Thu, 24 October, 2024
Submitting proposals for grant (also known as public) funding is a highly competitive activity. However when a proposal is successful, it can provide the financial means to move new engineering technologies from the concept stage through to product / system development in the form of a live project. One of the primary sources of grant funding is the EU’s Horizon Europe (HE) programme, which regularly publishes competitions calling for consortia of interdisciplinary partners to submit proposals that meet the technological and/or industrial challenge that defines the funding criteria. The research and innovation budget of HE is around €95.5 billion for the period 2021 to 2027.
TWI has a dedicated Technology Innovation Management (TIM) team who, since 2008, has contributed to 445+ winning proposals, assisted more than 1,780 partner organisations and secured over £582m of grant funding. Based on this practical experience, we now look at two critical aspects to be mindful of when making submissions to HE competitions (also known as ‘calls’): how the end-to-end project proposal process is managed; and which elements of the proposal will be most scrutinised by the competition’s evaluators.
Proposal preparation best practice
Alignment between your project idea and the targeted HE call is key. Therefore, a clear value proposition will demonstrate how your project addresses the call’s goals and the contribution it expects to make to the EU’s strategic priorities. A diverse consortium, with complementary experience, is essential to delivering the proposal’s vision, so collaborating partners are typically a mix of SMEs and larger enterprises, NGOs, other RTOs and academic institutions and, on occasion, end users. Each partner’s role should be clearly defined, and their combined expertise enable the scope, objectives, eligibility criteria and expected impacts of the project to be met. All this requires careful planning so the partners will appoint a Proposal Coordinator, often from the lead organisation within the consortium.
The proposal itself must be formulated in accordance with the HE template, requiring information such as:
- A detailed work programme broken down into work packages with specific tasks, milestones and partner responsibilities
- How the project finances will be managed including personnel costs, travel expenses and equipment provision
- Plans for dissemination and communication of project results
- Anticipated societal, economic and environmental impacts
- Ways in which the new technology, system or process developed can be exploited by industry
Regularly reviewing the proposal during its preparation will help to ensure that you have covered everything pertinent and it meets the funding call criteria. The final activity is to submit the proposal through the EU’s Funding and Tenders Portal to meet the deadline. While the proposal is being evaluated, you may be asked to provide additional information, and if the proposal goes on to be successful, the terms and conditions of the funding are finalised through grant agreement with the EU.
What evaluators look for in a proposal
Proposals submitted to Horizon Europe (HE) are subject to two main stages; the admissibility check and the detailed evaluation. The former confirms that the proposal was submitted on time, the document format guidelines adhered to and the eligibility criteria met. Proposals that meet these requirements then proceed to the detailed evaluation which is based on ‘Excellence, Impact, and Quality and Efficiency of Implementation.’
Excellence
Excellence centres on the project’s scientific and technical innovation. Aspects Evaluators look for include clarity and pertinence of objectives, a well-structured, coherent methodology, inter-disciplinary approaches, and sound underlying concepts, models and assumptions. Where high-level innovation is incorporated, detailed execution plans are required to demonstrate feasibility. Evaluators also seek open-science practices, such as managing the research outputs in line with FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles. At this stage, the proposal must already give comfort to the evaluator that the proposed work scope to answer the brief of the call is already evidenced and plausible.
Impact
Impact assesses the anticipated project benefits and whether these align with EU strategic priorities. Pathways to achieve the planned outcomes should be credible as the Evaluator will examine whether the impacts cited are realistic, measurable and relate directly to the HE call criteria. Effective dissemination and exploitation strategies are, therefore, vital components of the proposal, as well as outlining routes for commercialisation of the project’s innovations and substantiating market opportunities with detailed analysis.
Quality and efficiency of implementation
The final part of the detailed evaluation focuses on project feasibility. A high-quality, coherent work plan will demonstrate how the work packages reflect project complexity and goals. Allocation of personnel, materials and time should be realistic, and the budget justifiable, and the project partners should collectively have proven expertise to deliver the project. In addition, the Evaluator will want to see the inclusion of identified potential risks and effective mitigation strategies.
Heidi Dyson, Group Manager, Project and Contracts Management at TWI, has extensive experience in all aspects of proposal to project delivery and audits, and was previously an Expert Evaluator, rapporteur and Expert Reviewer for the Horizon 2020 programme, predecessor to Horizon Europe. Speaking about the competitive nature of applying for grant funding and the intensive nature of project proposal preparation, Heidi said “Getting the balance of consortium partners right will help to maximise collaborative working and generate innovative thinking towards state-of-the-art technology solutions. It is important that the proposal shows how the consortium can deliver the planned impacts for growth in jobs, the economy and sustainability, across Europe and associated member states. The overall concept can then be developed into work packages, the budget and resources allocated, dissemination and communication plans formulated and so on. In combination, these will help to ensure a well-rounded and competitive proposal.”
TWI’s dedicated Technology Innovation Management team is always available to support companies and organisations who are seeking to collaborate on new research and development projects. If this is something you are currently exploring, simply send an email to info@twi-innovation-network.com and one of the team will be in touch.