If you are based in a widening country or in case you need a good additional partner to your funded project, take a look at the Hop On Facility, or the HORIZON-WIDERA-2022-ACCESS-07 call identifier.
There were a lot of questions surrounding this scheme, but all is clear now.
What is the Hop On Facility?
Suppose the work programme foresees the possibility for legal entities from low R&I performing countries to join already selected collaborative R&I actions. In that case, based on excellence and added value contribution criteria, the respective consortium may decide to add a new partner. The only condition is that legal entities from such countries should not already participate in the partnership.
Including a widening country in the consortium triggers a Grant Agreement amendment process. Applications under the Hop On Facility call must demonstrate the R&I added value of the new partner and present a visible and distinct work package for the acceding partner. In addition, all existing partners must agree on adding this new partner.
Which ones are the 'widening countries'?
Low performing R&I countries or the so-called widening countries are Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and all Associated Countries with equivalent characteristics in terms of R&I performance and the Outermost Regions: Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Iceland, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, North Macedonia, Serbia, Tunisia, Turkey and Ukraine.
How much is the indicative budget of the Hop On Facility?
About 40 million Euros will be distributed across 80 projects (200.000 – 500.000 EUR/project) to integrate one additional participant from a Widening country to an ongoing project under Pillar 2 or the EIC pathfinder scheme while topping up a relevant task or work package and the cost incurred by the additional participant.
On what can the Hop On Facility budget be spent?
The primary beneficiary of this budget increase should be the new partner. The only exception is the coordination fee: the consortium coordinator can receive up to 10% of the increased budget.
Who submits the proposal?
The existing consortia will apply with the added partner, and the coordinator will submit the proposal. The type of action is Research and Innovation, which can be subjected to 100% funding.
Deadline
There are two deadlines for submission in 2022:
- 20 April
- 10 November
The call opened on 4 January.
Please note that there will be a competition. And if proposals receive equal scores in the ranking procedure, a preference will be given to those proposals with particular relevance to green or digital transitions of the economy.
Would you like to learn more?
Take a look at this online YouTube video, COM Info Day on Widening and ERA, published on 9 July 2021. Press play at 1:45 to learn more about the Hop On call.
