diana.jarve
21 de abril de 2020
Question 1: We are interested in NGI Pointer open call. According to eligibility criteria applicants can be “Natural (e.g. researchers, developers, hackers or internet activists) or Legal persons (e.g Universities, Research Institutes, SMEs or startups) with proven experience". Is it possible that CTIC Technology Centre applies to this call?
Answer: CTIC can apply, as the list referring to legal persons in the GfA is not exhaustive. That´s why indeed we indicate "e.g." before the list: they are examples. If you want (not compulsory) apply as a team / consortium, you can do, but this is not a way to participate as alternative because you are not eligible, since you are in fact. For that reason, we mention "teams" in our FAQ, all possibilities are open: you can apply individually, with a team / consortium, etc. What we recommend for the case of natural persons for example, if they apply as a team (i.e. two people) is that you will close a sort of Consortium Agreement to avoid internal troubles with the project, but this is again a recommendation, since the Sub-grant agreements will be signed with one entity / person on behalf of the others.
Question 2: I understand a team of people can participate (sect 7, guide for applicants), and each one receives their own budget. In the guide the example is of two people receiving 50k each. Is this arrangement flexible? Can we have a group of people with different tasks and split the budget among these people without exceeding 200k? For instance, it could be 5 people with 10k€ each.
Answer: The budget is received as a lump-sum for the involved team / consortium (up to you to decide how you participate). For that reason, we recommend that you will sign a type of "consortium agreement" if you apply as a team, to agree internal distribution of the budget. The limit of "up to 50K€" is for the case of participating as individual (no matter if you apply as individual alone or with a team / consortium" The limit "up to 200k€" is NOT modifiable. So, you CANNOT exceed it. The internal distribution of the grant is up to you to decide, so the "5 people with 10k€ each" is possible. So, at the end, any combination is possible, always that you will not exceed the 50k€ per individual neither the 200k€ per project.
Question 3: Can mixed entities participate? As a professor I could also participate with my department, with a SME, or with an organization. Can these different entities participate as a consortium? for instance university for the research part, SME for implementation and organization for the exploitation?
Answer: Yes, any consortium combination is possible. Bear in mind the "up to 50k€" per individual (natural person) and "up to 200k€" per project. Then, the internal distribution of the grant should be agreed among the members of the consortium. From NGI POINTER we will not establish no more limitations than previous ones for individuals or for the whole project. For that reason we recommend you to set an agreement between the parties to agree on that.
Question 4: In case a group or consortium applies, do the eligibility criteria sum up? So if there is one expert in research, one open source developer, one SME entrepreneur do their Eligibility minimum quality criteria sum or it is more correct to pick the person/entity that alone, can provide higher score?
Answer: The minimum quality criteria apply to the consortium as a whole. So, you can pick the members of the consortium that can better address those quality (i.e. partner 1 for criteria 1, partner 2 for criteria 2, etc....) or pick the one that better address those minimum quality criteria. You have to fill in references section and comments to explain why you selected this or other consortium member to match those criteria.
Question 5: If a legal entity participates (alone or with other entities as I mentioned) in what form is payment done? I understand the schedule is tobe discussed after the project approval, but what is the kind of payment? a lump sum like in subcontracting? or one has to report expenses?
Answer: The concept of lump sum means indeed that you will not have to "report expenses", but report the accomplishment of specific milestones / KPIs that you will have to do along the 12 month period of the programme. Payments will be done after milestones accomplishment. The payments instalments will be agreed after the project approval. They can be different from a project to another: i.e. including individuals (with the 50k€ limit), only eligibility from instalment 2 onwards, etc.... The final amount of the grant will be agreed between NGI POINTER team and the sub-grantees during the approval period, namely during the Welcome Camp, where you will also agree specific milestones for your project.
Question 6: Is a consortium of two SMEs eligible to apply?
Answer: Yes, any size consortium is eligible to apply
Question 7: Guide for applicants says that it is lump-sum funding so is there a need to report the actual costs of the project? Is the funding rate 100%?
Answer: Yes, there is no need to report the actual costs of the project, but you will need to satisfy the KPIs in place. I also confirm that the funding rate is 100%. The exact amount of financial support will be indicated in the “Individual Mentoring Plan” (IMP) which will be defined at the start of the Support Programme together with Technical and Business Mentors. The IMP will be annexed to the Sub-Grant Agreement.
