1. Role of ERANet-LAC and its Joint Calls

ERANet-LAC is funded by the European Commission, within the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technology Development (FP7). The project supports the implementation of the Joint Initiative for Research and Innovation (JIRI) between the EU Member States and Associated Countries and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). It strengthens the bi-regional partnership in Science, Technology and Innovation by planning and implementing concrete joint activities and by establishing an innovative and sustainable framework for future bi-regional joint activities.

The aim of the ERANet-LAC Joint Calls is to start new, sustainable and multilateral research cooperation between researchers from Europe, Latin-America and the Caribbean countries.

Within the framework of the first ERANet-LAC Joint Call, transnational research projects will be funded for a period of up to 36 months.

Two types of collaborative activities can be funded by this Joint Call: Research and Innovation. Both types can include mobility and networking. Combination of the above mentioned activities is possible or even desirable, where permitted by, and conditioned upon, the national regulations of the individual Funding Parties.

2. Design of the first ERANet-LAC Joint Call

The design of the first ERANet-LAC Joint Call is of a flexible nature to ensure that a wide variety of funding institutions is able to join the Joint Call – and that as many researchers as possible from European, Latin-American and Caribbean countries are eligible for funding. For this reason, each participating funding institution will apply its individual national/regional funding regulations. Applicants should therefore, before the submission of a proposal, check the national/regional regulations (see http://eranet-lac.eu/Joint_Calls.php national regulations for all participating funding organizations) and call the National/Regional Call Contact Person (listed PART 2) for guidance.

2.1 Participating countries/regions and Call Topics

In total, 20 national/regional funding organizations have agreed to participate in the first ERANet-LAC Joint Call for funding research projects

• Argentina:
  • Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Productiva, MINCYT
• Belgium:
  • Belgian Science Policy, BELSPO
  • Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique, F.R.S.-FNRS
• Brazil:
  • Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnológico, CNPq
• Chile:
  • Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica, CONICYT
• Colombia:
  • Departamento Administrativo de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación, COLCIENCIAS
• Dominican Republic:
  • Ministerio de Educación Superior, Ciencia y Tecnología, MESCyT
• France:
  • Bpifrance
  • Ministère de l’Education Nationale, de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche - Ministère des Affaires Etrangères et de Développement International, MENESR-MAEDI
• Germany:
  • Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF
• Mexico:
  • Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, CONACYT
• Norway:
  • Norges Forskningsrad, RCN
• Panama:
  • Secretaria Nacional de Ciência, Tecnologia e Innovación, SENACYT
• Peru:
  • Consejo Nacional de Ciencia Tecnología e Innovación Tecnológica, CONCYTEC
• Portugal:
  • Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, FCT
• Romania:
  • Unitatea Executiva pentru Finantarea Invatamantului Superior, a Cercetarii, Dezvoltarii si Inovarii, UEFISCDI
• Spain:
  • Instituto de Salud Carlos III, ISCIII
  • Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, MINECO
• Turkey:
  • Turkiye Bilimsel vê Teknolojik Arastirma Kurumu, TUBITAK
• Uruguay:
  • Ministerio de Educación y Cultura, MEC

Proposals must be submitted by transnational consortia. Only researchers based in the countries/regions listed below each of the mentioned topics are eligible for funding through the ERANet-LAC Joint Call. Researchers from other countries / regions may also participate under special conditions (see section 2.2).

The following list shows the list of topics and the countries that are funding each of the topics mentioned (please see Annex 1 for full details on the topics):

Biodiversity assessment and monitoring - Improving baseline distribution data and compatibility with climate datasets.
Participating countries: Argentina, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, France, Norway, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Uruguay.

Screening for new bioactive metabolites and enzymes from terrestrial and marine microorganizms for industrial use, based on market demand.
Participating countries: Argentina, Belgium, Chile, Dominican Republic, France, Norway, Panama, Peru, Romania.

Small-scale self-sustainable biorefineries for multi-feedstock processing of agro-industrial and urban wastes for advanced biofuels, biobased chemicals and biomaterials.
Participating countries: Argentina, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, France, Germany, Mexico, Norway, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Uruguay.

Towards Zero Carbon Energy Systems for heating and cooling in industrial processes by means of solar technologies including the envelopes of the buildings.
Participating countries: Argentina, Chile, Dominican Republic, France, Mexico, Norway, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Turkey, Uruguay.

Evaluation of low-threshold interventions to tackle chronic metabolic disorders and their associated cardiovascular diseases in EU and LAC countries.
Participating countries: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, France, Panama, Peru, Romania, Spain, Turkey.

Research in prevention of infectious diseases and promotion of well-being.
Participating countries: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, Germany, France, Panama, Peru, Romania, Spain, Uruguay.

2.2 Composition of consortia

Applicants must be eligible for funding according to the regulations of their respective national Funding Parties. They can represent public and private scientific, research, technological and innovation institutions on national, federal or EU-LAC regional level, research active industry and NGOs and other institutions involved in research activities, as long as they are eligible for funding according to the respective national regulations.

