Guidelines for Strategic Research Clusters
Horizon 2020 Space

1.  Introduction

This paper presents specific guidelines for the applicants to topics COMPET 3 (2014) and COMPET 4 (2014), to be implemented through Strategic Research Clusters (SRCs).[1]

The distinct nature of these projects responds to the demand inserted in the Specific Programme for H2020 (Council Decision XXX) that “[t]he implementation [of the H2020 programme for the space theme] will, where appropriate, be based on strategic research agendas developed in consultation with Member States and National Space Agencies, ESA, stakeholders from European space industry (including SMEs), academia, technology institutes and the Space Advisory Group.”

SRCs will be implemented through a system of grants connected among them and consisting of:

1)  “Programme Support Activity” (PSA): The main role of this PSA is to elaborate a roadmap and implementation plan for the whole SRC (referred to hereafter as the SRC roadmap) and provide advice on the calls for operational grants. In 2014 interested consortia are invited to apply for one PSA grant for each of the identified SRCs: “In-space electrical propulsion and Station keeping” and “Space Robotics Technologies”. The PSA is also expected to contribute to the assessment of the evolution (and results) of operational grants.

2)  Operational grants: In future work programmes (2016 and beyond), and on the basis of this SRC roadmap and the PSA advice for the calls, the Commission is expected to publish calls for “operational grants”. The work programmes will determine whether they will be considered research and innovation grants (100%) or innovation grants (70%). The operational grants will address different technological challenges identified in the roadmap. The objective of this system of grants is that the expected results of each individual grant would, when taken together, achieve the overall objective of the SRC.

Each individual grant within the SRC (either the PSA or operational grants) will follow the general principles of H2020 in terms of proposals, evaluation, selection process and legal obligations. However, to ensure the effectiveness of the SRC’s operation overall, some specific provisions are necessary.

2.  Preventing conflict of interest between entities in the PSA and applicants for operational grants

As the PSA plays a key role in the SRC, namely providing support to the Commission in the form of an SRC roadmap and a preliminary draft for the calls of proposals for the operational grants (see point 5 below), the following measures will seek to identify potential conflicts of interest[2] and that entities that are part of the PSA are not in an advantageous situation in relation to other applicants for the operational grants:

a)  Applicants (at a submission stage) for the PSA grant must pre-identify which entity[3] among the members of the PSA consortium are (at that stage) considering their participation in potential operational grants in following calls.

b)  Once a consortium is selected to be a PSA, at the time of providing the Commission with advice for the calls, the members of the consortium must notify the Commission of the intention of any of its entities to participate in any capacity in the operational grants (i.e. as members of the consortium of applicants, subcontractors, third parties…).

The Commission will always be fully responsible for the text of calls for operational grants in future work programmes. In cases where members of the PSA (or their non-independent entities) are envisaging participating in operational grants of the same SRC, the Commission will work together with the programme committee to ensure that there is no perceived or real conflict of interest and that the suggested work programme topic does not unfairly benefit one potential group of applicants.

3.  Ensuring coordination between grants

SRCs require a mechanism to ensure that the different consortia within the SRC work in a coordinated manner and that the rules for sharing the results (defined as foreground in FP7) of the SRC are established ex-ante.

Therefore, entities in the PSA and operational grants will conclude standard consortium agreements like any other project under Horizon 2020. In addition, entities participating in any of the grants within an SRC are required to enter into a separate collaboration agreement (see article 41.4 of the Draft Model Grant Agreement in the Annex).[4] This collaboration agreement will connect all the SRC grantees and establish the necessary structures to organise their relations[5].

The minimum requirements (in terms of contents) of this collaboration agreement are defined in article 41.4 of the Draft Model Grant Agreement (see Annex).

One of the requirements is that beneficiaries of the PSA (and future operational grants) must accept to give access to their results to beneficiaries of other SRC grants (which are referred to as complementary beneficiaries in Article 31.6 of the Draft MGA, see Annex)[6]. The collaboration agreement should establish the conditions and terms for access of all parties in the SRCs to the results of the work of the PSA and of the operational grants.

