EC inviting Proposals to strengthen European R&I Foresight Community for Better Informed Policy Decisions

Deadline: 9-Mar-23

The European Commission is inviting Proposals for building a strong European R&I Foresight Community to better inform R&I policy decisions in the European Research Area about potential futures.

Objectives

• Prioritising investments and reforms in research and innovation;
• Improving access to excellence, progressing towards excellence across the whole EU and striving for stronger research and innovation systems;
• Translating R&I results into the economy to meet the digital and green transition objectives, and boost the resilience and competitiveness of our economies and societies;
• Deepening the ERA, to further progress the free circulation of knowledge and to ensure an upgraded, efficient and effective R&I system.

Scope

• Foresight has become an important element of policymaking across the European Union and much of the world. It is increasingly recognised for its potential to help anticipation and preparedness to deal with challenges and capture opportunities of the future.
• Foresight is an important and proven means to engage with citizens on issues of science, technology and innovation and their possible contribution to tackle societal challenges. It supports the needed just, sustainable and digital transitions, and the move towards the future we want.
• R&I policy has been amongst the first to support and use foresight in Europe, at both national and European levels. The longstanding experience provides a strong foundation for a European R&I foresight community. However, the extent of use of foresight in R&I policy across Europe is still uneven, as well as its degree of institutionalisation.
• Foresight today is a common tool in strategy development and programming in science and technology and in policy making in a broader sense. It complements and incorporates much of the classical R&I policy toolbox of technology assessment, trend analysis, forecasting, road mapping, evaluation, strategic or SWOT analyses etc. The unevenness of the use of foresight affects the potential of foresight to support national and European R&I policies in the European Research Area.
• The objective of this action is to accelerate the development of a European R&I foresight community supporting the development of national R&I foresight communities that are well integrated in national policy systems; and can contribute not only to the design of national reforms and policies but also to the evidence underpinning and the governance of a vibrant European Research Area, which delivers on common priorities and objectives.
• The diversity of experiences with foresight can be a resource for a European foresight community, underscoring the need and being a foundation for highly beneficial networking actions, to exchange experiences, share ideas and work on topics of common interest. Such topics should have a clear link to ERA agenda points. Previous discussions with Member States suggest for instance the workforce skill and capacity needs for the twin transition. The consortium to carry out the CSA tasks should reflect the diversity of R&I foresight settings across Europe and involve government R&I foresight agencies and institutions from across the EU including countries associated with Horizon Europe.
• This action should include:
  • A stocktaking of the organisation of foresight activities informing R&I policy in the European Research Area, covering institutional, methodological, and analytical practices as well as an assessment of the main strengths and weaknesses nationally and in relation to policy needs at European level;
  • Networking activities for institutions and people engaged in the R&I foresight community as well as potential users and stakeholders of foresight. This could be workshops, seminars, programmes, guidelines, methodology toolboxes, training modules, annual conferences, common social media platforms, network services and infrastructures (e.g., a database of science and technology experts who are interested in futures’ intelligence, which could be used for Delphi surveys, scenario building, horizon scanning etc.);
  • Development and practical application of the network in pilot foresight projects on topics of common interest, which are linked to ERA Policy Agenda Actions, possibly in coordination with the ERA Forum;
  • Participatory approaches and engaging with citizens for foresight across Europe, as well as activities promoting futures literacy should play a core role in order to exploit foresight to the full;
  • A network of national agencies on foresight and R&I (including foresight units in ministries and government institutions) should lie at the core of the action and at the core of Europe’s R&I foresight community, covering as many member states and countries associated with Horizon Europe as possible.
• The European R&I foresight community should build on, and valorise and disseminate results from, foresight projects funded as part of Horizon 2020 and in Horizon Europe including the foresight work done by the JRC: The community will be supported by a principally publicly accessible online platform, providing common resources, further development of training, mutual exchange, and joint foresight work on topics of common interest amongst Europe’s R&I policy-makers. Developing a model for the governance and financial sustainability of the network and platform is part of the task, as is a sound European programme on foresight methodologies, resources and activities that will inform the policies shaping the future of science, technology and innovation across the European Union and interested Horizon Europe participating countries.

Funding Information

The check will normally be done for the coordinator if the requested grant amount is equal to or greater than EUR 500 000, except for:

• public bodies (entities established as a public body under national law, including local, regional or national authorities) or international organisations; and
• cases where the individual requested grant amount is not more than EUR 60 000 (lowvalue grant).