Question 8: You mention that legal persons and natural persons can apply, but for legal persons you only provide SMEs and startups as examples. Are universities considered as legal persons?
Answer: As stated under 3.1 Types of Beneficiaires, "Applicants can be Natural (e.g. researchers, developers, hackers or internet activists) or Legal persons (e.g Universities, Research Institutes, SMEs or startups) with proven experience in internet architecture (protocols and open source software and hardware that are used to manage the Internet)." So, yes Universities are eligible as legal persons
Question 9: You mention that a project can obtain up to 200k equity-free funding. What does this means for a university in relation with the H2020 funding guidelines?
Answer: As it is lump sum funding, you will receive the due amount upon the successful completion of the specific Deliverables/ Milestones. The exact amount of financial support will be indicated in the “Individual Mentoring Plan” (IMP) which will be defined at the start of the Support Programme together with Technical and Business Mentors. The IMP will be annexed to the Sub-Grant Agreement.
Question 10: You mention that you seek for disruptive ideas that would renovate the internet architecture but also indicate that results should be marketable within 12 months. What is the most important (disruption or marketable)?
Answer: Whilst we would strive for disruptiveness from the current status quo, it is important that the ideas are adoptable (this is what "marketable" means, but not with a sense of business adoption). As stated in 5.2 Proposal Evaluation, the project will be evaluated on "how his/her bottom up project will contribute to adopt new open standards with actual potential of rolling out at the whole internet scale, clearly stating the targeted standardisation body/bodies".
Question 11: What is the maximum duration of a project? Are they restricted to 12 months or is it possible to submit a two years project?
Answer: They are restricted to 12 months as there are 3 planned phases throughout the duration of the project. As stated in 6. NGI Pointer Support Programme applicants will participate in a "12-month programme to help with the execution of bottom-up projects in order to create highly innovative technologies, potentially turn them into products or services that will contribute in creating a more scalable, resilient and sustainable internet." These phases include “Technology Development”, Business or Advanced Technology Opportunity” and "Technology Adoption". The concrete duration and funding support, as said above, will be defined in the Individual Mentoring Plan (IMP), but the top limit of 12 months duration is not modifiable.
Question 12: Are there financial guidelines on the preparation of a budget similar to those or traditional H2020 projects?
Answer: There is no need for financial guidelines as this will be a lump sum, which means you will not need to report specific costs. The agreed grant is paid against specific Deliverables/ Milestones included in the Individual Mentoring Plans and the Sub-grant Agreement.
Question 13: I would submit a proposal under my company (CEO&Founder) which is recognized as a research entity but with one researcher only (myself), is the submission in that case associated as an individual and the budget limited to 50 KE?
Answer: If you apply as an entity (research centre) the limitation of "up to 50K €" is not applicable to you in the case that the entity is the applicant Another thing is that you apply as an individual with another legal entity (I assume this is not the case, since you are the company owner and belong to it, right? In that case we would consider that you apply as a consortium where you are an individual + legal entity. The internal budget distribution would not allow that the individual would receive more that 50K€ but in this particular case, the consortium as a whole can still apply to receive up to 200K€.
Question 14: Where do I specify that I am applying as a company? As far as I see the forms request contact names, not legal entities details
Answer: As we accept both legal and natural persons, there is no need to indicate, at the proposal stage, that you are an SME. If your proposal is successful, we may then require additional data about your legal entity.
Question 15: A selected project takes 12 months to complete. Does it mean that there are 12 months dedicated for development? Or 6 months for development and the remaining time for other activities such as deploying the deliverables? Are projects planning 12 team months of development appropriate for the program?
Answer: This is up to you. The maximum duration of the project is 12 months.
Question 16: When does the program start exactly? Three months after the deadline of submission?
Answer: we expect to start the projects in Sept, latest October. We hope there are no unexpected delays due to externalities.
Question 17: Is it necessary to submit the fixed team of people during submission? Can the proposed team be changed later, before the start of the program or during the program?
Answer: The core should be fixed, but you have options to make changes. However, if you submit as a consortium of legal persons (legal organisations), we recommend that you draft a consortium agreement between all parties. If you submit as a team of natural persons, you can also have some sort of agreement of division of labour. You can add persons as subcontracts later and we offer also a voucher scheme for this in the call. So there is flexibility as long as the essence/core is solid.
Question 18: Do we specify the requested amount of money during the time of application?
