Consolidate European commercial SST capabilities on Services

Specific conditions

Expected EU contribution per project

The Commission estimates that an EU contribution of around EUR 4.00 million would allow these outcomes to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of a proposal requesting different amounts.

Indicative budget

The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 4.00 million.

Type of Action

Research and Innovation Actions

Admissibility conditions

The conditions are described in General Annex A. The following exceptions apply:

The page limit of the application is 50 pages.

Eligibility conditions

The conditions are described in General Annex B. The following exceptions apply:

In order to achieve the expected outcomes, and safeguard the Union’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy, or security, namely avoiding a situation of technological dependency on a non-EU source, in a global context that requires the EU to build on its strengths and to carefully assess and address strategic weaknesses, vulnerabilities and high-risk dependencies, participation is limited to legal entities established in Member States. Proposals including entities established in countries outside the scope specified in the call/topic/action will be ineligible.

For the duly justified and exceptional reasons listed in the paragraph above, in order to guarantee the protection of the strategic interests of the Union and its Member States, entities established in an eligible country listed above, but which are directly or indirectly controlled by a non-eligible country or by a non-eligible country entity, may not participate in the action unless it can be demonstrated, by means of guarantees positively assessed by their eligible country of establishment, that their participation to the action would not negatively impact the Union’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy, or security. Entities assessed as high-risk suppliers of mobile network communication equipment within the meaning of ‘restrictions for the protection of European communication networks’ (or entities fully or partially owned or controlled by a high-risk supplier) cannot submit guarantees. [[The guarantees shall in particular substantiate that, for the purpose of the action, measures are in place to ensure that: a) control over the applicant legal entity is not exercised in a manner that retrains or restricts its ability to carry out the action and to deliver results, that imposes restrictions concerning its infrastructure, facilities, assets, resources, intellectual property or know-how needed for the purpose of the action, or that undermines its capabilities and standards necessary to carry out the action; b) access by a non-eligible country or by a non-eligible country entity to sensitive information relating to the action is prevented; and the employees or other persons involved in the action have a national security clearance issued by an eligible country, where appropriate; c) ownership of the intellectual property arising from, and the results of, the action remain within the recipient during and after completion of the action, are not subject to control or restrictions by non-eligible countries or non-eligible country entity, and are not exported outside the eligible countries, nor is access to them from outside the eligible countries granted, without the approval of the eligible country in which the legal entity is established.]]

If projects use satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigation and/or related timing data and services, beneficiaries must make use of Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS (other data and services may additionally be used).

Procedure

The procedure is described in General Annex F. The following exceptions apply:

The granting authority can fund a maximum of one project.

The evaluation committee could be partially composed by representatives of EU institutions.

Legal and financial set-up of the Grant Agreements

The rules are described in General Annex G. The following exceptions apply:

The beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties (FSTP). The support to third parties can only be provided in the form of grants. Activities proposed by third parties (FSTP proposals) are to be selected according to selection criteria agreed between the granting authority and the beneficiaries.

A “third party”, submitting a FSTP proposal, could be either an entity or a consortium of entities.

In accordance with article 207 of the EU Financial Regulation, the maximum amount to be granted to each third party can exceed EUR 60,000. This derogation is justified by the fact that foreseen actions carried out by third parties target competitive, close-to-market, added-value SST services proposed worldwide by the EU industry to capture new SST markets.

The total amount of the EU contribution supporting FSTP proposals is expected to be in the range of EUR 3,8 million.

The amount to be granted to each action implemented by a third party is expected to be in the range of EUR 600,000.

As per Article 16.2 (Ownership of results) of the EU Grants: AGA — Annotated Grant Agreement (V1.0– 01.05.2024) the granting authority does not obtain ownership of the results produced under the action. Similarly, the IPR generated in FSTP activities cannot be retained by the beneficiaries.