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Grant Analysis

Purpose & Target

Core objective: To demonstrate and apply system innovation experimentation for Industry 5.0, aiming to boost the competitiveness and resilience of EU industries, address skills gaps, and attract talent in regional/local industrial ecosystems.
Target recipient: Organizations and consortia involved in industrial transformation, typically across various sectors.
MUST state if grant is 'SECTOR-SPECIFIC' or 'SECTOR-AGNOSTIC': SECTOR-SPECIFIC
Geographic scope and any location requirements: European Regional Innovation Valleys and other regions within EU Member States and Associated Countries.
Key filtering criteria for initial grant screening: Focus on Industry 5.0 concepts, system innovation, human-centric approaches, and tangible solutions for skills/talent challenges in industrial settings.
Grant frequency and program context: This is a specific call within the Horizon Europe program for 2025; while Horizon Europe is recurring, this particular topic is a one-time call.

Financial Structure

Funding type: Lump sum contribution, as defined in the Decision of 7 July 2021.
Total budget for this topic: EUR 3,000,000.
Minimum grant amount per project: EUR 3,000,000.
Maximum grant amount per project: EUR 3,000,000.
Financial support to third parties: Possible in the form of grants, with a maximum amount of EUR 60,000 per third party.
Eligible costs for lump sum calculation: Based on estimated direct and indirect project costs. Includes personnel costs (employees, direct contractors, seconded persons, SME owners, natural persons), subcontracting costs, purchase costs (travel, equipment, other goods/services), and other cost categories (financial support to third parties, internally invoiced goods and services, research infrastructure access costs, procurement costs).
Indirect costs: A 25% flat rate for indirect costs is included in the lump sum calculation.
Payment schedule: Payments are released upon the proper implementation of work packages as defined in the grant agreement. Lump sum contributions for completed work packages are paid to the coordinator. Payments for unfulfilled conditions may be deferred or the grant reduced.
Financial guarantees: 5-8% of the total lump sum is retained as a contribution to the Mutual Insurance Mechanism.
Financial reporting: There is no obligation to report actual costs incurred; financial checks and audits focus on the technical implementation and fulfillment of work package conditions, not on cost reporting.

Eligibility Requirements

General Eligibility

Admissibility Conditions: Proposals must adhere to page limits and layout described in Annex A and Annex E of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes, and Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System.
Eligible Countries: Open to entities from countries described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes (typically EU Member States and Associated Countries).
Financial and Operational Capacity: Applicants must meet the financial and operational capacity requirements as described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes.

Project Specific Requirements

Technical Expertise: Projects should involve appropriate expertise in Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH), particularly in systems thinking or complexity science.
Foundational Work: Projects must build on the results of the 'Community of Practice on Industry 5.0' and other relevant Horizon Europe Industry 5.0 (or related) funded projects.
Stakeholder Engagement: The project should engage quadruple or quintuple helix stakeholders (e.g., industry, academia, government, civil society, environment) at regional/local level.

Legal and Financial Structure

Funding Model: Eligible costs are covered through a lump sum contribution, requiring detailed upfront budgeting per work package rather than cost reporting.
Consortium Requirement: Participation as part of a consortium is mandatory for Innovation Actions under Horizon Europe.

Application Process

Application Submission

Application deadline: 2025-09-23 00:00:00+00.
Submission system: Applications must be submitted through the Funding & Tenders Portal's Electronic Submission Service.
Required documentation: The application form specific to this call (Standard application form for HE RIA, IA) is available in the Submission System.
Submission procedure: Single-stage application process.
Supporting materials: Guidance documents like the HE Programme Guide, Model Grant Agreements (Lump Sum MGA), detailed budget tables, and call-specific instructions are available.

Project Implementation and Reporting

Typical project duration: 36 months. Proposals requesting other durations are also eligible for submission and selection.
Exploitation Strategy: Proposals must include a clear exploitation strategy for project results.
Monitoring and Evaluation: Progress will be tracked through technical checks, reviews, or audits focusing on the fulfillment of work package conditions and other non-financial aspects of the grant agreement.
Post-award requirements: Compliance with ethics, research integrity, dissemination and exploitation of results, management of intellectual property, and gender equality will be assessed.

Evaluation Criteria

Award Criteria

Proposals will be evaluated based on the standard Horizon Europe procedures, specifically considering three main aspects:
- Excellence: The quality and pertinence of the project's objectives, methodology, and the trans-disciplinary approach.
- Expected Impact: The extent to which the project contributes to the outcomes of the call, such as successful incentives for systemic transformation towards Industry 5.0, skills upgrading, competitiveness of EU industries, and tackling skills gaps.
- Quality and Efficiency of Implementation: The coherence and effectiveness of the work plan, the allocation of resources, and the quality of the consortium.

Budget Evaluation

Experts with financial expertise will check the proposed lump sum budget against relevant benchmarks, market prices, statistical data, or historical data on comparable actions.
Assessment will ensure that the proposed resources and the breakdown of lump sum shares enable the achievement of described activities and expected outputs.
Applicants' declaration of having followed their own accounting practices for budget preparation will be verified.

Specific Considerations

The proposal should clearly identify a concrete long-term transformative innovation challenge for industrial ecosystems and formulate objectives addressing systemic issues for boosting future competitiveness and achieving Industry 5.0 goals.
Expected impact includes enhanced resilience, organisational agility, and contributions to tackling the skills gap and attracting talent in regional industrial ecosystems.
The project's strategic alignment and development of synergies with other relevant European, national, or regional initiatives and funding programs (e.g., Regional Innovation Valleys, New European Bauhaus, Digital Innovation Hubs, European Partnerships like Made in Europe, Process4Planet, AI, Data and Robotics Partnership, EIT KICs) will be considered.

Compliance & Special Requirements

Regulatory Compliance

General conditions, eligible countries, financial and operational capacity, evaluation processes, and legal/financial set-up of grants are governed by the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes.

Ethical and Sustainability Standards

Projects must adhere to ethical standards, particularly in human-centric innovation and responsible practices. The European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for their recruitment should be consulted.
Compliance with environmental aspects (e.g., supporting climate-neutral, circular industrial value chains) is implicit within the Industry 5.0 framework.

Intellectual Property Policies

Management of intellectual property (IP) is a key area of compliance and will be subject to checks and reviews.

Risk Management and Security

The lump sum model aims to minimise financial error rates. Checks will focus on technical implementation and the successful completion of work packages. Undue payments can be recovered if conditions for payment are not met.

Unique Aspects and Strategic Opportunities

This grant employs a lump sum funding mechanism, which simplifies financial management by pre-defining the grant amount based on an estimated budget, rather than reimbursing actual costs. This means the focus is heavily on the technical delivery of work packages.
Strategic alignment with broader EU initiatives such as Regional Innovation Valleys and the New European Bauhaus is highly encouraged.
Emphasis is placed on demonstrating Industry 5.0 innovations through system innovation experimentation, involving multi-stakeholder (quadruple or quintuple helix) engagement in real-world 'sandboxes' or open innovation environments.

Grant Details