Call for proposals: Deadline is approaching

"The overall goal of the FACCE SURPLUS ERA-NET is to strengthen the European Research Area (ERA) in the field of different integrated, food and non-food biomass production and transformation systems,” coordinator Nicolas Tinois explains when asked to give a description of the FACCE SURPLUS call.

This will contribute to implement the FACCE-JPI Strategic Research Agenda, in particular its core theme 2 -  Environmentally sustainable growth and intensification of agriculture.

“FACCE SURPLUS will mobilize funds for the research community in this field and thereby contribute to the establishment of a renewable and sustainable bioeconomy in the ERA,” he says.

The call for proposals aims at improving collaboration and cooperation across the European Research Area and it invites proposals for collaborative research and development of transnational consortia of research organisations and companies from at least three countries participating in the call.

The duration of proposed projects may be up to 36 months. National eligibility rules, including the potential eligibility of the private sector, e.g. SMEs, must be followed and were published together with the call text on www.faccejpi.com.

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Innovation and value creation

The call further aims at supporting innovation and value creation from biomass and biorefineries in synergy with the environmentally sustainable intensification of agricultural and other biomass production taking into account the required economic, environmental and social conditions and resilience to climate change.

The scientific scope of the present call for proposals addresses collaborative projects in three research areas which are incorporated into three subthemes. Read them here

“In the frame of the first transnational call for research projects, we hope to see research proposals that have the potential to tackle the frontiers between disciplines in order to allow a better and more efficient production and use of biomass. We also expect a more efficient linking up of researchers and enterprises, aiming at supporting innovation and value creation from biomass. The holistic approach will allow the enhancement of resilience in agricultural production systems,” Nicolas Tinois says.

Read more about Bioeconomy

The process

The whole call process is carried out online on the FACCE-JPI Submission Tool using the provided templates and online forms.

The application process comprises two steps:

In a first step, the research project coordinator creates an account on the FACCE-JPI Submission Tool and submits electronically a pre-proposal with information on the project consortium and a brief description of the proposal. Read a full description of the pre-proposal format here.

It is possible to update and submit the pre-proposal as many times as necessary until the submission deadline (04.03.2015, 14:00 CET). This submission of a pre-proposal is mandatory; it is not possible to enter the application procedure at a later stage. The information given in the pre-proposal will be used to check for eligibility, to evaluate the proposal and to find appropriate reviewers.

The second step consists of the submission of a more extensive full proposal. Only research consortia which successfully passed the first step will be invited to submit a full proposal and get access to the FACCE-JPI Submission Tool again.

The core information provided in the pre-proposal will be automatically imported into the full proposal and cannot be changed in the second step.

Full proposals that are correctly and completely submitted before the deadline (01.09.2015, 14:00 CET) will be subjected to a peer review evaluation by a panel of international experts.

A list of the funded projects will be published at the end of the call process. Therefore applicants should be aware that the following information from the proposals may be published by FACCE-JPI for promotional purposes:

• Project Title and Project Acronym
• Duration of the project
• Total costs and total funding of the research project
• Organisation name and country of each partner
• Name of the Project Coordinator
• A short publishable summary of the project (will be requested for full proposal submission)