EU-CONEXUS ambition
The European University for Smart Urban Coastal Sustainability (EU‐CONEXUS) is a transnational European higher education and research alliance addressing global and local challenges by tackling coastal environmental, technical, economic and societal needs (SmUCS challenges). EU-CONEXUS is a fully-fledged university. It offers education, training, study programmes, performs research and links with socio-economic actors for supporting innovation. To find more information, please visit the EU-CONEXUS Website. The EU-CONEXUS community brings together researchers, teachers and students from the different partner institutions and aims to foster internal collaboration between them by offering Seed Funding.
Objectives of the seed funding
The overall objective of the Seed Funding is to enhance collaboration between EU-CONEXUS partners in education, research and innovation on SmUCS challenges.
Therefore research & academic teams from EU-CONEXUS partner universities can apply for funding through the Seed Funding in order to develop small-scale internal collaborative education, research and innovation projects starting from challenges in the field of Smart Urban Coastal Sustainability (SmUCS).
Smart Urban Coastal Sustainability (SmUCS) means for EU-CONEXUS to focus its education, research & innovation, and knowledge-sharing activities on defining, understanding and addressing societal challenges that are experienced by communities from urban and semi-urbanised coastal regions (rivers, seas and oceans).
Expected outcomes of the projects must be tangible: possibility to work together on a bigger project, joint research, joint presentation in a conference, preparation of a joint publication, joint study programme, etc.
For information: Seed Funding shall be distinguished from the Project Development Fund that aims at supporting applications to external funding (Horizon Europe or Erasmus + exclusively). Get to know more about it by clicking this link.
Join us for a special webinar on February 26th, 2024, at 1PM CET
We’ll be presenting insights into our Seed Funding program and sharing valuable feedback from the first call.
Eligibility criteria
Eligible beneficiaries are the nine EU-CONEXUS partner universities. Other organisations can participate but do not receive any funding.
A seed funding project proposal must be submitted.
The project proposal subject must address one or several challenges in the field of Smart Urban Coastal Sustainability (SmUCS).
At least 2 researchers or academics from 2 different EU-CONEXUS partner universities must be involved in the project (other organisations cannot be part of this core group).
Groups of researchers, academics, project holders who already received support from Seed Funding (first call) will not be eligible a second time, with the same partnership.
The same project idea won’t be financed through Seed Funding twice.
Duration of the Seed funding project: up to maximum 12 months.
Evaluation criteria
The proposal will be assessed with regards to 3 main criteria:
Scientific excellence:
Scientific / Academic excellence: Relevance of the project with regards to the societal challenge of Smart Urban Coastal Sustainability, Scientific contribution and innovation of the proposed project, Appropriateness, completeness and clarity of the methodology.
Impact:
Impact: Impact of proposed activities and results, in particular for EU-CONEXUS, Expected outcomes
Quality & efficiency of implementation:
Quality & efficiency of implementation: Work plan, Organisation, Budget coherence with regards to project ambition, Deliverables.
Proposals involving more, rather than less, EU-CONEXUS partner universities will be prioritised.
Funding criteria
- Eligible costs are: consumables, conference fees, publication fees, travels, etc. (personnel costs and equipment are not eligible). A detailed budget must be provided.
- The funding is maximum €4400 (VAT included) per project.
- Co-funding is allowed and encouraged whether it comes from the partners’ own funds or from public or private funds.
- The expenses related to each project are paid for directly out of the central EU-CONEXUS budget.
- There is funding available for approximately 15 small-scale projects in total distributed within the 3 calls (around 5 projects supported per call).
Maximum funding 4400€
Selection rules
A two-step-evaluation will take place:
In a first step the Project Development Support Office will assess the conformity of the application to this call and its technical eligibility.
In a second step, the applications will be evaluated by a rotating committee composed of 3 representatives from 3 partner universities (evaluators will be designated by the members of EU-CONEXUS Plus Work Package 10, in charge of setting up the Project Development Support Office). To ensure fairness, the aim is to strictly rotate so that each university is represented equally in each year in the evaluation committee. For this second call, the committee members will come from Catholic University of Valencia, Klaipeda University and Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest. In addition, the vice-chair of Research Council will participate in the evaluation.
A report will be requested at the end of each project.
The Project Development Support Office is in charge of managing the Seed Funding. For any question you can contact the team of project officers at the following address: projects@eu-conexus.eu.
The Project Development Support Office missions are to:
- Manage the Seed Funding & Project Development Fund,
- Provide support to projects’ holders for preparation and submission of projects in response to external calls for proposals (this includes: advice on relevant calls, advice on structuring projects, support for finding partners, administrative support, budget preparation, proof-reading, support for proposal submission…).
Application
The project leader has to send the completed application form (Annex 1) to the following
email address: projects@eu-conexus.eu
Deadline for applications is 30 April 2024 (one follow-up call will be launched in January 2025).
Webinars
*The Project Development Support Office is in charge of managing the Seed Funding. For any question you can contact the team of project officers at the following address: projects@eu-conexus.eu
