Questions and answers

To be eligible for funding you need to have a legal entity located in a EU member states or in an associated country (list-3rd-country-participation_horizon-euratom_en.pdf (europa.eu). The entity should be registered as a EU company and get a PIC number (Funding & tenders (europa.eu)

The entity that will participate must be the one that will be claiming the costs at the end of the project.

A subsidiary of a US parent company based in a EU member states or in an associated country is eligible.

There is no % reserved for EIT manufacturing partnership. Nevetheless every call has its own additional specificities in terms of partnership as outlined in the chapter 3 of each guidelines.

The annual EIT Manufacturing Call for Proposals is a vehicle to allocate funding for projects in line with the strategic objectives and focus areas of EIT Manufacturing. Its aim is to accelerate turning scientific advances into marketable innovations in manufacturing to help prepare the industry for a green, digital and competitive future that is socially and environmentally sustainable. The call guidelines describe all conditions for submission.

As EIT Manufacturing helps to make innovation happen, most of its operational budget of roughly €400 million until 2026 is dedicated to funding projects that turn research into industry-ready solutions.

The EIT Manufacturing Call for Proposals 2023 allows for one- or two-year activity proposals. Two-year activities do not need to be re-submitted for the second year. Please check the respective call guidelines because different durations might be foreseen.

Proposals can be uploaded to Plaza from 9th September 2022.

In the preparation phase, the call thematics are identified and made public through various communication activities to the European manufacturing industry, networks and communities. Leading up to the opening of the Call for Proposal, networking opportunities, ideation sessions and a matchmaking event offer interested parties the opportunity to form their project groups, known as consortia, and refine initial ideas before submitting them as a proposal.

With the opening of the Call  the Call itself and its guidelines are also made public, as it is an open call. All relevant information is available on the EIT Manufacturing website and is highlighted in the organisation’s digital channels as well.

After opening, the EIT Manufacturing Call for Proposals 2023 has one single stage. Proposals can be submitted until the deadline. The proposals are then evaluated, and consortia will be informed if their submission has been successful.

The criteria are laid down in the Call for Proposal 2023 guidelines.

Open call: This Call for Proposals (CfP) is open to all entities established in the Member States (MS) of the European Union (EU), and Horizon Europe Associate Countries.
As a minimum requirement, all proposals must be composed of at least two partners from two different countries from the EU or Third countries associated to Horizon Europe.

You don’t have to be an existing partner organisation of EIT Manufacturing to apply for funding but, by becoming one, you’ll gain access to a valuable source of expertise and potential collaborators to work with and help build your consortium if, or when, you decide to apply for funding 

Please consider that the Call for Proposals 2023 guidelines can lay down additional specific partnership conditions

Preparation phase: The preparation phase serves to grow ideas, narrow down challenges, find the best entitiies for your proposal and enhance your chances to have a proposal accepted.

To take part in preparation phase activities, access to EIT Manufacturing community platform AGORA and the dedicated Call for Proposals 2023 sphere is a provided to entities to help build up proposal consortia.

You can find information on prior funded activities in this page on our webportal https://www.eitmanufacturing.eu/what-we-do/our-activities and you can filter by functional area. In each of them the partnership is displayed.

Activities selected in the last Call for proposals that was open at the beginnign of this year are still not available for consultation on the portal.

The activities in the preparation phase are designed to help organisations find the right entities for their projects and grow initial ideas. With EIT Manufacturing and its community you have a lot of opportunities at your fingertips:

• A team of experts who can put you in touch with suitable partners for your proposal
• A community you can tap into to refine and grow your idea to make a good proposal
• A wealth of experience with EU projects to guide you through the process

On AGORA, the EIT Manufacturing community platform, there is a dedicated space for everything concerning the call, the Call for Proposals 2023 sphere, which serves as the central information hub. This space can be used to network and hold meetings via its video call functionality.
Access to AGORA is necesssary to take part in the preparation phase activities of the Call for Proposals 2023 and can be obtained on the platform itself.