Only transnational projects will be funded. Each collaborative consortium should have the optimal critical mass to achieve ambitious scientific/innovation goals and should clearly show an added value from working together.

The following criteria must be taken into account: Each consortium submitting a proposal must involve a minimum of four eligible partners from four different countries with at least two countries from each region (see the list of funding organizations in 2.1 and contact persons in PART 2). The consortium may not exceed a maximum of two partners per country.

Partners not eligible for funding may also be part of consortia if they are able to clearly demonstrate an added value to the consortium and secure their own funding. However, the coordinator and the majority of partners in a consortium must be eligible for the funding organizations participating in this Call. The self-financed/associated partners must provide the Call Secretariat with a signed official letter of support from their Head of Department or Financial Director. A pdf-version of this letter must be included as an annex at the end of the proposal before submitting. Self-financed partners cannot assume the role of coordinator of the consortium.

Each consortium should favourably include groups/researchers from both the academic and the industrial sector (if allowed by their respective National Regulations).

Each project consortium should choose a project coordinator who represents the consortium, submits the proposal, and establishes any further communication with the Call Secretariat. Within a joint proposal, each country will name a project leader (Latin-American/Caribbean and European) who will act as contact person towards the respective national funding organization(s).

A coordinator must not submit more than one proposal. However, one research institution – as a legal entity – is allowed to participate as a coordinator or partner in several project proposals.

If funded, consortium partners will need to draw up a Consortium Agreement (CA), which should include the fair handling of IPR, as outlined in the Standard Procedure on Horizontal Issues of Joint Funding Annex. The agreement must be signed no later than six months after the official project start date, but the consortium is strongly encouraged to start elaborating the CA before the project starts. Further instructions will be provided by the CS to the coordinators of the projects selected for funding (see below section 5, page 14).

NOTE: How to find partners
ERANet-LAC supports the identification of partner institutions in Latinamerica/Caribbean and Europe. On the project website http://eranet-lac.eu/Joint_Calls.php a partner search tool is published to help bringing together interested applicants from countries in both regions. Applicants who are looking for partner institutions in a specific country are asked to send their partner search request to: jointcall@eranet-lac.eu.
All requests will be published in the search tool and made available to all interested institutions immediately.

2.3 Allowable costs and duration of funding

Since funding will be administered according to the terms and conditions of the responsible funding organizations the concrete costs that can be financed through the project may vary for individual partners in a given project consortium. It is therefore important to check the national rules of the Funding Parties and to contact the respective national Call Contact Person. Both can be found at http://eranet-lac.eu/Joint_Calls.php.

The duration of a project can be up to 36 months (check national regulations). Approved projects are recommended to start as of September 2015.

NOTE for proposals including Brazilian partners: The deadline for Brazilian calls is October 17th, 2014 (see further information in Brazilian Call Regulations, page 31 http://eranet-lac.eu/Joint_Calls.php).

2.4 Call budget and funding principle

The ERANet-LAC Joint Call follows the juste retour principle. It means that the national and regional financial contributions to a virtual common pot will be assigned to project partners of the respective country and region only, in accordance with national and regional regulations. Cross-border funding is not envisaged.

The overall budget of the ERANet-LAC Joint Call is the sum of the individual budgets allocated by each participating funding institution. If more than one funding institution from a given country participates in the Joint Call, the added amount of these institutions is considered as the country’s overall Joint Call contribution.

An overview of the contribution from each funding institution to each of the call topics is given at http://eranet-lac.eu/Joint_Calls.php.

Some funding institutions may decide to set an upper limit for the budget that can be requested per project partner from their country. The upper funding limits may thus vary from one country to the other. Applicants should therefore thoroughly check the national and regional regulations stipulated at http://eranet-lac.eu/Joint_Calls.php and contact their National Call Contact Persons for information (PART 2).

3. Proposal submission

Project proposals must be submitted electronically using the CYTED webtool which is accessible directly at: http://calleranet-lac.cyted.org and through a link given on the ERANet-LAC Website: www.eranet-lac.eu. The only currency to be applied in the proposal is EURO.

The coordinator should fill in the webtool on behalf of the whole consortium and submit the proposal. Thus only one online proposal per project is needed. The coordinator must confirm that the proposal is endorsed by all project partners by clicking the relevant box in the CYTED webtool. A printed version of the proposal should not be sent to the Call Secretariat, but may be required by some national funding agencies (see National regulations).

Proposals sent by post, e-mail, fax, telex or facsimile will be rejected. All proposals must be written in English.

Once the proposal is submitted the web-tool sends a confirmation by email.

The webtool will be open for proposal submission from 16th September 2014
to 27th November 2014 (deadline of 15.00 hrs Central-European Time).

More information on how to submit a proposal with the CYTED online tool can be found in the Guidelines for Applicants at http://eranet-lac.eu/Joint_Calls.php.