Answer: Yes
Question 19: Are milestones planned to take around 1 month? Are they planned upfront before the start of the program? Is there a room for flexibility? Planning projects for 12 months of a team in 12 milestones tend to be misestimated. Certain tasks will be done quicker, other ones slower and there are many unplanned bugs and regressions unknown as of today. Is it possible to plan roughly 1 month ahead and keep the general idea of the destination during the program? Are the payments planned to take 1/12 of the total sum after each month? This aspect of the program matters for accounting liquidity, especially for teams and long-term challenges (and young companies).
Answer: Each project will have an individual mentoring plan - this is the first milestone. All other milestones are defined within the mentoring plan. There should be a minimum of 3 milestones, so we can provide performance based payments based on the milestones, but we keep this flexible.
Question 20: How do we report our (monthly?) work? Do we write reports and submit local code to a branch of a public (GitHub?) repository? Is it appropriate to work "in public" repositories during the program?
Answer: We define this in the mentoring plan. But your suggestion sounds good.
Question 21: Do we need to take part in business teaching and/or take part in other non-development meetings or other kinds of activities during the program?
Answer: We define this in the mentoring plan. We believe that there will be some joint activities to try and encourage some networking and knowledge exchange.
Question 22: As far as I understand, we receive support at the end in the attempts of commercializing the technology. Does the commercial success of the project make an impact on the funding process? Today many companies and potential customers changed mode to a survival mode due to the economic crisis and these circumstances do not make the task easier.
Answer: This is an option and up to you to define with us in the mentoring plan.
Question 23: Changing the legal status now is hard as there is a lockdown and we have a short time in general. Workarounds with submission of 3 or 4 projects don't look promising as we intend to work on the same project and get everybody aboard. However, as this is mandatory to arrange BEFORE the deadline (or date of submission) we will try our best.
Answer: We recommend you to participate with your current legal status. The composition of the team can be changed later as long as the core team is the same.
Question 24: We plan to work on a project that has two major milestones (let's say A and B). B depends on A. A is estimated to be achieved after 9 months, B after 3 months. Total 12 months of development. A and B have a number of important, optional and nice to have points. If we end up with finishing only important points (enough to host A on B and get B operational) and scheduling the rest for the future, after the program, it shall be considered as a fully successful project. Certain tasks can take 1 man-week and other ones 3-6 man-months or possibly even more time. It's not really possible to divide A into 3 independent sub-milestones as people will work on independent tasks concurrently with varying difficulty. If one task takes more than one quarter it shall not be considered as failed, but work-in-progress. It would be best to snapshot A and B each month, draft deliverables for next month and money transferred each month to the legal person. Optionally we could snapshot A 3 times (quarterly) and B once, followed by receiving funds 4 times (quarterly). How quickly can we expect to get funds from NGI after accepting our reports?
Answer: The milestones and check-points should be defined in the Individual Mentoring Plan. You will receive payment approximately 30 days after your reports are approved.
Question 25: ”Each project will have an individual mentoring plan - this is the first milestone." Does it mean that settling a mentoring plan is already considered as a milestone and we get a payment on the start of the project?
Answer: Yes, this is the case. You would get 15% of the lump-sum grant after confirming the participation in Welcome Evet and completing the Individual Mentoring Plan (Milestone 1).
Question 26: What does a mentoring (plan) really mean in practice?
Answer: The Individual Mentoring Plan (IMP) is developed with the two mentors (Technical and Business) assigned to your project. The plan establishes the individual budget, deliverables and KPIs that will be taken into account when evaluating the Teams’ performance at the payment’s milestones. The IMP, once updated, will be annexed to the Sub Grant Agreement [SGA]
Question 27: What are we expected to be mentored?
Answer: You will be mentored on developing and reaching defined KPIs and deliverables (on a technical and potentially business level). Ethics compliance will also be evaluated.
Question 28: Will there be video conferences for this or just mails and/or reading of materials?
Answer: It will be online, but we encourage at least one face-2-face e.g. at the Welcome event.
Question 29: How much time do we need to plan for this weekly or monthly?
Answer: Mentoring is defined in the plan you put together with your mentors – it should suit the project plan. However, you will need to have milestones in place for us to track your progress and financially support you.
Question 30: Regarding core developers. We plan 2 developers, but we want to attach 1-2 more people, either part time or full-time. We estimate our project as 3 people for 12 months (3 man-years). If there is an impact on the funding amount of money, we will try to submit a proposal with 3 people, but flexibility will be welcome. It's difficult to plan time after several months upfront with uncertainty. In the time of the pandemic we need to plan accordingly.
