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  1. An institution, body, office or agency established by or based on the Treaty on European Union and the Treaties establishing the European Communities.

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    An intergovernmental organization having legal personality under public international law or a specialized agency established by such an international organization. An international organization, the majority of whose members are Member States or Associated Countries and whose main objective is to promote scientific and technological cooperation in Europe, is an International Organization of European Interest.

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    An NPO is an institution or organization which, by virtue of its legal form, is not profit-oriented or which is required by law not to distribute profits to its shareholders or individual members. An NGO is a non-governmental, non-profit organization that does not represent business interests. Pursues a common purpose for the benefit of society.

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    A research institution is a legal entity established as a non-profit organization whose main objective is to conduct research or technological development. A college/university is a legal entity recognized by its national education system as a university or college or secondary school. It may be a public or private institution.

    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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  1. Governance, partnership: Projects aimed at increasing the application of multilevel and transnational or cross-border governance, designing and testing appropriate governance structures and mechanisms. Also cooperation between public institutions on any theme.

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    Activities focussing on agricultural products, organic farming, horticulture, as well as forest management and wood products; furthermore the development of the food sector, food chains, organic food production, and seafood products and any topics related to animals and fishing.

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    Activities that protect, promote and enhance cultural and natural heritage, increase the attractiveness through preservation and valorisation of common cultural and natural heritage in a sustainable manner, and improve and develop cultural and natural heritage objects, services and products. Cultural heritage management, art and culture, (maritime) heritage routes, access to cultural and natural heritage. Also all topics on cultural services such as festivals, concerts, art workshops.

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    Community integration and common identity projects that build identity, create a more cohesive society, promote positive relations through an increased provision of shared spaces and services.

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    This is about the mitigation and management of risks and disasters, and the anticipation and response capacity towards the actors regarding specific risks and management of natural disasters, for example, prevention of flood and drought hazards, forest fire, strong weather conditions, etc.. It is also about risk assessment and safety.

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    This deals with the development of health and social services and improved accessibility and efficiency for different groups (elderly, children, etc.). It is also about new healthcare models and medical diagnosis and treatments (dementia, cancer, diabetes, etc.), hospitals, care management, and rare diseases, as well as improving wellbeing and promoting sports.

    Projects about (organised) crime, efficient and secure borders, such as enhancing the effectiveness of the police in the prevention of drug crimes, the development of safety services, or tackling security and organised crime issues.

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    • Transport and mobility covering all sorts of transport (incl. urban transport) and mobility.
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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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Deadline expired

The deadline for this call has expired.

Call key data

Backbone connectivity for Digital Global Gateways - Studies

Funding Program

Connecting Europe Facility - Digital

Call number

CEF-DIG-2023-GATEWAYS-STUDIES

deadlines

Opening
17.10.2023

Deadline
17.01.2024 17:00

Call budget

€ 15,000,000.00

Estimated EU contribution per project

€ 5,000,000.00

Link to the call

ec.europa.eu

Link to the submission

ec.europa.eu

Call content

short description

The objective of this call is to support the deployment of strategic networks as part of the Digital Global Gateway Strategy of the EU, contributing to strengthen the quality of connectivity within the Union as well as with third countries. This call is technology neutral. The applicants should justify that their proposal provides the best technology suited for the call objectives, which may include submarine cables systems, satellite infrastructures and connectivity to internet exchange points.

Call objectives

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-2023-GATEWAYS-WORKS).

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.

Please consult the call document for more information on the scope, including digital security requirements.

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.

Key performance indicators for this topic will include: i) the total length of the backbone or, for wireless solutions, the distance between transmission/reception stations, and ii) the additional (significant) transmission capacity created as a result of the projects supported by CEF. For submarine cables the number of fibre pairs, the current capacity per fibre pair, as well as the technology chosen and whether the system is repeated or unrepeated should be mentioned in the proposal, too.

Expected results

By supporting the targeted deployment of such connectivity, CEF Digital will have a positive impact not only on strengthening the connectivity capacity, but also on stimulating commercial offers of connectivity.

Access to backbone connectivity in EU Member States differs significantly. In certain regions a lack of adequate backbone connectivity may have an impact on the development of and service provided by access networks and generate possible imbalances in the prices of services, both for network operators in these regions, as well as for the users.

In particular, the connectivity situation for Member States that are themselves islands and/or have islands as part of their territory differs significantly from other Member States. For some remote territories such as islands, Outermost Regions and Overseas Countries and Territories, commercial prices and other conditions of backbone connectivity may hinder the full participation of both users and enterprises in the digital European economy.

Furthermore, the infrastructures connecting remote territories may be ageing or insufficient, which poses risks the resilience of those regions, both from an economic and social point of view, especially in case of insufficient redundancy and available capacity of other alternative infrastructures to connect the regions.

In such areas, market forces alone may not provide answers to all of these challenges. As a result, certain areas may remain underserved or experience higher prices for access to backbone connectivity.

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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)) 

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.

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

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

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

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) containing additional project data

Mandatory annexes and supporting documents (to be uploaded)

  • detailed budget table per Work Package (template available in the Submission System). The detailed budget table should contain one or several dedicated work packages related to the use case(s). 
  • activity reports of the last finalized accounting year (unless exempted from operational capacity check; see section 7 of call document)
  • 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 (Member States agreement) (template available in the Submission System, the list of MS contact points is published in the HADEA website)
  • ownership control questionnaire (including for subcontractors and associated partners, template available in the Submission System)
  • security declarations signed by the participating entities (template available in the Submission System) 
  • 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 18 March 2024, 17:00:00 CET (Brussels) 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, template available in the Submission System)
  • other annexes

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

Call documents

CEF-DIG-2023-GATEWAYS Call documentCEF-DIG-2023-GATEWAYS Call document(548kB)

Contact

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

European Health and Digital Executive Agency - HaDEA
Website

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