InDiCo-Global First Open Call | Indico Global Grants

InDiCo-Global will provide € 1.000.000 of funding to promote European digital/ICT standards in target countries/regions (African Union, China, Eastern Partnership, India, Latin America and Caribbean, Southeast Asia, Western Balkans), building bridges across technical communities. Through three open calls, this funding will enable the specialists to promote the European Standardisation System (ESS) and European standards in partner countries/regions for select ICT/digital technologies, thereby creating opportunities for capacity building as well as strengthening and promoting Europe’s position and vision in global standardisation initiatives.

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The topics and priorities for the series of InDiCo-Global 1st call, which will run from May 2024 until early August 2024, are defined through continuous monitoring and careful analysis of the international standardisation landscape with the involvement of Standards Development Organisations (SDOs) and National Standards Bodies (NSBs), key EC advisory groups including the High-Level Forum on European Standardisation (HLF) the EU Multi-Stakeholder Platform for ICT Standardisation (MSP), and InDiCo-Global partners ETSI, CEN and CENELEC, the European Standards Organizations.

IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ BEFORE SUBMITTING AN APPLICATION

In accordance with Article 137 of the Financial Regulation No 966/2012 on Financial Support to Third Parties, the maximum amount to be granted to each Third Party may not exceed € 50.000 (fifty thousand euro). In practice, an individual may apply and be awarded funding (Financial Support to Third Parties) under different calls but cannot exceed an overall total limit of € 50.000 (fifty thousand euros) in funding.

An application evaluated as eligible for FSTP funding but not selected for funding (due to higher-ranking proposals) may be re-submitted in a subsequent call.

Rejection of a former application does not prevent an applicant from submitting other proposals in subsequent calls.

Open call Timing: Call Launch: Monday 6th of May 2024, 09:00 CEST
Call Closure: Monday 5th of August 2024, 17:00 CEST

1st Open Call Topic Priorities

Applications that address any of the topics mentioned below, linked to digital/ICT standards in target countries/regions (see above), will be considered of equal validity and merit during the evaluation process.
Given the overall scope of the core of the InDiCo-Global project, calls should ideally address a combination of policy agendas, international cooperation principles and technical topics.
Policy agendas and supporting legislation

EU Data Strategy
European Accessibility Act
Chips Act
Digital Services Act
Digital Market Act
Cybersecurity Act
Cyber Resilience Act
AI Act
eIDAS Regulation
Data Act
Data Governance Act
Circular Economy Action Plan
Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation
Network and Information Security Directive
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
ePrivacy?
Open Data Directive

and any other relevant policy/strategy/vision for ICT/digital adopted in the EU.

International cooperation principles

Enhance and develop cooperation on EU’s ICT standards
Develop knowledge exchange activities for targeted actors
Learn about the European ICT standardisation landscape
Develop common approaches, tools and guidelines on lessons learned

Proposal topics

The list below, building on topics from the Multi-Stakeholder Platform Rolling Plan for ICT Standardisation, provides a blueprint for the main tech areas under consideration.

FOUNDATIONAL DRIVERS

Data Economy
Cybersecurity/Network and Information security
E-Privacy

KEY ENABLERS

5G and Beyond (6G)
Cloud and Edge Computing
Big Data & Open data
IoT Internet of Things
Electronic identification and trust services (including e-signature)
E-infrastructure for data and computing intensive service
Broadband infrastructure mapping
Accessibility of ICT products and services
Artificial Intelligence
European Global Navigation Satellite Systems (EGNSS)
Quantum Technologies

SOCIETAL CHALLENGES

E-Health, Healthy living and ageing
Accessibility of ICT products and services
Digital skills
Digital learning
E-Government
E-call
Pandemic Preparedness
Safety, transparency and due process online
Emergency communications and public warning systems
E-Procurement
E-Invoicing
Retail payments
FinTech & RegTech Standardisation
Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies

SUSTAINABLE GROWTH

Smart Grids and Smart Metering
Smart and Sustainable Cities
ICT Environmental impact
Intelligent Transport Systems
Digitisation of Industry
Robotics and autonomous systems
Construction building information modelling
Water management digitalisation
U-Space
Circular Economy, including Digital Product Passport

and any other relevant policy/strategy/vision for ICT/digital adopted in the EU.

Type of activities

Proposals may include various types of activities linked to policy and standardisation for digital, such as:

Landscaping analyses/studies (e.g. Policy, Regulation and Standards landscape in the African Union, Southeast Asia, Eastern Partnership, Western Balkans, etc.);
Organisation of thematic events & workshops;
Bilateral interactions with European SDOs and policymakers;
Hackathons;
Developer outreach;
Training workshops;

Landscaping studies structure

The proposals addressing landscaping studies will need to cover, at a minimum:

Government organisations in charge of devising ICT (digital) policy
Including a compendium of policy and legislative sources that frame the activity
Organizations involved in ICT standardisation (whether governmental or industry-led)
Main Industry players (including local trade associations), market position.
Interaction between players, assessment of the relative influence of organizations involved.
Description, role and influence of regional organisations
If relevant, policy and means to influence international ICT standardization
Compendium of existing ICT R&I initiatives in collaboration with EU

A technology focus should also be included, with a view to providing a greater level of detail for:

5G/6G, Internet of Things, Security and AI, regarding:
Organisations in charge of policy-making and legislation/regulation
Including identification of policy and legislative sources that frame the activity
Organisation involved in standardisation (whether governmental or industry-led)
Including the status of international collaboration
Main industrial players and if workable, investment in standardisation
Interaction between players, assessment of the relative influence of organisations involved.