4. Proposal evaluation and funding decision

4.1 Evaluation Procedure

The evaluation process involves five steps:

1. Eligibility check: Will be done by the Call Secretariat, in cooperation with the national partner representatives.
2. External written peer review: Will be done remotely by international experts from both regions covering the specific fields of the research topic(s) addressed in the 1st ERANet-LAC Call. Each evaluator fills in an individual evaluation form whereby s/he assigns a score to each evaluation item, resulting in an overall score for the Proposal. The evaluator also assesses the alignment of the Proposal with the objectives and scope of the call. Each proposal will be evaluated by at least 3 experts.
3. Ranking of proposals according to the external evaluation results, selection of the best proposals and funding recommendations: Will be done by the Scientific Evaluation Committees (SECs) in a consensus meeting, and organized by the Call Secretariat.
4. Approval of the proposals recommended for funding: Will be done by the Group of Funding Parties, accompanied by a report.
5. Final funding decision: Will be done by the respective national Funding Party, taking into account the evaluations and the budget allocated.

The final outcome of the evaluation, including the overall score and key remarks to be prepared by the Scientific Evaluation Committees and to be endorsed by the Groups of Funding Parties will be made available to the coordinators of the proposals after the evaluation and decision by the Group of Funding Parties has been completed.
The names of all external evaluators and the members of the SECs will be published on the ERANet-LAC website after the evaluation process has been finalized.

4.2 Eligibility Check / Eligible beneficiaries

Project proposal applicants are strongly advised to contact their National Call Contact Persons in due time before submission to check their national eligibility. The list of CCPs is provided in PART 2 and also on the call website (www.eranet-lac.eu/Joint_Calls).

A proposal must:

• Conform to the scope and the thematic focus of the call as described in Annex 1;
• meet the consortium composition requirements as specified above, page 6;
• comply with the maximum allowed duration (see page 3, 1.2)
• comply with the funding principles as specified (see page 7, 2.5 and National Funding Regulations listed at http://eranet-lac.eu/Joint_Calls.php);
• comply with the terms of the submission procedure as specified in paragraph 3: (page 7f, proposal submission);
• be complete according to the rules and in line with the required proposal structure described in the Guidelines for Applicants;
• be submitted in English;
• be submitted electronically using the tool found at http://calleranet-lac.cyted.org (see paragraph 3);
• meet the submission deadline.

Following submission, proposals will be subjected to an eligibility check.

First, the Call Secretariat will check the eligibility of the proposals against the criteria agreed by the Group of Funding Parties.

It will then inform the Group of Funding Parties about the results, providing the rationale for non-eligibility of individual proposals (if relevant) and ask the members of the GFP to check and confirm the eligibility of applicants from their country, according to their national regulations (see http://eranet-lac.eu/Joint_Calls.php for National Regulations).

Finally, the Group of Funding Parties (GFP) will approve the list of eligible proposals.

The Call Secretariat will then inform the Group of Funding Parties (GFP) about the results providing the rationale for non-eligibility of individual proposals (if relevant).

In a second step, the Call Secretariat will ask the members of the GFP to check and confirm the eligibility of applicants participating in a consortium according to their national regulations (see http://eranet-lac.eu/Joint_Calls.php for National Regulations).

Finally, the Group of Funding Parties (GFP) will approve the list of eligible proposals.

Only proposals meeting all the above-mentioned eligibility criteria will be processed by the Call Secretariat. Non-eligible proposals will be rejected. The applicants will be informed by the Call Secretariat.

 

5. Project implementation and reporting

Each consortium funded in the frame of ERANet-LAC 1st Joint Call must sign a Consortium Agreement listing the rights and responsibilities of each project partner. Depending on the nature of the funded project, special regulations should be included in the Consortium Agreement regarding Intellectual Property Rights. Scientific and technological results and any other information derived from the project can be announced, published or commercially exploited with the agreement of the partners of the funded projects and according to the national/regional regulations as well as international agreements concerning intellectual property rights.

The following regulations will apply to all research projects that are funded in the frame of the ERANet-LAC 1st Joint Call:

• In any publication of results, mention must be made of the support received in the frame of the ERANet-LAC1st Joint Call (“This work was supported by …). The ERANet-LAC logo and the internet address http://www.eranet-lac.eu should also be shown on the publication.
• Funding recipients must ensure that all outcomes (publications, etc.) of funded projects include a proper acknowledgement of ERANet-LAC and the respective national/regional funding partner organizations.

The coordinators of the funded projects will be requested to send an interim report to the ERANet-LAC Call Secretariat, latest 20th December 2016. The report should highlight the main (interim) results and outputs of the projects and any problems that have arisen and how they have been solved.

Additional individual reporting to the national/regional funding institutions might be necessary depending on national/regional regulations.

The progress and final results of each individual contract/letter of grant will be monitored by the respective national/regional funding organizations.

Websites:

http://www.eranet-lac.eu (for Call Text and National / Regional regulations, Guidelines for Applicants and project description template)

Link to the CYTED Online Submission Tool: http://calleranet-lac.cyted.org

Contact:

Call Secretariat
Guillermo Morales
CYTED – IBERO-AMERICAN PROGRAMME FOR SCIENCE; TECHNOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT
Tel: +34 915 31 63 87
Guillermo.morales@cyted.org