Financial support to access services from Ecosystem partners

Scope:

The standard admissibility and eligibility conditions for Coordination and Support Actions (CSAs), as outlined in Annex 2, will apply to this call. The CSA Beneficiary will provide financial support to EIC Awardees in the form of lump sums, covering up to 70% of the cost of access to R&D infrastructure, prototyping and IP and legal support and up to 50% of the cost of all other types of services received from EIC Ecosystem Partners. A continuously open call will be implemented for the selection of EIC Awardees, ensuring timely and flexible access to support. Applications should propose a limited number of maximum lump sum amounts, corresponding to different categories of services, as defined in the EIC Service Catalogue.
The EIC Awardees having access to this support are as defined in the Glossary and for the purposes of this action include also Awardees selected through calls under the H2020 EIC Pilot (2018-2020)194 and entities awarded a Seal of Excellence under the EIC Work Programmes and the EIC Pre-Accelerator call under WIDERA Work Programme under Horizon Europe.
The CSA Beneficiary will launch a continuously open call, inviting eligible entities to apply for a fixed-amount lump sum195 under this action. Applications of the eligible entities submitted to the CSA beneficiary must reference a specific partner from the online EIC Ecosystem Partner Catalogue, and a prove of approval from this Partner. The application may concern a service to be still implemented or already delivered services (no later than 6 months from the accomplishment of the service). Lump sum grants will be awarded by the CSA beneficiary on a “first-come, first-served” basis, determined by the electronic timestamp of the successful application submission, and subject to eligibility checks and confirmation of the absence of double funding. In addition, the CSA Beneficiary will be responsible for disseminating information about the call and establishing a dedicated helpdesk to reply to the questions from EIC Awardees and other eligible entities. The application system put in place should be lean and should not request to create a full profile on already existing platforms.
The CSA Beneficiary will be responsible for monitoring the services received by the EIC Awardees, run the quality survey directly after the end of the service and impact survey 6 months after the end of the service. Both surveys should be validated with the Agency.
The maximum size of cumulative support allocated to a recipient (or third party) under this action is EUR 60,000.
The CSA Beneficiary needs to put in place a real-time reporting and monitoring system about applications received and funding awarded per EIC Awardee and other eligible entities as well as aggregated data displayed in dashboards, including but not limited to geographical distribution, type of service, financial support received (value of the lump sums, type and geographical distribution of partners, results of the quality and impact surveys etc). The exact content of the dashboard will be defined at the beginning of the project. By the end of the project all data gathered during its implementation will be made available to the Agency following template provided by the Agency.
The CSA Beneficiary will be required to work in close coordination with the Agency and the contractor responsible for implementing the call for Ecosystem Partners and EIC service catalogue, as well as with other EU services as necessary. This collaboration will include participation in regular coordination meetings and the timely provision of relevant information to support the effective implementation of the action. In addition, the CSA Beneficiary will contribute, in cooperation with the Agency, to the preparation of an “uptake and impact report” summarising the overall activities and outcomes of the EIC Ecosystem Partnership Action.

The CSA Beneficiary must ensure sound financial management and applicants must clearly outline in their proposals the mechanisms that will be put in place for the effective and efficient administration of financial support, including measures to prevent misuse or abuse.
If admissible and eligible, the proposals for the Coordination and Support Actions will be evaluated and ranked against the criteria as described in Annex 2.
The funding rate of the CSA is 100% of the eligible costs.
At least 80% of the total budget to be funded by the EIC must be allocated to financial support to third parties (the EIC Awardees and other eligible entities). An effective duration of around 2-3 years would enable the project to achieve the desired objectives.