Call for proposal INDIA-EU co-funding on Health, Bioeconomy, Clean Energy and Biotechnology

Researchers and innovators from universities, research organisations and enterprises from India can team up with European partners in the calls for proposals published by the European Commission (EC) under its Research and Innovation programme 'Horizon 2020' (2014-2020). Through participation in 'Horizon 2020'.

Indian partners can benefit from access to talent, knowledge, data and infrastructures, and connect to world-leading teams, networks, value chains and address jointly global challenges. To ensure funding for successful Indian applicants, DBT and the EC have concluded a Co-Funding Mechanism (CFM) by which DBT agrees, in pre-selected calls, and subject to specific conditions and modalities, to fund the successful Indian participants that have been selected in Horizon 2020 project(s).

Participants from India
• Any legal entity/ organization established in India with expertise in relevant and distinct disciplines. No limit on number of Indian participants but should be necessary for the execution of the project and comply with the modalities.
• The call is open to all career groups (i.e. early, intermediate and senior); however, it is expected that each investigator shall have adequate service tenure to accommodate key research, coordination, outreach, post completion handholding and maintenance (if any) responsibilities. Early career investigators are encouraged to participate.
• Participation of Indian business partner and/or an Indian urban or other local government body who would be the end user of the solution would be encouraged.
• The number of Indian project partners should be optimum and correspond to the objectives of the project. Each project should clearly demonstrate the partner’s essentiality, complementarities, and added value in jointly addressing the topic.

Participants from EU
• Entities from Member States of the European Union, including their overseas departments and outermost regions; and
• Entities from Associated Countries (AC) to EU R&I Programme 'Horizon 2020'.

ELIGIBILITY
The participating entities/organisations from India have to be a legal entity as per Indian law (Indian applicants) and the European entities as per the Horizon 2020 rules of participation.

Indian Entities Eligible to Participate
• Government of India supported or recognised (Public or Private) academia; research organisations and urban or other local bodies;
• Government of India recognised not-for-profit, NGO(s)/ VO(s)/ Trust(s)/ Research foundations, having research as one of the imperative mandates;
• Indian Industry can be a partner in the consortium and are eligible for funding subject to fulfilment of DBT’s technical, administrative and financial norms.

European Entities Eligible to Participate
• Any natural or legal person (e.g. any company, big or small, research organisations, universities, non-governmental organisations, etc.) regardless of their place of residence or establishment in Europe;
• They must possess the operational and financial viability to carry out the research tasks that they propose.

FUNDING
Funding by DBT
DBT will fund the Indian consortium members as per requirement of the project, for the project duration, up to 5 years.
Budget should be commensurate with the essentiality of participation, workload, objectives of the project and cost of participation.

Eligibility for Funding
Budgeted costs of the project to legal entities subject to obligatory fulfilment of eligibility criteria:
i. DBT will support (Grant-in-aid) 100% of the approved budget costs to the following two categories of organizations:
a. Government of India supported or recognised public or private academic institutions or research organisation, and urban or other local bodies;
b. Indian private R&D performing institutions and Not-for-profit, NGO(s)/ VO(s)/ Trust(s)/ Research Foundations, having research as one of the imperative mandates
Eligible costs for funding are: Capital expenditure (equipment's) || Manpower || Consumables || Travel (local and international travel) || Contingency || Overheads || Outsourcing || others. (Academia can factor in additional sub heads (in other category) such as training & awareness; workshops; publications; review meetings, etc. under expenditure based on the requirement of the project).

ii. Grant-in-aid to Industry:
a. DBT’s support to Industry shall not exceed 50% of the total cost (up to maximum of Rs. 1.5 Crore) proposed by the Industry participant, 50% of the contribution shall mandatorily come from the Industry.
b. The cost breakup for the DBT component of the proposal shall be: Capital and Manpower costs each not exceeding 30% of the DBT supported project cost; and balance will cover consumables and travel costs. Contingency & overhead costs will not be permissible)
c. SMEs or Start-ups can be funded up to INR 25.0 lakhs for proof of concept, in which 80% can be Grant-in-aid with the balance to come from SME/ Start-up.

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Non-Admissible Cost from DBT
i. Regulatory approval fees;
ii. Prosecution/litigation costs;
iii. Insurance coverage;
iv. Salary of investigators;
v. Capital expenditure for the purchase of assets such as office furniture, motor vehicles, Office equipment viz. desktops, laptops, tablets, cell phones, scanners, printers, photocopy machines, and renovation or extension of facilities such as buildings and laboratories;
vi. Capital expenditure toward technology(ies), demonstration plants and associated field equipment(s), hardware, software etc. for test and analysis from consortium partner(s) from abroad;
vii. Expenditure toward rental and utilities;
viii. International travel to countries other than the one participating within the consortia in a particular call topic of Horizon 2020;
ix. Mere attendance at conferences/ symposiums/ congresses

Funding by EU
Funding of European partners is as per Horizon 2020 rules of participation and in function of type of actin [Research and Innovation Action (RIA), Innovation Action (IA) and Coordination and Support Actions (CSA)].

On 2 July 2019, the EC published the 'Horizon 2020' updated Work programmes for 2019-2020, in which the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) has agreed to participate in 30 call topics in the areas of its mandate. See in Section 1 hereunder, the full list of topics per thematic area earmarked by DBT for co-funding. The list indicates the exact Call IDs, the opening and closing date of the call; the type of action provided and the link to the full call text as published in the Horizon 2020 Funding & Tenders Portal.

The guidelines in this notice also explain various modalities of participation that the Indian applicants have to comply with in order to be eligible for funding by DBT (see hereunder Sections 2 and 3, including Annex 1 on Administrative and Financial Considerations).

All proposals should be submitted to the Horizon 2020 Funding & Tenders Portal and to DBT, including the budget requested from DBT. In the absence of this, DBT will disqualify the Indian participants from funding (see Section 4 hereunder). At the end of the notice, information is also provided on how to access and go about 'Horizon 2020' formalities, which Indian applicants have also to comply with and on How to find partners .

Interested participants must also ensure complete understanding about the call text itself on the Horizon 2020 Funding & Tenders Portal for the overall conditions and modalities.