Wide Ideas is the open innovation platform to share ideas and identify potential partners. All entities who take part in the preparation phase activities can acces it. The platform allows searching and filtering ideas and challenges as well as commenting. You can access Wide Ideas via AGORA.

Finally, all proposals are submitted on the EIT Manufacturing extranet platform Plaza by the Activity Leader. You can request access to Plaza on the Call for proposal webpage.

Please check the call page section How to participate

The submission will be done via the Plaza submission system. Acces to Plaza is provided in the call page

The evaluation will focus on the proposal’s plan to meet the objectives of the call, in line with the requested resources in time and money, as well as on the feasibility of the proposed management plan.

Proposals are evaluated by external expert reviewers for  excellence, impact, implementation, strategic fit and European dimension. For more details, please refer to the Call for Proposal 2023 guidelines.

In the context of this call for proposals – and selected activities will be part of the Business Plan 2023-2025 – we are looking for:
Proposals for innovation activities in the areas of

• Automation for human-centered factories
• Smart technologies for circular and green manufacturing
• Innovative solutions addressing industrial challenges caused by global crises

Proposals for education activities in the areas of

• Skill-driven Learning – Innovation and Entrepreneurship Skills for Manufacturing,
• Skill-driven Learning – Circular Manufacturing,
• Skill-driven Learning – Skills for EIT Manufacturing thematics,
• Pioneering Learning Journeys – Summer School for EIT Manufacturing Master School programmes and Doctoral School annual programme 2023

Proposals for business creation are meant to pilot a pre-acceleration programme able to launch the next generation of European high-growth manufacturing startups and spinoffs.

The thematic area can be selected in the submission system. More information on the thematics is also available in the guidelines. Each proposal applying to the Education and Innovation call should choose a thematic.

You can use AGORA, search on Wide Ideas, which can be accessed via Agora, or contact the EIT Manufacturing location nearest you for advice.

No, it only has to be submitted once.

The role of Activity Leader is open to any entity participating to the call for proposals.

KAVA is the term used for a project. It stands for KIC Added Value Activity.

K represents KIC = Knowledge and Innovations Center in European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT)

EIT Manufacturing is the manufacturing-focused KIC of EIT.

An Activity Leader is the term for a project leader/coordinator.

The success rate cannot be compared because the goals and criteria are different.

There is no specific differentiation of criteria for one-year or two-year projects. It is important to take into account that two-year selected proposals do not need to resubmit the same proposal for 2024.

Yes, the Call for Proposals 2023 is open for entities who are eligible for funding under the Horizon Europe programme.

The minimum co-funding is applicable at overall consortium level.

Information is included in the Call for Proposals guidelines

Each applicant, including their affiliated parties, can receive up to 1.5 million Euro per year. In addition, the activities have specific funding frameworks, which are outlined in the Call for Proposal 2023 guidelines.

You can find it on the call webpage.

Non-Member organizations participating to an activity of EIT Manufacturing will get automatically the status of Activity Partner. They can keep their Activity Partner status for both years but they also need to pay the Activity partner fee (10K€) in both years.

Linked Third Parties, called Affiliated Entities under Horizon Europe, are:

• either entities that together legally conform the sole beneficiary (i.e. partner). Ex: Entities A and B form entity C. All three entities (A, B and C) are Affiliated Entities
• or eligible entities that have a legal or capital link to the beneficiary that is neither limited to the action nor established for the sole purpose of its implementation.

Before submitting a proposal, all applicants (Activity Leader and consortium partners) must register on the EU Participant Portal and obtain a PIC number and on the PLAZA submission tool . Additionally, if the proposal is selected for funding, all applicants will need to validate the PIC number previously obtained.

If you are not yet registered to Plaza yet, please note that new registrations to the PLAZA platform will be accepted at the latest 10 days before the closing of the Call for Proposals.