Answer: As stated earlier, it is best that the core group does not change. If natural persons are participating, then funding is capped at 50k per person. The overall funding limit is capped at 200k.
Question 31: Where does the Welcome Event take place? Do we need to visit it with the whole team or a single representative person is fine?
Answer: The Welcome event was initially planned to take place in mid-October. Whilst it was planned to be a physical event in Germany, it may be held online due to the current COVID-19 situation. We will have more information to share in the coming weeks.
I believe having a representative or two present at the event (if at a physical location), should suffice.
Question 32: We recently found out about your funding program and would like to check if you find our startup eligible for the application?
Answer: Unfortunately, we are not in a position to evaluate individual proposals ideas prior to submission. However, I am providing you with the level of experience we are looking for in our applicants:
Question 33: Can you please direct me to a resource where I can learn more about European Values mentioned?
Answer: The Next Generation Internet, a key priority in H2020 ICT work programme 2018-2020, is focused to ensure a more human-centric Internet supporting European values of openness, cooperation across borders, decentralisation, inclusiveness, transparency and protection of privacy.
Question 34: We plan to implement a Scrum methodology in the development process. Can we include our project owner in the application (not in the role of a developer) and attach her CV in the application?
Answer: Yes you can.
Question 35: Do we need to pay from the received amount (assume 200 000 EUR) to assigned mentors? Is the whole amount dedicated to our sole discretion in planned expenses?
Answer: 200k is your discretion. You can allocate money of the 200k to vouchers to buy extra hours from mentors and subcontracts. It’s flexible.
Question 36: Can a team of 4 be a founder + 3 new hires, please?
Answer: You can apply as a legal person, meaning a startup/SME and apply for the maximum grant.
Question 37: What is the TRL expectation? For example from TRL5 to TRL7?
Answer: We discarded the notion of TRLs deployable and demonstrable code are important.
Question 38: Can we receive funding if we have already participated in or applying for another NGI initiative?
Answer: Yes, so long as you are funding an original project not previously funded by EU funding.
Question 39: Can the proposal be based on the implementation of standardization effort in IETF draft?
Answer: Yes.
Question 40: Can we submit a video with our application, please. Our work is very visual.
Answer: You can submit links. We ask for URLs in the forms.
Question 41: Regarding funding, if approved would this have to be 4 staff @ 50k euros each or can we allocate piece work to various contractors as necessary?
Answer: You can apply for the maximum grant i.e. 4 natural persons is 200k euros. You are free to decide how the money is allocated to the natural persons and to cover the expenses of different tasks in your project.
Question 42: Research outcomes are desirable or they have to be also accompanied with a tool/practical solution?
Answer: There is no need for a tool/practical solution but we do encourage that the project outcomes are impactful and will have the potential to become implemented in the future.
Question 43: Can a consortium of 2 SMEs apply?
Answer: Yes. The capped budget remains at 200k euros.
Question 44: As someone who represents a team of 10 people working on a project, I have been requested with this: Background. Link to previous/on-going project, including software repository. And as a representative of this project, my role is not really technical, so I do not have this. Is this a problem to apply for?
Answer: That is fine so long as the project demonstrates that the core team fits the description of an NGI Architect: people with an ambition of changing the Internet and Web with European Values at the core. They can be Researchers, Activists, Open Source, Hackers, SW/HW developers, acting on an individual basis or under an established entity, so both natural and legal persons will be eligible for funding. Furthermore as the field Background. Link to previous/on-going project, including software repository is mandatory I would suggest that you provide background on your role within the project.
Question 45: Can the proposal be requested by a consortium of two organisatioon. Or the application must be done by an unique legal entity.
Answer: The proposal can be submitted jointly by two legal entities. The maximum EU funding contribution is €200,000.
Question 46: Could the team be formed by a NGI architect with high experience and multiple researchers/developers with 100% dedication to the project or must all members of the team be provided wide experience as NGI architects?
Answer: This very much depends on the needs of the proposal. The Minimum Quality Criteria require that the team demonstrates experience in, at least, two of the following:
Question 47: The Workplan should be described the development methodology and milestones of the project in 1000 characters. Correct?
Answer: The Workplan should define the project's major milestones and how you plan to verify them. This should take no more than 1000 characters.
