rural and peripheral development, referring to remote, sparsely populated areas, rural community development, and rural economics, in particular access to remote areas and policies for rural areas.
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Call key data

Backbone connectivity for Digital Global Gateways - Studies

Funding Program

Connecting Europe Facility - Digital

Call number

CEF-DIG-2024-GATEWAYS-STUDIES

deadlines

Opening
22.10.2024

Deadline
13.02.2025 17:00

Call budget

€ 128,000,000.00

Estimated EU contribution per project

max. € 5,000,000.00

Link to the call

ec.europa.eu

Link to the submission

ec.europa.eu

Call content

short description

This topic will support studies for the deployment of backbone connectivity for routes within Member States (including OCTs), between Member States (including OCTs), and between Member States (including OCTs) and third countries which can fit within the scope described in Section 2.1 (CEF-DIG-2024-GATEWAYS-WORKS).

Call objectives

Proposals under this topic shall address studies including the preparatory work required prior to signing a contract with a supplier, such as marine ground surveys for submarine cables and application for required permits.

Activities to be performed in the territory of third countries (target countries) or in international waters, are also eligible (article 16(a) of the CEF Regulation) if considered indispensable to the achievement of the objectives of a given project of common interest in line with CEF Regulation (Article 8 and Article 9(4) (d) and point 3 of Annex Part V of the CEF Annex regulation).

Beneficiaries can include (local) operators, utilities, (local) authorities, investors and vendors i.e., entities supplying hardware (including cables, equipment, devices) or systems (including software) that are essential for the performance of the action.

Please consult p. 14-15 of the call document for more information regarding the digital security requirements.

read more

Expected effects and impacts

The expected benefits go beyond those directly related to supported projects and contribute to bridging the digital divide and ensuring widespread access to Gigabit networks for all EU citizens and businesses. Moreover, this connectivity infrastructure can cross-facilitate the implementation of other topics supported under CEF Digital, such as the availability of HPC-related facilities, etc.

Eligibility Criteria

Regions / countries for funding

EU Member States, Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT)

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

No

Project Partnership

In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:

  • be legal entities (public or private bodies)
  • be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.
    • EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))
    • non-EU countries (except for topics with restrictions; see below): countries associated to the CEF Programme or countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature (list of participating countries)

Please note however that this call is subject to restrictions due to security reasons. This means that only the following countries are eligible: EU Member States. Participation in any capacity (as beneficiary, affiliated entity, associated partner, subcontractor or recipient of financial support to third parties) is limited to entities from eligible countries (see conditions for PCI involving the territory of one or more third country in Section 2). Project activities (included subcontracted work) must take place in eligible and target countries (see section geographic location below and section 10). The Grant Agreement may provide for IPR restrictions (see section 10).

Specific cases:

  • Entities from other countries (not listed above) are exceptionally eligible for projects of common interest, if the granting authority considers their participation essential for the implementation of the action.
  • Natural persons are NOT eligible (with the exception of self-employed persons, i.e. sole traders, where the company does not have legalpersonality separate from that of the natural person).
  • International organisations are eligible. The rules on eligible countries do not apply to them.
  • Entities without 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 guaranteesfor the protection of the EU financial interests equivalent to that offered by legal persons.
  • EU bodies — EU bodies (with the exception of the European Commission Joint Research Centre) can NOT be part of the consortium.

other eligibility criteria

There are no specific eligibility conditions concerning consortium composition for this call.

Financial support to third parties is not allowed.

The available call budget is split between two calls: CEF-DIG-2024-GATEWAYS-WORKS and CEF-DIG-2024-GATEWAYS-STUDIES.

The costs will be reimbursed at the funding rates fixed in the Grant Agreement (maximum 50% for the costs of studies, maximum 70% for the costs of works in outermost regions, and maximum 30% for all other costs categories (‘project funding rate’)). You can apply for a higher project funding rate if your project concerns: strong cross-border dimension: maximum 50%.

Additional information

Topics

Digitalisation, Digital Society, ICT

Relevance for EU Macro-Region

EUSDR - EU Strategy for the Danube Region, EUSBSR - EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, EUSALP - EU Strategy for the Alpine Space, EUSAIR - EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region

UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs)

project duration

36 months

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 threeparts:

  • Part A (to be filled in directly online) contains administrative information about the participants (future coordinator and beneficiaries and affiliated entities), and the summarised budget for the project
  • 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.
  • Part C (to be filled in directly online, for Works topic only) containing additional project data

Mandatory annexes and supporting documents (to be uploaded)

  • detailed budget table per WP (template available in the Submission System)
  • activity reports of last year (unless exempted from operational capacity check; see section 7)
  • list of previous projects (key projects for the last 4 years) (template available in Part B)
  • timetable/Gantt chart (template available in the Submission System)
  • letters of support from all MS benefitting from the project (MS agreement) (template available in the Submission System)
  • ownership control questionnaire, including for subcontractors and associated partners (template available in the Submission System)
  • security declarations signed by the participating entities (for Works proposals only)
  • security guarantees approved by the respective authorities of the associated third country or other third country, in case of third country entities participation (template available in the Submission System). Exceptionally, should a third country require more time to provide its approval, the applicants must submit, by the call deadline, a copy of the security guarantee and the acknowledgment of receipt of the request by the third country. In this case, the security guarantees approved by the third country must be sent by the proposal coordinator to HADEA-CEF-DIGITAL-CALLS@ec.europa.eu by 11 April 2025, 17:00:00 (Brussels time) at the latest, identified with the proposal ID in the email subject.
  • declaration from the coordinator, on behalf of the consortium, that the planned backbone infrastructure addresses a market failure in terms of lack of redundancy, capacity or another type of market failure as described in section 2 (to be uploaded in the Submission System in “Other annexes”)
  • business plan financial spreadsheet (for Works proposals only, template available in the Submission System)
  • other annexes.

The limit for a full application (Part B) is 120 pages.

Call documents

CEF-DIG-2024-GATEWAYSCEF-DIG-2024-GATEWAYS(519kB)

Contact

European Health and Digital Executive Agency - HaDEA - National Contact Points
Website

European Health and Digital Executive Agency - HaDEA
Website

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