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Call key data
Next Generation Internet Fund
Funding Program
Horizon Europe - Cluster 4 - Destination 6: A Human-centred and Ethical Development of Digital and Industrial Technologies
Call number
HORIZON-CL4-2023-HUMAN-01-11
deadlines
Opening
08.12.2022
Deadline
29.03.2023 17:00
Funding rate
100%
Call budget
€ 27,000,000.00
Estimated EU contribution per project
around € 27,000,000.00
Link to the call
Link to the submission
Call content
short description
The call aims at improving trust, privacy, portability, discoverability, inclusion with better sharing and search of personal and non-personal data with advanced identity management, implementing optimal balance between decentralisation, security and energy efficiency and ensuring more socio-economic benefits.
Call objectives
The general objective is to nurture a structured human-centric internet eco-system by turning digital values into motivating challenges for top value-driven open source innovators in Europe enabling to create, mature and grow new internet commons. These commons encompass the whole internet stack (both server and device sides) from open hardware, networking and transport technologies, firmware, operating systems and virtualisation, electronic identities and middleware, decentralised ledgers, software productivity tools, traffic supervision tools, up to over the top internet and vertical applications.
Applicants should select and fund third party projects through financial support to third parties based on excellence and implement a continuous open call environment addressing the requirements for transparency, publicity, confidentiality, fair treatment, and handling of conflict of interest. Applicants should publicise calls towards the open source communities actively influencing the course of the Internet.
The calls should aim at improving trust, privacy, portability, discoverability, inclusion with better sharing and search of personal and non-personal data with advanced identity management, implementing optimal balance between decentralisation, security and energy efficiency and ensuring more socio-economic benefits.
Applicants should define the mechanisms for maturing third parties’ projects e.g. security and accessibility audits, packaging of the software for easy deployment, localisation of the software in EU languages, documentation best practices and advising on licensing.
Applicants should detail the path to growth for third parties’ projects e.g. by actively animating communities, creating momentum among like-minded efforts, defining how projects will gain critical mass and what services will be provided for reaching such stage. Proposals should also detail the strategy for standardisation.
Applicants should address the issue of longer term sustainability of the projects by providing legal hosting capabilities, advising on funding models (based on open source business models e.g. foundations) and on governance models (e.g. in relation to European strategic autonomy) integrating a maintenance strategy.
Applicants should actively manage the portfolio of funded projects and provide a coherent overall picture, describing how mature solutions are by giving details on audits made and ensuring trusted and easy deployment capabilities for each building blocks.
Applicants should strive for identification of common tools and stimulate maximum re-use among funded projects e.g. interoperable identity and credential management tools, common packaging solutions, tools for decentralised social media.
Applicants should create the conditions for successful collaboration with NGI pilot actions as well as other ongoing NGI actions such as the outreach office and ongoing research and innovation actions in the area of trust, search, architecture, blockchain and international.
Applicants should seek active collaborations with like-minded funding efforts addressing internet commons at national, European levels and beyond Europe including with European technology industries.
Applicants should demonstrate their experience and understanding of open source communities and their expertise covering the full open source life cycle through proven track record including years of experience and indication of volume of open source projects supported.
In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement.
Financial support to third parties
The proposal should detail the calls logic including criteria for eligibility and award, procedure for awarding, eligible costs, third parties’ costs calculation and maximum per calls. Third parties will be funded through projects typically in the EUR 50 000 to 150 000 range per project, with indicative duration of 9 to 12 months.
The consortium should provide the programme logic for the third-party projects, managing the projects life-cycle, and provide the necessary technical and non-technical support: these tasks cannot be implemented using the budget earmarked for the financial support to third parties.
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Expected results
- A human centric internet aligned with values and principles commonly shared in Europe such as protection of privacy, inclusiveness, transparency, autonomy, openness, decentralisation and cooperation across borders.
- A flourishing internet, based on common building blocks created within NGI, that enables better control of our digital life, respects our privacy, permits better sharing of data (including personal and non-personal) based on users’ preferences, and enables better socio-economic impact based on improved trust.
- A structured eco-system of talented contributors driving the creation of new internet commons and the evolution of existing internet commons based on open source software, open standards and open hardware and designs.
- Synergies with NGI pilots as well as with other like-minded actions in Europe and outside.
Eligibility Criteria
Regions / countries for funding
Moldova (Moldova), Albania (Shqipëria), Armenia (Հայաստան), 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), North Macedonia (Северна Македонија), Norway (Norge), Serbia (Srbija/Сpбија), Tunisia (تونس /Tūnis), Türkiye, Ukraine (Україна), United Kingdom
eligible entities
EU Body, Education and training institution, International organization, Natural Person, 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
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)
project duration
42 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 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 45 pages.
Call documents
HE-Work Programme 2023-2024, Cluster 4, Destination 6HE-Work Programme 2023-2024, Cluster 4, Destination 6(799kB)
Contact
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