Grants8 | The most comprehensive grants search on the web

Grant Analysis

Purpose & Target

Core objective: To demonstrate and foster the use of Generative AI (GenAI4EU) for scientific research via the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).
Explicit identification of target recipient type and size: Organizations with research and innovation capacity, likely including universities, research institutions, and technology-focused companies (SMEs, enterprises).
MUST state if grant is 'SECTOR-SPECIFIC' or 'SECTOR-AGNOSTIC': SECTOR-SPECIFIC (focused on AI, scientific research, and data infrastructure within the EOSC ecosystem).
Geographic scope and any location requirements: Organizations established in EU Member States or countries associated with the Horizon Europe Framework Programme.
Key filtering criteria for initial grant screening: Focus on Generative AI applications for scientific research, integration with EOSC, and addressing research data lifecycle.
Grant frequency and program context: This is a specific topic within the 'Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes' for 2025, suggesting it's part of an ongoing program but this particular call may be one-time for the year.

Financial Structure

Funding mechanism: Eligible costs will take the form of a lump sum contribution.
Budget range per grant: Projects are expected to receive between 7,500,000.0 EUR and 10,000,000.0 EUR.
Total budget for the topic: 37,500,000.0 EUR (supporting 4 expected grants).
Currency: EUR.
Funding rate: 100.0% (implied for Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Actions where lump sum covers full eligible costs).
Eligible costs for lump sum calculation: Personnel costs (employees, direct contractors, seconded persons, SME owners), subcontracting costs, purchase costs (travel, equipment, other goods/services), and other cost categories (financial support to third parties, internally invoiced goods/services, transnational/virtual access to research infrastructure, PCP/PPI procurement costs).
Indirect cost policy: A 25% flat rate for indirect costs is included in the lump sum calculation, applied to direct cost categories that qualify.
Payment schedule: Lump sum contributions are paid per work package upon proper implementation of the work package activities, regardless of actual costs incurred.
Co-financing requirements: The total estimated costs of the action must be greater than the Union contribution, ensuring compliance with the co-financing principle.
Financial guarantees: Pre-financing follows standard Horizon Europe rules. Between 5% and 8% of the total lump sum is retained as a contribution to the Mutual Insurance Mechanism.
Audit requirements: No report of actual costs is required, and normally no financial ex-post audits are conducted. Checks focus on technical implementation and fulfillment of work package conditions.

Eligibility Requirements

Organization Type and Legal Structure

Eligible organizations are not explicitly limited by type but must be capable of participating in Research and Innovation Actions (RIAs) within Horizon Europe. This typically includes: universities, research organizations, public bodies, private companies (SMEs and large enterprises), and non-profit organizations.
The Joint Research Centre (JRC) may participate as a member of the consortium.

Geographic Location Requirements

Applicants must be established in countries described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes, which typically includes:
EU Member States: - AT, - BE, - BG, - HR, - CY, - CZ, - DK, - EE, - FI, - FR, - DE, - GR, - HU, - IE, - IT, - LV, - LT, - LU, - MT, - NL, - PL, - PT, - RO, - SK, - SI, - ES, - SE.
Countries associated to the Horizon Europe Framework Programme (e.g., Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Türkiye, Ukraine, United Kingdom).

Partnership or Consortium Requirements

A consortium is required. The grant references 'member of the consortium selected for funding' and 'Each beneficiary must grant royalty-free access to its results to the EOSC Association', implying multiple beneficiaries.
Projects are expected to link through collaboration agreements with grants from other actions, specifically HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-EOSC-03.

Technical Expertise and Infrastructure Requirements

Must possess expertise in Generative AI, machine learning, and AI services.
Capability to work with and enhance the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) federation.
Ability to handle and improve FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data practices.
Infrastructure to conduct large-scale experimentation based on Generative AI and manage high-value datasets.

Track Record and Experience Requirements

Proposers should take into account and leverage results from relevant existing projects in the field (e.g., AI4EOSC, iMagine, EOSC Data Commons, RI-SCALE).

Application Process

Application Process Timeline

Application opening date: 2025-05-06
Application deadline: 2025-09-18 00:00:00+00 (latest deadline)
Submission process: Single-stage submission via the Funding & Tenders Portal's Electronic Submission Service.

Required Documentation and Materials

Application form: Use the 'Standard application form (HE RIA, IA)' specific to this call, available in the Submission System.
Detailed budget table: 'Detailed budget table (HE LS)' must be used for lump sum proposals.
Proposal layout: Page limits and layout described in Part B of the Application Form.
Financial information: Applicants must provide a breakdown of the lump sum per work package and per beneficiary, detailing activities and related resources, ensuring only eligible costs are included.
Declaration: Beneficiaries must declare that they have followed their own accounting practices for budget preparation.

