2nd Incubators Open Call: REINFORCING Project on Balkans

Deadline: 30-May-24

Applications are now open for the 2nd Reinforcing on Balkans to strengthen ORRI within the Balkan area engaging institutions to commit to understanding and implementing ORRI principles and practices.

REINFORCING supports organizations and institutions in Europe to transition to a new paradigm where responsibility and openness drive research and innovation processes. In order to make the green and digital transitions fair and inclusive, institutions and territories need to shift to more open and transparent R&I practices in which all actors share responsibility to develop services and products that are acceptable, sustainable and bring social satisfaction.

The Open and Responsible Research and Innovation (ORRI) approach promotes collaborative efforts. From sharing research outputs as early as possible to engaging citizens in co-creation processes, R&I should be open to the whole society.

Implementing ORRI can seem a daunting task. Over the past decade, many resources and tools have been created, but an effort to systematize, curate and create a single-entry point was still missing. REINFORCING is this much-needed European central hub for Open and Responsible R&I. The project’s platform is the entry point to knowledge, training, ORRI skills match-making and capacity building for organizations interested in starting or continuing their journey to creating an inclusive R&I ecosystem. Furthermore, the project brokers unique networking opportunities for organizations, institutions and territories interested in becoming part of the European ecosystem that is transforming the R&I system by bringing it closer to society and societal needs.

This call of project is launching for cascading grants, and it supports territories and organisations experimenting with ORRI for the first time (ORRI Incubators Open Calls). In this call, projects proposed by small consortia of at least two participating organisations will be funded.

Specific Challenges 

• Three specific challenges have been identified for this 2nd REINFORCING Open Call:
  • Supporting a better ORRI understanding as well as supporting researchers with envisaging ORRI components they could implement / strengthen within their activities (Bottom-up approach). 
    • Projects interested in this challenge may propose specific activities that will result in empowering the institutions’ research staff in comprehending and implementing the meaning and importance of ORRI, in order for the staff to conduct research endeavours which are aligned with societal needs (impact-driven).
  • Developing enabling conditions at institutional level which could motivate / support researchers to practise more ORRI (Supportive top-down approach).
    • This challenge could include proposals that enable applying organisations to effectively incentivize and streamline open and responsible research and innovation activities within themselves, which will result in institutional support for in-house activities that have societal impact. Thus, the organisations at the institutional and managerial levels will be empowered to actively inspire and support their research staff in conducting research that is aligned with societal needs.
  • Strengthening relationship within R&I ecosystems, building bridges between researchers and other actors (e.g., private sector, civil society, policy makers, etc.). 
    • Proposals that aim to open the applying institution towards other societal actors in the local ecosystem, thus making the organisational boundaries permeable, are related to this challenge. These projects should result in means of enabling or strengthening collaboration and co-creation with external partners such as companies, other research organisations, civil society organisations, non-governmental organisations, and policy makers during the research and innovation processes.
• Applicants may apply for one or more of the listed challenges or address other specific topics for which they have identified a gap in introducing ORRI and justify the selection in the application process.

Funding Information

• To support this change, REINFORCING has ring-fenced funding for 96 grants – between 20,000 and 60,000 euros- to invite institutions from around Europe to develop projects aiming at implementing new modes of doing R&I that drive more just transitions.
• For this Incubator call, no more than 8 consortia implementing projects lasting 12 months will be supported with grants of up to 60,000 euros for each consortium.

Eligible Activities

• Introductory workshops for research staff on ORRI-related topics.
• Mentoring programs for junior research staff on ORRI-related topics.
• Workshops with seasoned ORRI institutions in order to share experiences, good practices and lessons learned.
• Establishing an ORRI help desk within applying institutions for the researchers who need assistance in ORRI aspects such as research ethics, gender and diversity, or citizen engagement.
• Identifying ORRI gaps within institutions and developing new internal regulation or settings to address them.
• Organizing workshops or networking events to foster collaboration between researchers and other actors from the local ecosystem.

Ineligible Activities

• As this is an action-oriented call, it shall not provide support for actions such as:
  • Research activities as such, regardless of the topic, i.e., any kind of research-related costs in the broadest term such as field work, laboratory work, or article processing charges.
  • Research activities on ORRI theory in the Balkans area.
  • Design of any kind of hardware or software tools or systems, or any other technical solution in the broadest term.

Eligibility Criteria

• The consortium should include at least 2 entities based in EU countries (Member State or associated country), including their outermost regions or associated countries eligible to receive HEU grants, provided that the applicants are not covered by the Council sanctions in force. At least one of the entities should be based or operating in the Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia) and should be the main beneficiary with most of the activities conducted at its premises.
• Projects are expected to consider and implement specific Gender3 activities (ideally enlarging them toward Diversity, Equity and Inclusiveness) and comply with Horizon Europe Open Science4 requirements since the proposal stage.
• Funded projects are expected to release at least one ORRI resource (or tool) to be included in the REINFORCING online platform. The resource should be included in the proposal text as one of the results to be delivered.

Note: Different duration of the projects (less or more than 1 year) is not possible and will be considered not eligible and all the funded projects will start all together on 1st September 2024 and end up on 31st August 2025. No change in these dates can be negotiated.

For more information, visit European Commission.