Question 48: The resources of budget should be justificated for the required personal and material according to the milestones defined in the Workplan so as travel-costs for NGI POINTER meetings. How much NGI meetings should it be considered?
Answer: This section should reflect the resources required to carry out the work. It is up to you to define what is necessary, including the number of meetings. Just keep in mind that the maximum EU funding contribution for legal entities is €200,000.
Question 49: Is it required any documentations and DOC deliverables related to the implementation and demonstration? Or only software open-source code.
Answer: The reporting of deliverables and milestones will be defined together with the Technical and Business Mentors assigned to your project. Your team and the assigned mentors will jointly define the Individual Mentoring Plan (IMP), which will establish the individual budget, deliverables and KPIs that will be taken into account when evaluating your Team's performance at the payment’s milestones. The IMP, once updated, will be annexed to the Sub-Grant Agreement by FBA.
Question 50: The demonstration of the implementation could be provided in some specific manner. We expect to test, validate and demonstrate the implementation in our hardware devices. But we suppose that a final demo should be shown to the NGI POINTER consortium. Correct?
Answer: The stages of the project are flexible and open. Your team will define the milestones (stages and planned achievements) of the project together with the mentors. The NGI Pointer Work Programme has been defined to provide projects with 12 months of support, to help with the execution of bottom-up projects in order to create highly innovative technologies, potentially turn them into products or services that will contribute in creating a more scalable, resilient and sustainable internet. The Support Programme will provide bottom-up projects with support for 3 major milestones:
Question 51: Dissemination and exploitation activities should be included in the Workplan. Example, scientific publication and bussiness models related to the implementation. Correct?
Answer: The open call allows for NGI Architects to define the activities according to what suits the project best. These activities will be outlined in the Individual Mentoring Plan.
Question 52: Which section of the impact should it include the explanation of how the results of the project should be commercialised and of what kind of economical impact is expected?
Answer: In the Application Form you have the choice to answer at least one of the three Impact criteria which are related to Demonstrable Internet Architecture Renovation, Open source contributions and Standardisation and Roll Out Potential. You will need to customise your answer based on the guidance provided under each Impact section.
Question 53: It is not clear to me what is the purpose of the supporting document, besides the inclusion of diagrams and illustrations (as mentioned in the proposal guidelines). Are we expected to provide more detailed descriptions of proposal sections, such as the excellence, the implementation and the impact within this document?
Answer: You do not need to provide more detailed descriptions of the proposal sections. You will only need to provide additional material (an annex) that can support your proposal.
Question 54: Is there still notion of matching funding? Some specific EU funding level based on the legal form, say SME or Non-Profit, 50%-85% for example?
Answer: There is no match funding for this open call. The maximum grant is 200k.
Question 55:If I am a single entrepreneur applying, which is better option for me:
Open Source Foundation (non-profit NGO) legal form or Limited Liability Company (LLC)?
Answer: You can apply as a natural person or a legal person. If you are applying as a natural person (independent of an entity), you are entitled to 50k. If you are participating as a legal person (this can be any type of entity i.e. research, not-for-profit, private etc), you are entitled to request 200k. It doesn't matter what type of legal person you are applying under i.e.Open Source Foundation (non-profit NGO) legal form or Limited Liability Company (LLC). The funding of 200k remains the same.
Question 56: How do you schedule your payments or Milestone Stage-Gates?
Answer: Milestone stage-gates will be determined by the needs of your project. These milestones will be recorded in the Individual Mentoring Plan (IMP), which will establish the individual budget, deliverables and KPIs that will be taken into account when evaluating your Team's performance at the payment’s milestones. The IMP, once updated, will be annexed to the Sub-Grant Agreement.
At the end of each milestone (or whenever a payment is due), a deep analysis will be done to evaluate the project’s performance. The Mentoring Committee will evaluate the performance and quality of deliverables issued by the projects, proposing their final valuation. The Selection Committee will validate it and take the final decisions based on Mentoring Committee inputs.
Projects performing as expected in the Individual Mentoring Plan, will receive the EU Funds payments as scheduled.
Question 57: How soon after the start could be the first Milestone / Payment?
Answer: You will receive payment approximately 30 days after your reports are approved.
Question 58: Are there any up-front payments?
Answer: You will get 15% of the lump-sum grant after confirming the participation in Welcome Evet and completing the Individual Mentoring Plan (Milestone 1).
Question 59: How is the reporting handled / how much / how often if you are measuring the milestones by performance and not by the hour?