At present there is no established template for collaboration agreements.

4.  Preparing the application for the PSA grant

The consortium preparing a proposal for topics COMPET 3 -2014 or COMPET 4 – 2014:

(1)  Will have to present as part of the application documents a work plan for the consortium itself (the PSA action) and a “preliminary strategic design” (a preliminary roadmap) for the SRC as a whole. This preliminary strategic design should be the basis for the SRC roadmap, mentioned above.

It is the responsibility of the consortium applying for the PSA grant to elaborate an easily understandable and clear plan for the SRC, referred to as “preliminary strategic design”. As a mere guideline, it could be suggested that this preliminary strategic design could contain information on:

a) What is an achievable objective within the 2023/2024 deadline?

b) What is the European added value of the proposed SRC?

c) What are the different stages of the proposed SRC and how can the work be distributed? In this point the PSA must identify potential conflict of interest as described above.

d) What is the proposed role for the PSA? Is anyone else doing this kind of work within the European Economic Area? And abroad?

e) What is the expected cost of the different stages and the maximum cost of the SRC overall? Is there any room for savings in the process? How much would it cost to ensure that the expected results are achieved? What is a reasonable level of uncertainty about the results?

f) What are the anticipated risks? How can those be addressed at the beginning and at the different stages of the SRC? Are there any identified risks that, if materialised, would justify shutting down the SRC as they are vital for success?

g) What is the outreach outside the R+D community of the objective of the SRC? What is the potential public interest (i.e. for the average citizen) of the objectives of the SRC?

h) What is the expected medium term (i.e. between 2020 and 2030) impact of the SRC in all identifiable dimensions (notably industrial/commercial use, but also public interest / scientific interest)? When appropriate the potential market impact of the SRC if the final objectives are achieved should be assessed. Are there any potential gains if only partial results are finally delivered?

The (precise) total expected EU contribution to the SRC can only be established at the time of completion of the publication of all the grants which will constitute together the SRC. However, after the selection of the PSA and based on the plan presented by the PSA consortium, the Commission will perform, and discuss with Member States in the context of the programme committee, a preliminary assessment of the total expected contribution and its suitability for the envisaged budget availability. For reference the work programme considers that the overall budget for each SRC (COMPET 3-2014 and COMPET 4-2014) “could be in the range of several tens of millions of euros”.

(2)  Must indicate if any of its members or their non-independent entities may consider applying as members of a consortium to any of the operational grants included in their design of the SRC.

(3)  Can include in its proposal, along with the tasks intrinsic to the PSA (namely coordination and support to the SRC), also tasks of testing or validation nature. They must be necessary to attain the objectives of the PSA and consistent with the legal requirements of a Coordination and Support action (see Article 2.1.7) of the Rules for participation and dissemination in H2020. An example of such a type of work may be laboratory tests to precisely assess the current state of the art (previous to the preparation of the SRC roadmap) or, at a later stage, to confirm the adequacy of the results delivered by operational grants to the wider objectives of the SRC.

(4)  Should indicate how coordination of operational grants will be organised. More specifically, PSA could present as part of their proposal a coordination model between the PSA and the operational grants and assess their capacities to play the role of an SRC overall-advisor/system coordinator if/when necessary. This proposed model could serve as a basis for the collaboration agreement referred to in article 41.4 of the Rules for Participation and Dissemination (see Annex).

(5)  Should detail the resources that would be at its disposal for assisting the Commission and/Research Executive Agency in the assessment of the evolution of the SRC (on top of the progress review of its projects), once the grant agreements have been signed and the projects (operational grants) are being implemented (see point II.4.a) below). From a technical point of view, at the very least the Commission expects the PSA to be able to provide an unbiased assessment of the evolution and deliverables of the operational grants in relation to the whole SRC.