PIC number stands for Participant Identification Code (PIC) and is a 9-digit code expedited by the European Commission once any entity registers in the Funding & Tenders (F&T) portal.

To check, if your organization has a PIC number or to register in order to get one, use this link.

There are compulsory deliverables as per Call for proposals guidelines. Beside this, there in no predefined total number of deliverables. We suggest to keep it lean and avoid to have more than six deliverables per year.

Please check the guidelines in the addtional partnership requirements section.

Large companies can have up to five Linked Third Parties, small and medium sized companies (SMEs) can have up to two.

Yes, they do. And if the member and the LTP are located in different CLCs they can count as two CLCs in terms of additional partnership requirements.

Consortia must include entities geographically linked to at least 2 CLCs unless other specificites are outlined int he call guidelines. The geographical area detailed in this page of our website.

Yes, you can – the call is open to all entities who are eligible for funding under the Horizon Europe programme.

An agreement signed during the first year of the project where the consortium agrees on a certain benefit share for EIT Manufacturing.

Similar to all EU-funded projects, EIT Manufacturing can stop a project in case of clearly poor performance at the time of the stage-gate reviews, e.g., mid-term review.

When a proposal has been accepted, EIT Manufacturing contacts follow the progress of a project closely from the very beginning as to identify possible issues or shortcomings early enough. They will then interact with the project consortium, address their concerns and encourage the consortium to take corrective actions. In case performance or outcome do not improve and are assessed as very poor with no clear potential for improvement at the time of the review, the EIT Manufacturing Thematic Pillar Director can propose to the Management Team to stop the project.

There are mandatory deliverables, KPI and reports that are due. The activity progress is checked and in certain cases, EIT will audit a project.

Activity Leaders have to provide an Activity Performance Report (APR) and an Activity Performance Cost Report (APR-C).

This may result in funding or grant reduction.

In case the 2 companies are from different sectors and are providing at least 2 different use cases and the requirement about the minimum number of end-users (two) is satisfied.

TRL 6 is at the start of the project.

No, there is no differentiation. For all entities participating in the call, the maximum funding is 1.5 million Euro.

Yes, we do.

Firstly, the activity has to progress according to plan, otherwise there is the risk that funding is reduced or stopped.

Secondly, the activity has to match exactly the planned costs. If the costs are below plan, the funding will be reduced accordingly. If the costs are above plan, the co-funding by the partners has to cover the additional costs.

Purchases between partners are not eligible. Partner 2 should get the budget, manufacture the parts and deliver them to Partner 1 as part of the activity tasks.

Yes, you can, if the startup has been founded by the date of the closing of the call.

UK entities may participate in Horizon Europe-funded projects including the EIT Manufacturing Call for Proposals 2023. However, for the time being they are not eligible to receive EIT funding as the UK is a non-associated country to Horizon Europe.

If and when the UK signs an association agreement with the EU, they will be eligible for funding. Since this is an evolving topic, the UK government has put in place a funding guarantee to successful UK-based applicants to HE calls.

A professional marketing video is expected as a mandatory output. Please put the link to the video on Plaza submission system.

The duration is 9 months: 6 months for the core activity of coordination, plus 3 additional months for analysis and reporting work. It is a pilot call with a limited duration. A follow up call for proposal will be launched on the lessons learnt from this pilot and it will have the standard duration

In the corrected version (22-09-2022) of the Business creation guidelines it has been clarified

We are looking for one applicant. It is a pilot action and based on the lessons learned from it we will lauch a call to look for consortia to deliver these activities in the near future.

The program should support 30 early stage venture activities of startups that are ready to create a viable business. These early stage ventures (spinoff activities or startup activities) may stem from recently funded innovation activities or education activities but it is not an obbligation. We are completely open to pre accelerate candidates from all over the places so you are free to decide what is the scouting sources for the pre acceleration ventures and to evaluate their feasibility for the pre acceleration services.