Answer: Reporting is decided jointly with the two mentors assigned to you at the start of the project. The milestones will be determined based on the needs of your project. These milestones will be recorded in the Individual Mentoring Plan (IMP), which will establish the individual budget, deliverables and KPIs that will be taken into account when evaluating your Team's performance at the payment’s milestones. The IMP, once updated, will be annexed to the Sub-Grant Agreement.
Question 60: I suppose the person applying needs to have a PIC -number? How soon is this needed?
Answer: No need for a PIC number for this Open Call.
Question 61: Could I confirm whether UK based companies are currently eligible for funding from NGI-pointer?
Answer: Please note that based on the Withdrawal Agreement, concluded between the EU and UK, which entered into force on 1 February 2020, the transition period has started. During this period EU law continues to apply in the United Kingdom until 31 December 2020. This means that till the end of 2020 you will be able to receive financial support for your project within the Horizon 2020 programme. This also applies to financial support to third parties according to Article 204 FR (cascading grants).
Further funding within the H2020 scheme will be possible only if the EU and UK reach an appropriate agreement. You must take into account the risk of not being able to participate in the project after 31.12.2020 and obtaining further funding.
Further information: https://www.ukri.org/research/international/ukri-eu-exit/
Question 62: Is it possible to apply as a company, if at the time of the proposal submission the company has not been incorporated yet, but will be incorporated latest in August 2020?
Answer: You can apply as a company even though it will be incorporated in August 2020. We will need to see the appropriate documentation, once the proposal is selected for funding.
Question 63: When is the planned official starting date of the project execution?
Answer: The kick-off is expected to be around mid-October at the Welcome Event. The date of the Welcome Event has yet to be confirmed due to the disruption caused by COVID-19.
Question 64: What is the project maturity you are looking for? Research and Development? Prototype? MVP? Market ready product?
Answer: The Open Call does not have specific Technology Readiness Level requirements. NGI Pointer is looking to support bottom-up research projects that require support to develop their technical solution with the intention of it being adopted in the future.
Question 65: Can a company parallely participate in the NGI Pointer and other EU Funded projects such as DAPSI or SME Instrument with a different project?
Answer: Yes, as long as you are not funding the same project under different calls, as this would be a case of double-funding.
Question 66: How frequently are the mentoring meetings?
Answer: It will be up to you to decide this with your mentors.
Question 67: Are there any personal meetings during the project? If yes, in which city?
Answer: We anticipate that most of these would be virtual with the exception of the welcome event which might take place in Germany. This has yet to be confirmed due to the disruption caused by COVID-19.
Question 68: Do you have any guideline on what the 10 pages product documentation must contain?
Answer: The online form includes guidelines for each section. You will see these suggestions within the text fields.
Question 69: Can we include commercialisation related activities (validation, marketing, PR, stakeholder engagement) in the activities planned during the project time?
Answer: It is up to you to decide how you would like to budget for your activities.
Question 70: Are you considering extending the submission deadline, given the current difficult situation? I imagine that many people are behind due to a serious (extra) teaching overhead that came about with remote teaching.
Answer: Unfortunately, we are not extending the deadline, the proposal is expected to take between 1-1.5 days to complete. The platform also allows you to add contributors if you have a team member who can help.
Question 71: I would like to know what are eligible costs to be funded by the award. The Guide for Applicants notes that ‘The maximum amount per bottom-up project is 200,000€ equity-free funding.’ Does this include personnel, other direct costs and also costs for overhead?
Answer: You will be receiving a lump sum — this means it is not broken down according to cost category.
Question 72: Can you please clarify what exactly can be funded through the 200k award?
Answer: You will have to decide on how to utilise the 200k award based on the needs of the project.
Question 73: Can non-profit organisations be funded or is the call just meant for for-profit SMEs?
Answer: The call is open to all types of entities, including NGOs.
Question 74: Could you please clarify what answers are considered relevant for the following question? Can you give us examples? The question: How do you envision yourself as NGI Architect? Provide your own definition and describe how do you match with such a definition of internet architects.
Answer: The definition of an NGI Architect is a follows: “People with an ambition of changing the Internet and Web with European Values at the core” and they can be Researchers, Activists, Open Source, Hackers, SW/HW developers, acting on an individual basis or under an established entity, so both natural and legal persons will be eligible for funding." You will need to demonstrate how you match such a definition.