5.  Preparation and evaluation of calls for operational grants

PSAs are expected to provide advice for the Commission in the form of (i) an SRC roadmap and (ii) draft text for topics calling for those operational grants.

PSAs selected following the 2014 call must submit as project deliverables their advice to the Commission for contents of operational grants to be included the work programme 2016 by February of 2015. For subsequent calls, deadlines for advice to the Commission will be provided in due course.

The Commission will remain responsible for the calls for operational grants in relation to the SRC. In practice this means that the Commission will present to Member States in the Horizon 2020 space configuration of the programme committee a work programme proposal which includes calls for operational grants taking into consideration the advice given by PSAs. The work programme and therefore the calls for operational grants will be subject to discussion and standard adoption procedure following the opinion of the committee. Participation of PSA experts in these meetings could be requested by the Commission.

Evaluation of proposals for operational grants will be in line with the general Rules for participation and dissemination for H2020.[7] In this respect, members of the PSA are not expected to be involved in the individual or consensus assessment of proposals, which must be performed by independent experts in line with articles 15 and 40 of the abovementioned Rules. However, the PSA is expect to provide assistance to the Commission and REA for the preparation of the briefings for potential applicants to operational grants and for independent evaluators.

6.  The PSA role in the coordination and assessment of operational grants

PSA’s responsibilities in this domain are restricted to an assessment of the operational grants in relation to the objectives of the overall SRCs and not the monitoring of the operational grant itself within the meaning of article 40.1.b) of the Rules for Participation and Dissemination in H2020. Monitoring, in the context of article 40.1.b), with the requirements and consequences described in the Draft MGA, is an exclusive competence of the Commission and executive agencies with the support, if necessary, of independent experts.

7.  Termination of the PSA grant (and the SRC) due to lack of scientific/technological interest:

Progress and achievements of an SRC will be reviewed at several points by the Commission with the assistance of independent experts if necessary. The outcome of these evaluations will be presented to the programme committee for H2020-Space to assess continuation.

In line with article 50.3.1.h of the Model Grant Agreement, the Commission may at any time terminate the grant (and, consequently, the SRC as a whole) if the action has lost scientific or technological relevance. Nonetheless, the Commission may decide to continue with the execution of the operational grants if these actions, on an individual basis, have not lost scientific or technological relevance.


Annex

Model for complementary grant agreement clause (DRAFT version)

The articles below are optional provisions in the standard model grant agreement. They will be compulsory – duly completed – for SRCs grant agreements.

ARTICLE 2 — ACTION TO BE IMPLEMENTED

[…]

The grant is awarded for the action entitled [insert title of the action] — [insert acronym] (‘action’), as described in Annex I.

[OPTION for complementary grants if foreseen in the work programme: The grant is a ‘complementary grant’ to [the grant agreement(s) under the call(s) for proposals [call identifier(s): H2020 — theme —]] [the following complementary grant agreement(s) No(s):

- [insert number] [insert acronym]

- [insert number] [insert acronym]].]

[…]

ARTICLE 31 — ACCESS RIGHTS TO RESULTS

[…]

31.6 Access rights for third parties

[OPTION for additional access rights for complementary grants if foreseen in the work programme: The beneficiaries must give — under the conditions set out in Article 31.2 and 31.3 — access to their results to complementary beneficiaries[8], for the purposes of the complementary grant agreement(s) (see Article 2).]

COMMENTED VERSION OF THE MGA: This option is to be inserted in case of complementary grant agreements when foreseen in the work programme. To make extensive collaborations possible between some actions funded under Horizon 2020 (with strong interdependencies between the different objectives and actions - e.g. results in one action is needed by a successor action in the next phase), all grant agreements under some calls will include this option making certain aspects relating to the intellectual property regime of those actions complementary to each other. The implications of the option are the reciprocal extension of access rights relating to results to the beneficiaries of complementary actions.