Applying for funding in Horizon Europe

Project concept and preparation

It takes an extended amount of time and work to prepare an application for EU research funding, and several factors are important for the proposal to succeed. An application to Horizon Europe requires a project idea that is relevant to the call text. Ensure that you are familiar with both the aim of Horizon Europe and the specific call and funding instrument before you start.

UKRO has made several factsheets covering different aspects of the project preparation phase, see External resources below.

Thematic vs bottom-up

Calls under thematically defined areas such as Global Challenges, are thematically specific and described in detail in the document "Work Programme" which is published at the same time as the call. Make sure that you address everything given in the call topic description, the application must respond to and meet all problems at hand raised in the Work Programme. Forcing your own favorite project idea into a thematic call topic will most likely not succeed.

Mark that the global challenges are complex and usually require interdisciplinary solutions. In Horizon Europe, expected outcomes of the projects are emphasized even more. Calls that will contribute to specific Missions, are expected to contribute to very specific outcomes that are defined in the call text.

For the bottom-up instruments such as ERC and the Marie S. Curie Actions the applicant is free to choose the theme and academic content, but you must still understand and fulfill the idea behind the funding instrument.

Consortium

For projects with more than one beneficiary, you need a good international network / good partners. The minimum requirement is at least three independent legal entity partners, each of them established in different EU member states/associated countries where at least one must be from a member State, but there are usually more partners in the consortium. The Work Programme should be read carefully, and the consortium must be adjusted so that all issues can be resolved. The global challenges are often complex and usually require interdisciplinary solutions and activities from research to innovation, and thus the consortium must reflect this. It is important to meet all requirements of the call and the application templates. For most funding instruments the guidelines can be found in the proposal templates and the annexes to the Work Programme.

Funding and Tender opportunities - the portal

Applications are managed and submitted electronically through the web portal Funding and Tender opportunities. To be able to submit applications through the portal, you need to create an account. You only register once, the account can be used for all future applications. Make sure to get registered and familiarize yourself with the portal well before the call deadline.

It is also recommended to submit your application well before the deadline, in case there should be technical issues that delays the submission. The application can be saved and submitted several times. The latest uploaded version submitted before the deadline will be evaluated. The submission service can be found in the portal under the relevant call.

Project roles

There are several roles you can hold in a project:

• Coordinator: If you are taking the initiative, you will normally have the coordinator role. Then you will be communicating with the Commission and managing the project. All reporting, both scientific and financial, will be going from the other partners via coordinator. Being coordinator can be laborious and requires additional resources, capability for project management and communication. Remember that in the application you can request additional funding for management of the project. While it is demanding to be coordinator, it is also rewarding. You get a unique position in the project, a central position in relation to the European Commission and will have better visibility as a researcher.
• Work package leader: If you do not wish to be the coordinator, it may often be desirable to be a work package leader, which gives the responsibility for parts of the project. This usually ensures that you join the project's core group or steering commitee.
• Partner: Common partners are participating with limited responsibility in one or more work packages in the project, and on equal terms with the other partners. All partners have basically the same rights and obligations. Subcontractors are linked to a partner in relation to a limited subcontracting of technical / professional nature and to the same terms as the other partners.

Mark that the term "beneficiary" is used by the Commission about all parties that receives funding from the Commission. 

Filling out proposal templates

Templates and forms as well as all other reference documents for all call areas can be found on the web page Reference Documents in the portal.

The application consists of two parts:

I)  Administrative Forms (Part A):

Includes a brief presentation of the project, formalia about the institution, budget and ethics issues table. Budget must be clarified with the financial cooordinator at the applicant's unit. The Commission is putting more emphasis on ethics than ever, and the ethics issues tables must be gone through carefully and duly completed. Be aware that by ticking off boxes, more options related to that subject will appear and must be gone through.

In Part A, you are asked to fill in the "Participant Identification Code" (PIC code).  By filling in the PIC code certain information regarding the host institution will automatically appear.

The PIC code for UiO is 999975814. This is the only PIC code that should be used when applying with UiO as host.

II) Research Proposal (Part B):

This is the scientific text part of the application and must be filled in by the researcher/coordinator. How to fill in the different parts are explained in the templates. For coordinator projects, partners must provide information for the parts describing the members of the consortium. The templates vary to some degree between different funding instruments. All templates can be found at the Commission's pages.

Part B consists of the following parts:

1) Excellence: here the work programme topic is addressed with objectives, relation to the work programme, concept and approach and ambition for the project.

2) Impact: here you describe the expected impact of the project and how it will contribute to the relevant topic, how you will try to maximize impact through dissemination and exploitation of results and communication activities.

3) Quality and efficiency of the implementation: presentation of the work plan broken down to packages, deliverables and milestones, management structure, description of the consortium, and resouces.