Question 75: Could you please clarify what answers are considered relevant for the following question? Can you give us examples? The question: Experience contributing to an Internet or Web SME/start-up with European Values (yes/no). Assessment is based on evidence from the SME/start-up website.
Answer: An Internet or Web SME/start-up refers to businesses who's core product offering is acquired or consumed via the web. These businesses need to reflect European values of openness, cooperation across borders, decentralisation, inclusiveness, transparency and protection of privacy. You will need to demonstrate your contribution to such businesses.
Question 76: Could you please clarify what answers are considered relevant for the following question? Can you give us examples? The question: Experience contributing to the Internet and Web communities through other means (yes/no). Assessment is based on the applicant providing at least one link to online publications, contributions to events, teaching or other relevant activities.
Answer: An example would be the Linux Foundation, which provides support for open source communities through financial and intellectual resources, infrastructure, services, events, and training. You will need to demonstrate that you have contributed to such online communities in the form of online publications, contributions to events, teaching or other relevant activity.
Question 77: In the guidelines we could see that the declaration of honour and the absence of conflict of interest (compulsory) is necessary. But then in the system I can't see where to upload this information. Is necessary to attach additional information, and where? Or is it enough to fill in the online form?
Answer: It is enough to fill in the form.
Question 78: I'm applying alone, but the "Implementation" page forces me to add a
team member; the data there will be redundant with the "Team member - Coordinator (Contact person)" section above. Is that intentional?
Answer: You are not obliged to fill out the team member section if you are the only person involved in the project.
Question 79: Could you provide some guidelines on how you expect that the annex in the online form are used? What would you consider as supporting information in the context of this call (apart from what is already mentioned online; i.e. figures with some description and description on eligibility criteria)?
Answer: You are able to use the annex to provide supporting information and documents to your main proposal. You will need to provide the core information in the proposal sections. The supporting document can include material that supports your core information. We do encourage the evaluators to review this information but it is best that the main elements are highlighted within the proposal sections.
Question 80: Could I please confirm that I could include in the project team a named researcher who is not a permanent member of faculty (i.e. a current post-doctoral fellow)?
Answer: That is fine, although I would recommend that your core team is stable.
Question 81: Can we include in the application a non-technical (non-programmer) business consultant that is a part of our team? There is no source code repository available.
Answer: Yes, this is OK.
Question 82: Can we include in the application in team members a legal body (Open Source Organization) as a subcontractor?
Answer: Yes, this is OK.
Question 83: Can I use a github profile link for the "Team member" CV Link?
Answer: Yes, this is OK.
Question 84: Are there limitations as to how one legal applicant can spend the funding? For example, does all funded work have to be carried out by the legal applicant or can a fraction also fund external partners?
Answer: You can breakdown the costs the way you like as long as they make sense for the delivery of work. You can also hire contractors.
Question 85: Under the "Implementation" section, assuming a very collaborative project with different legal entities but with only one applicant for funding, is it better to list all four team members to emphasize the collaboration or only the one legal applicant?
Answer: I would recommend you list team members.
Question 86: One of the contributors is based in the USA - is this acceptable? I have seen some papers regarding Horizon2020 to suggest that is okay.
Answer: If you're entity is established within the EU, this should not be a problem.
Question 87: We are involved in a project where we are receiving funds, but we must transfer them (100%) to another beneficiary. We are not considered as a beneficiary in the sub-grantee agreement. In the form there is a request to inform (Yes/No) whether the applicant has received NGI funds (as legal entity) or is working on NGI funded project (as individual). Should we write "Yes" or "No"?
Answer: In this case, if you are like a partner handing out grants, you can select NO.
Question 88: I'm planning to submit a proposal with a spin-off created with my University. How is it possible to declare this intention?
Answer: You will not have to declare this in the application form. However, if you plan on participating in the call under the legal form of this spin-off, it will need to be integrated as a company before September, as we aim to be finalising the contractual period by then. Otherwise, your university will be signing the contract for funding, if you are participating under your university.
Question 89: Can I pay people that are not in the project at the moment and that will be involved later on?
Answer: You should breakdown the costs according to the work required to deliver your project. You can budget for contractors or other team members, but the core group should remain.
Question 90: I’m going to involve in the project a group of researchers from different universities. How can I pay for their work?
Answer: If you are involving independent researchers or natural persons (i.e. they are not participating under their university), they can individually receive up to 50k. If you are participating as legal persons (e.g. university), you can request up to 200k.