Deliverables must include the study report itself and a presentation with key findings and suggestions to be presented during a webinar targeting project stakeholders.

Open Call for Applications Timing: InDiCo-Global will run a sequence of 3 Open Calls. Each call will be open for 90 days for proposal submission. At the end of the ninety-day period, all proposals received through the InDiCo-Global grants platform will be screened for eligibility, evaluated by an external pool of evaluators (EPE), scored, and ranked for funding. This process usually lasts approximately 30 days, at the end of which all applicants shall be notified whether their proposal has been retained for funding and provided access to a consensus report compiled by the EPE. Rejected proposals will also be notified. Eligible proposals that are not initially selected for funding will be placed on a waiting list. Updated proposals may be submitted at the next call.

Evaluation Process

Each proposal is evaluated by two members of the External Pool of Evaluators, and after reaching a consensus, the evaluation undergoes a quality check by a third member of the pool.

Notification of Outcome for the first round of the Open Call: By mid-August 2024, applicants will be notified of the outcome of their proposal and provided with feedback from the External Pool of Evaluators in an Evaluation Report. Should the proposal comply with the criteria indicated herein, applicants will receive notification of the proposal's eligibility (label "eligible"). Rejected applications will be labelled as "non eligible".

After deemed eligible, proposals will be sent to evaluation phase through the InDiCo-Global External Pool of Experts (labelled as "in evaluation"). The peer-review phase will last for about 30 days since notification. Should the proposal pass the evaluation phase, it will undergo a final scrutiny check of the InDiCo-Global's Steering Committee to minimise potential issues and conflicts of interest.

If your proposal is retained for funding, upon notification, you will be provided with the information and instructions to prepare and sign the contract for the funding. Please note that a deadline of 10 business days from notification will be applied to confirm your intention to take up the contract to enable the funds to be reallocated to other successful applicants.

Please note that two EPE members independently evaluate each application and undergo quality control by a third member of the pool after a consensus is reached to guarantee maximum fairness and transparency. As the EPE are highly skilled experts whose qualifications are assessed through an open call process, their decision is binding, and any redress requests or complaints will be dealt with strictly in relation to the procedural aspects of the evaluation and not on the merits of the scientific or technical judgement of the experts.

Who can receive financial support?

Potential applicants to InDiCo-Global’s Open Calls must be legal entities based in European Union Member States and Associate Countries or in the countries within the targeted geographies of InDiCo-Global, excluding China and Belarus.

To avoid double-funding, any proposed activities already financed through other means or instruments will be rejected. However, co-funding of the submitted proposal is permissible.

Eligible Costs

Eligible costs that will be reimbursed are:

personnel costs;
equipment costs;
travel costs (calculate travel costs on the EC website)
subsistence costs (check EU's subsistence and hotel ceiling here);
other direct costs (e.g., hosting costs, dissemination costs);
subcontracting costs;

(an overhead of 25% will be applied to all costs except for subcontracting costs).

The exact amount to be funded will be calculated on the basis of the submitted costs by the Proposing Organisation. Funding will adopt the lump sum principle, meaning that once costs are agreed upon, the beneficiary does not have to further justify spending. Funding will, in most cases, come in two waves: a pre-financing provided at the start of the project and a final payment to be made upon completion of the project, subject to acceptance of deliverables/milestones by the InDiCo-Global project team. The balance between pre-financing and final payment will depend on the funds needed for the implementation of the project. For proposals spanning over a long period, further pre-financing during execution may be considered.

Evaluation Criteria

The initial eligibility screening will be undertaken by the Consortium to assess compliance with the call. Proposals that are ineligible for any reason or that do not meet the call criteria will be identified as such, and the applicant will be notified. The consortium will consolidate all eligible proposals and submit them to the external evaluators (selected from the External Pool of Evaluators – EPE) to undertake the formal evaluation.

Formal evaluation will include a thorough review of each of the proposals. Evaluations (for each proposal) will be performed using the following 4-criteria principle (score 1 to 10):

Criterion 1: Impact and alignment with the call – Soundness of the proposal and foreseen impact in alignment with the call (weight: 30%);
Criterion 2: Excellence – Technical excellence & relevance of the activities proposed (weight: 30%);
Criterion 3: Capacity – Experience and qualifications of the applicant (s) (weight: 20%);
Criterion 4: Resources – Economics of the proposal (weight: 20%).

Furthermore, the assessment of the above criteria will be supplemented by the below sub-criteria, which, while not mandatory, may boost the score for the criterion under consideration:

Topics which are relevant to InDiCo-Global;
Involvement of societal stakeholders;
Inclusion of the applicant organisation in the ICT standardisation ecosystem in the target country;
Participation in relevant international and/or global standards development organisations;
Proven capacity and/or relevance in the chosen area;
Existing or possibility to develop an ESS case study on the selected tech topic & share with the target country;
Inclusion of New Legislative Framework (NLF) and ESS visibility as a part of the capacity-building package.

The proposal’s final score will be automatically determined by averaging scores from the various evaluators and then applying a weighting process among the four criteria as per the percentages indicated above. In case of a tie between 2 or more proposals, the proposal received first will be selected (the “time stamp” of submission will be the reference). The evaluation of the Open Calls will ensure impartiality and applicants selected for funding have to guarantee that no conflicts of interest exist.

Proposals are encouraged to exhibit consideration for social equality and inclusiveness.

For more info about the InDiCo-Global First Open Call, please contact info@indico-global-grants.eu and watch the recording of the first information session here.