Types of Support Offered for Applicants

General guidance: Online Manual, Horizon Europe Programme Guide, Funding & Tenders Portal FAQ.
Enquiry services: Research Enquiry Service, IT Helpdesk for portal technical issues.
National Contact Points (NCPs): Guidance and assistance on participation in Horizon Europe.
Enterprise Europe Network (EEN): Advice for businesses, especially SMEs, on EU research funding.
Intellectual Property (IPR): European IPR Helpdesk for IP issues.
Standardization: CEN-CENELEC Research Helpdesk and ETSI Research Helpdesk for standardisation advice.
Ethical considerations: European Charter for Researchers and Code of Conduct for their recruitment.
Partner search: Tools and services available to find partner organizations for proposals.

Evaluation Criteria

Standard Evaluation Criteria (Horizon Europe)

Excellence: Quality of the proposed work.
Impact: Extent to which the project's results will contribute to expected outcomes.
Quality and Efficiency of the Implementation: Soundness of the approach and efficient use of resources.

Specific Impact Criteria

The extent to which the proposed work incorporates necessary coordination efforts and resources with other relevant projects and the EOSC governance structure in the context of the EOSC Partnership will be taken into account for Impact.

Technical and Quality Benchmarks

Financial expertise in evaluation: Experts with the necessary financial know-how will check the budget estimate based on benchmarks (market prices, statistical data, historical data).
Generative AI quality: Proposals must ensure unbiased and trustworthy responses from AI-powered interfaces, adopting FAIR practices for AI-trained models to address reproducibility and trustworthiness.
Open Science Principles: Importance of Open Data and Open Research Software for reliable, trustworthy, and transparent GenAI is considered.

Innovation and Advancement

Development of Generative AI tools for evaluating research data quality and ensuring trustworthiness across the European network of trusted repositories.
Improvement of FAIRness of data from European research infrastructures for Generative AI readiness.
Advancement of machine-actionable (MA) research data and services, including AI-based systems.

Community Engagement and Training

Promotion of sound training programs to facilitate the uptake and use of Generative AI for data FAIRification and curation.
Demonstration of Generative AI's ability to facilitate quality assessment of FAIR data.

Use Case Relevance

Development, promotion, and support of real-life use cases for Generative AI models in scientific research domains, aligned with the GenAI4EU initiative and Apply AI strategy (e.g., augmenting datasets, learning time-series patterns, accelerating materials/drug design, simulating complex systems).

Compliance & Special Requirements

Regulatory Compliance Requirements

Subject to restrictions for the protection of European communication networks.
General compliance with EU Financial Regulation 2024/2509.

Data Protection and Intellectual Property (IP) Policies

Intellectual Property (IP) Access Rights:
Each beneficiary must grant royalty-free access to its results to the EOSC Association for monitoring and developing policies and strategies for the European Open Science Cloud.
Each beneficiary must provide information deemed necessary for EOSC Association monitoring and policy development.
Beneficiaries must grant royalty-free access to their intellectual property rights (part of the results and needed for further EOSC development) to legal entities identified by the granting authority and established in Member States or associated countries, limited to non-commercial use.
Data Deposit Requirements: Beneficiaries must deposit digital research data generated in the action in a trusted repository federated in the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), complying with EOSC requirements.

Ethical Standards and Requirements

Implicitly, adherence to general ethical standards of Horizon Europe, including research integrity.

Strategic Alignment and Collaboration

Projects must align with the 'GenAI4EU' initiative and the 'Apply AI strategy'.
Proposers are expected to leverage results from relevant existing projects such as AI4EOSC, iMagine, EOSC Data Commons, and RI-SCALE.
Grants awarded under this topic will be linked through collaboration agreements to the grant from HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-EOSC-03: 'Advancing AI-readiness and Machine-Actionability in the EOSC Ecosystem'.
Proposals could consider including the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) research infrastructure in their portfolio for creating and sharing high-quality machine-readable scientific datasets.

Risk Management and Monitoring

Checks, reviews, and audits will focus on the technical implementation of the action, specifically on the fulfillment of conditions for releasing lump sum contributions per work package, and other grant agreement aspects like ethics, research integrity, dissemination, exploitation of results, and gender equality.
If conditions for payment of a lump sum contribution per work package are not met, the grant can be reduced or undue payments recovered.

Grant Details