Expected Outcome

• The project is expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:
  • Strengthening the European R&I foresight community, its networks, resources and functions, and its engagement with citizens. Improve the use of foresight in R&I policy and planning across the European Research Area to support prioritisation, coordination and direction of R&I investments and reforms, which will support the implementation. Common visions and pathways to the future(s), and “accounting” of Member States R&I foresight activities contribute to the monitoring of the ERA;
  • Building and mobilising joint resources to inform R&I policies at EU and national levels, including through the European Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (Strategic Plan and Work Programmes), such as collection of manuals and guidebooks, a library of futures, expert pools, digital tool-boxes or shared software solutions to support horizon scanning, citizen engagement projects, scenario building, and science and technology road mapping;
  • Joining forces on pilot activities and projects on topics of common interest, supporting and “training” the networking within the R&I foresight community including governmental R&I foresight organisations, which already organised regular workshops meetings under several Council Presidencies.
• These targeted outcomes in turn contribute to medium and long-term impacts:
  • Common visions and shared appreciations of future challenges and opportunities amongst R&I policy-makers in the European Research Area;
  • Improved capacity of Member States within the European Research Area to anticipate the future and tackle new challenges, and to take advantage of new opportunity spaces, identifying trajectories for R&I interventions at EU and national level, combining knowledge, data, expert advice and citizen engagement;
  • Improved engagement of researchers, communicators, journalists, industry, policy-makers and civil society, with foresight in general and foresight for R&I in particular, improving the contributions of science and research to policy across the board for improved preparedness for future disruptive events;
  • Stronger engagement of society in R&I policy as a consequence of citizen discourses on future implications of S&T&I, improved coherence and overall effectiveness of research and innovation interventions across Europe through better anticipation of futures, and thus improved impact on the economy and on policy priorities at EU and national levels;
  • More and better contributions of R&I to societal ideals and political and economic objectives across Europe, namely the twin green and digital transition, and increasing public engagement and participation in the ERA as well as resilience of the EU.

Eligible Activities

The following activities are generally eligible for grants under Horizon Europe:

• Research and innovation actions (RIA) — Activities that aim primarily to establish new knowledge or to explore the feasibility of a new or improved technology, product, process, service or solution. This may include basic and applied research, technology development and integration, testing, demonstration and validation of a small-scale prototype in a laboratory or simulated environment.
• Innovation actions (IA) — Activities that aim directly to produce plans and arrangements or designs for new, altered or improved products, processes or services. These activities may include prototyping, testing, demonstrating, piloting, large-scale product validation and market replication.
• Coordination and support actions (CSA) — Activities that contribute to the objectives of Horizon Europe. This excludes research and innovation (R&I) activities, except those carried out under the ‘Widening participation and spreading excellence’ component of the programme.
• Programme co-fund actions (CoFund) — A programme of activities established or implemented by legal entities managing or funding R&I programmes, other than EU funding bodies. Such a programme of activities may support: networking and coordination; research; innovation; pilot actions; innovation and market deployment; training and mobility; awareness raising and communication; and dissemination and exploitation.
• Innovation and market deployment actions (IMDA) — Activities that embed an innovation action and other activities necessary to deploy an innovation on the market. This includes the scaling-up of companies and Horizon Europe blended finance.
• Training and mobility actions (TMA) — Activities that aim to improve the skills, knowledge and career prospects of researchers, based on mobility between countries and, if relevant, between sectors or disciplines.
• Pre-commercial procurement actions (PCP) — Activities that aim to help a transnational buyers’ group to strengthen the public procurement of research, development, validation and, possibly, the first deployment of new solutions that can significantly improve quality and efficiency in areas of public interest, while opening market opportunities for industry and researchers active in Europe. Eligible activities include the preparation, management and follow-up, under the coordination of a lead procurer, of one joint PCP and additional activities to embed the PCP into a wider set of demand-side activities.
• Public procurement of innovative solutions actions (PPI) — Activities that aim to strengthen the ability of a transnational buyers’ group to deploy innovative solutions early by overcoming the fragmentation of demand for such solutions and sharing the risks and costs of acting as early adopters, while opening market opportunities for industry. Eligible activities include preparing and implementing, under the coordination of a lead procurer, one joint or several coordinated PPI by the buyers’ group and additional activities to embed the PPI into a wider set of demand-side activities.

Eligibility Criteria

• Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from nonassociated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations) is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call topic.
• A ‘legal entity’ means any natural or legal person created and recognised as such under national law, EU law or international law, which has legal personality and which may, acting in its own name, exercise rights and be subject to obligations, or an entity without legal personality.
• Beneficiaries and affiliated entities must register in the Participant Register before submitting their application, in order to get a participant identification code (PIC) and be validated by the Central Validation Service before signing the grant agreement. For the validation, they will be asked to upload the necessary documents showing their legal status and origin during the grant preparation stage. A validated PIC is not a prerequisite for submitting an application.
• Specific Cases
  • Affiliated entities — Affiliated entities (i.e. entities with a legal or capital link to a beneficiary which participate in the action with similar rights and obligations to the beneficiaries, but which do not sign the grant agreement and therefore do not become beneficiaries themselves) are allowed, if they are eligible for participation and funding.
  • Associated partners — Associated partners (i.e. entities which participate in the action without signing the grant agreement, and without the right to charge costs or claim contributions) are allowed, subject to any conditions regarding associated partners set out in the specific call conditions.
  • Entities without legal personality — Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees to protect the EU’s financial interests equivalent to those offered by legal persons.
  • EU bodies — Legal entities created under EU law including decentralised agencies may be part of the consortium, unless provided for otherwise in their basic act.
• To become a beneficiary, legal entities must be eligible for funding.
• To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the following countries:
  • the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden
  • the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States: Aruba (NL), Bonaire (NL), Curação (NL), French Polynesia (FR), French Southern and Antarctic Territories (FR), Greenland (DK), New Caledonia (FR), Saba (NL), Saint Barthélemy (FR), Sint Eustatius (NL), Sint Maarten (NL), St. Pierre and Miquelon (FR), Wallis and Futuna Islands (FR).
  • countries associated to Horizon Europe; Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine.

For more information, visit EC.