If you consider all the stages of the coordination activities, as per the guidelines text,  it’s clear that you have to scout the candidates for the pre acceleration services in a very early stage. It’s unrealistic to work with 2023 but it’s absolutely open to you the possibility to choose to work with startup activities or ventures from 2022 and 2021.

Proposals should focused on the target group defined in each segments. Moreover, the target group must be detailed and its needs and barriers clearly identified. The most details on the target groups the better it is.

Hence, it’ll mainly depend on the segment you are targeting. In one specific segment called 1.4 Skill-driven Learning – Innovation and Entrepreneurship Skills for Manufacturing we are targeting different target groups and, in this specific case, we are looking forward to have clear definitions for each of the target groups and targeted learning content.

We have reviewed a call and we are actually requiring to create a serious game or a didactic game. So it should be focused on the gamification.

The overall focus of the Education pillar is to scale up, though this doesn’t mean that new proposals/consortia cannot apply for funding: the call is open to all organizations and consortia.

What is relevant is that the proposals ensures the possibility to scale up after the funding ends and reach a wide amount of learners and that it supports and enhances the already existent infrastructure.

Not all of them need to be addressed.

Teaching Factories; Learning Factories; VR/AR, simulation and games/gamification are tools that allow to create and enable engaging and entertaining content for the learners. Please bear in mind that proposals should demonstrate the innovativeness in teaching and learning and the interactiveness of the learning content. It is up to the proponents to defined which tools to use to ensure this.

On the other hand, the development of nuggets is mandatory.

All proposals should enhance and foster the use of already existing EIT Manufacturing infrastructure, including Skills.move. Creating a new e-learning platform is not in line with this.

Proposals should look into enhancing the existing assets of EIT Manufacturing, so new nuggets should be added to Skills.move. This should be foreseen in the workplan.

… of other institutions that are not involved in the project as partners, can we use for free or is there any mechanism and/or authorization process to follow?

We promote re-using the content of projects developed in previous years, therefore they can be freely used in the learning paths of new projects. Keep in mind that the learning paths should be commercialized/exploited after being tested and that during this phase the owners of the nuggets will receive their revenue share.

The cost of the learning path depends on the commercialization plan prepared by the consortium, though we propose price ranges depending on the duration, quality of the content and media used.

It is up to the proponents to define how many participants will be involved in a pilot version and how they will scale it up and commercialize them.

… such as gamification, social learning environment, coaching etc. for the nugget delivery, how can the skillsmove platform be adapted to the approach? Is there the possibility of customisation?

Customization needs to be discussed case by case as it should be aligned with our development roadmap, however this is feasible. Some of the mentioned approaches are already part of the development roadmap.

Industrial partners are key in the complete execution of the project. They should give input on needs and requirements for the training as well as validate the final training. Additionally, they can also support the project by providing use cases as well developing learning content.

As a general rule, universities do not cover the role of instructional designers, as the role and profile of an instructional designer is different from that of a teacher or a professor.

It should be demonstrated that the person or organisation delivering the service of instructional design has experience on the subject:

• They work as a professional in the career-path or role of Instructional Designer -> in this case, we recommend submitting the CV of the professional and if possible examples of their work
• An organisation offers Instructional Design services to the market -> in this case, we recommend submitting the company profile and a company reference
• An internal department of an organization is dedicated to Instructional Design and offers the service to other departments or functions in the organization -> in this case, we recommend submitting the CV of the employees and/or examples of the project and contents developed

Please refer to the Annex of the Call for Proposals 2023 guidelines for the expected profile of the instructional designer.

No, the 2nd EIT Manufacturing Call 2023 is  for Innovation, Education and Business Creation proposals

You can find RIS eligible countries for 2021-2024 in this overview.

Bosnia is an associated country to Horizon Europe but it needs to be included in the Innovation scoreboard of the European Commission for a certain number of years. Bosnia is expected to be RIS eligible in 2025. For more information or updates in the future you may refer to this website or contact the RIS team at ris@eitmanufacturing.eu.