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Call key data
Land-based bioprospecting and production of bioactive compounds and functional materials for multiple bio-based value chains
Call number
HORIZON-CL6-2023-CircBio-01-4
deadlines
Opening
22.12.2022
Deadline
28.03.2023 17:00
Deadline - 2nd stage
Opening
25.01.2023
Funding rate
100%
Call budget
€ 4,000,000.00
Estimated EU contribution per project
€ 4,000,000.00
Link to the call
Link to the submission
Call content
Call objectives
Global terrestrial biodiversity remains a largely untapped source of natural bioactive molecules and compounds, often combined with interesting potential functional properties of high economic and social value. Such chemical diversity and structural complexity may be matched with biological potency and selectivity. While some of the natural biochemical diversity has been studied, the potential for developing new applications and products is far from exhausted. There are still significant opportunities to improve the biodiscovery process as well as understanding of specific biochemical pathways leading to high-value applications, especially with those with a reduced Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, in various sectors, based on novel biochemicals and functional bio-based materials.
This will increase capacity in the European biotechnology sector and other industries to respond to society’s needs. The challenge is to match sustainable sourcing and processing with efficient and cost-effective use. This calls for close cooperation between industrial and academic partners, with due consideration for health/safety and environmental legislation, and informed public engagement.
Activities should address:
- Technical improvements of the bioprospecting of any land-based organisms for potential bioactive compounds and functional materials, based on identified suitable sources of feedstock. The bioprospecting may be “bio-guided” by the study of chemical ecology interspecific interactions (symbiotic/defence) such as, for instance, plant-insects, or microbial-insect/plant/fungus interactions.
- Addressing sustainable biodiscovery, including by advanced detection methods, such as in silico database analysis, microfluidics/lab-on-chip, high-throughput screening, machine learning, etc, overcoming the issues of low concentrations of target molecules, and their general scarcity, and use of natural biological resources from diverse terrestrial environments and ecosystems, allowing better assessment of the selected bioactivity/functional property potential.
- Defining and assessing the optimal further production routes via innovative approaches and systems/platforms (e.g., biotechnology, hydroponics, bioreactors), as well as economic feasibility assessment of these options for resulting bioactive compounds and functional materials, ensuring full valorisation of biomass and all by-products in the production routes, and biomass’ sustainable supply, and, if appropriate, proposing an outline of continuation of the end-product development beyond the project timeline and its present resources.
- Assessing and clearly communicating, by inclusive communication and dissemination strategies, the environmental and climate benefits (e.g., by lowering the pressure on the natural habitats (decrease of harvesting in situ), supporting nature conservation, and increase overall resource efficiency and sustainability), while expanding the range of natural ingredients for the new applications in industrial sectors.
- Covering the environmental, climate and safety/health impacts of the developed ingredients or processes, using Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodologies based on available standards, certification, and accepted and validated approaches. Estimate of possible negative environmental impacts and trade-offs should be provided. The need to guarantee biodiversity preservation and compliance with relevant international rules on access to biological resources, their sustainable use and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from their utilisation, with the national regulations in the source countries and with the Convention on Biological Diversity and its Nagoya Protocol.
- Food, biofuel and bioenergy applications are not in scope. Agricultural crop protection products (chemical pesticide substitutes) are also not in scope, to avoid overlaps with a parallel topic. Marine and aquatic ecosystems are also out of scope to avoid overlap with parallel topics and projects funded under the recent call. For any health-related applications, complementarities with Horizon Europe Cluster 1 ‘Health’ should be carefully explored, to avoid duplications, and seek synergies.
Where relevant, and to increase impact, proposals should seek links and synergies as well as capitalise on the results of past and ongoing research projects (including under the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU) / Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE JU)).
In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement.
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Expected effects and impacts
A successful proposal will contribute to all Destination ‘Circular economy and bioeconomy sectors’ impacts related to consumers and industry, in particular to development of innovative and sustainable value-chains in the bio-based sectors and of European industrial sustainability, competitiveness and EU resource independence / strategic autonomy. It will also contribute via research on biotechnology and other enabling technologies, as a prerequisite and driver of future solutions for the bioeconomy transition.
Expected results
- Enhanced understanding of terrestrial biodiversity and the limits and potentials of its valorisation;
- Addressing the need of sustainable sourcing and development of novel natural, sustainable and ‘eco-friendly’ (including ‘climate-friendly’) materials and product ingredients for various sectors and applications. These will eventually deliver clear-cut benefits for consumers by being more effective and/or eco-friendly, cheaper, better for climate, and more readily accessible than existing fossil-based alternatives;
- Improved sustainable exploitation, cultivation and processing methods based on promising species/organisms (including complex inter-species communities), and chosen production routes; leading to a diminished pressure on the natural resources (especially biodiversity) in situ.
- Increased competitiveness of European biotechnology, in particular the SMEs sector.
- Increased public knowledge and awareness of connections between biodiversity and biotechnology and its potentials, leading to increased trust in the scientific approaches based on informed and robust communication and mutual-learning efforts.
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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.
other eligibility criteria
Activities are expected to achieve TRL 3-5 by the end of the project.
For the Technology Readiness Level (TRL), the following definitions apply:
- TRL 1 — Basic principles observed
- TRL 2 — Technology concept formulated
- TRL 3 — Experimental proof of concept
- TRL 4 — Technology validated in a lab
- TRL 5 — Technology validated in a relevant environment (industrially relevant environment in the case of key enabling technologies)
- TRL 6 — Technology demonstrated in a relevant environment (industrially relevant environment in the case of key enabling technologies)
- TRL 7 — System prototype demonstration in an operational environment
- TRL 8 — System complete and qualified
- TRL 9 — Actual system proven in an operational environment (competitive manufacturing in the case of key enabling technologies, or in space)
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 45 pages.
Call documents
HE-Work Programme 2023-2024, Cluster 6, Destination 3HE-Work Programme 2023-2024, Cluster 6, Destination 3(463kB)
Contact
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