4) Members of the consortium (if relevant to the call)

5) Ethics and security 

Gender equality

To be eligible, legal entities that are public bodies, research organisations or higher education establishments must have a gender equality plan (GEP), covering certain minimum requirements described in the work programme. Applicants are requested to tick off for whether the host institution has a GEP in part A2 of the proposal template.  UiO's  "Action Plan for Gender Equality, Gender Balance and Diversity" that runs from 2021-2024 was adopted by the Board in May 2021. Therefore applicants can confirm this action point in proposals where UiO takes part. The action plan and resources covering the requirements can be found here.

Ethics and security

Under part 5) of the proposal, you are asked to tick off for possible ethical issues in the project. If you have entered any ethics issues in the ethical issue table in the administrative proposal forms, you must submit an ethics self-assessment with the application. This should describe how the proposal meets the national legal and ethical requirements of the country or countries where the tasks raising ethical issues are to be carried out, and explain in detail how you intend to address the issues in the ethical issues table. You should  provide a scan of the documents that you need under national law (if you already have them), or describe how you are going to obtain them before starting the project.

UiO have gathered information about the ethics evaluation process for ERC projects presented here. The presentation is directed at ERC projects, but is valid for other instruments as well.

Read more about How to complete your ethic's self-assesment  on the Commission's web pages

Read more about Research ethics guardlines on The Norwegian National Committees for Research Ethics (De Forskningsetiske komiteer)

Standard Templates

The Commission has collected all proposal templates in the portal Reference Documents under the file folder "Templates and Forms"

ERC Supporting Documentation

Information about ERC supporting documentation can be found at our pages about Preparing an ERC application with UiO as host institution

Description of participating organisation

Many funding instruments ask for a description of the entities participating in the project proposal. Typically, one is asked to describe the legal entity and its main tasks, with an explanation of how its profile matches the tasks in the proposal. The actual wording and angle depends on the funding instrument. In general, it can be relevant to write a bit about UiO as a whole, with information regarding relevant facts and figures, ranking, UiO's past and present EU participation, excellent research centres, working conditions for academic staff and Charter and Code at UiO. Even more important is the description of the actual research environment where the project will be located and run. You need to show that is has the relevant experience, networks, capacity, infrastructure, support system, or other elements needed to deliver their part of the project.

Budget

In general, preparation of the budget should follow the general routines and guidelines of UiO and the standard budget templates for EU-projects at UIO must be used.

The budget should always be made in collaboration with/clarified with the financial coordinator at the unit. It is important to have a realistic budget, which is consistent with the activities described in the application. All partners on the proposal should agree the approximate budget distribution for the project before submission of the application.

Costs

Funding for collaborative projects under Horizon Europe (and ERC projects) for participants from the academic sector is 100% of direct costs plus an indirect overhead of 25% (indirect costs are not paid on subcontracting costs). Best estimates of costs calculated through partner institutions’ usual costing tool are usually sufficient at application stage.

All costs that are necessary to implement the project should be budgeted, included cots such as audit, IPR costs, open access publishing. The annotated Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement provides full details of eligible costs and how these will be calculated during a successful project’s life.

Note that a different financial regime applies to Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions. Some other elements of Horizon Europe also have different funding rules – e.g. prizes.

Exchange rate

From UiO (LOS), a recommended exchange rate is given for budgeting proposals/projects in Horizon Europe. The exchange rate is based on the average for the two previous years is used and a risk factor of 0.2 is deducted. The recommended exchange rate is adjusted every six months, respectively per March and September, and can be found in the budget templates.

However it is important to bear in mind that the responsibility for determining the final exchange rate and associated financial risk lies at the local level. The project owners are thus free to override the recommended exchange rate. Any currency gains / losses will be the responsibility of the individual entity.

Templates and information

For applicants from UiO, a budget template based on UiO's guidelines for budgeting is developed. Go to "utarbeide søknadsbudsjett" for budget templates and more information on budgeting (in Norwegian). Here you can also find the full document "Vedtatt valutapolicy ved UiO" regarding handling exchange rate at UiO (in Norwegian).

UiO financial arrangement model

For those interested in learning more about UiO's internal financial arrangement model, go to Intern finansieringsmodell (in Norwegian).

Evaluation

Once an applications is submitted, the Commission will check that it is admissible and eligible. It will then be evaluated by independent experts, which gives scores on excellence, impact, and quality and efficiency of implementation, based on the award criteria set out in the call. The award criteria are published at the same time as the call, and the applicants should always read them carefully before writing and submitting the application. A panel then checks that the criteria have been consistently applied to all proposals for the same call.

On the page Reference Documents, you can find Standard evaluation forms for all calls. These self-evaluations can be a useful tool for benchmarking your proposal before submitting.

The evaluators have to read a lot of applications, and hence spend only a short time on each application. This means that you must have a neat design of the application and a presentation that captivates the evaluators from the first page. This requires an excellent project idea and a solid consortium, but also a good overview of the research front in the relevant topic area, a good political orientation within the subject area, and that the project responds to all the Commission's requirements.

3-5 months after the deadline, participants receive an Evaluation Results Letter about the outcome of the evaluation. If the proposal is successful, grant preparations are opened for the highest-scoring proposals.