Open Call Information Summary
2nd Open Call budget:€ 480’000 – A maximum of 8 projects are expected to be selected and funded.
Project budget range: € 60’000.00 maximum
Opening date: 25th July 2024
Closing date: 30th September 2024 at 17:00 CET
Contact person: Ignacio Lacalle Úbeda (Universitat Politècnica de València – UPV)
Email: opencall-aeros-project-eu@aeros-project.eu
Phone: +34963877000
Type of actions funded
In the first round, each open call funded proposal had to focus on one out of the five pilots.
In the second round, target is to tackle other sectors and scenarios (not covered in aerOS) focused on uptake and upscale of aerOS.
aerOS Main Outputs
- Virtualised and platform-agnostic Meta Operating System
- Methodology, standardisation, and protocols usable across the continuum for legacy and novel technologies
- Data autonomy strategy for the CEI continuum
- Infrastructural services and features for cybersecurity, trustworthiness and manageability
- Open APIs
Open Call 2 – Main Goals
- To validate and improve technical components of the aerOS meta operating system;
- to bring external actors (developers, domain experts, entrepreneurs, etc.) to create new solutions leveraging aerOS;
- promote the visibility of aerOS architecture and outcomes on the market
- gathering new inputs from IoT, edge, network and industrial experts
- extend application base of aerOS to other verticals outside the ones included in the proposal (domain-agnostic)
Open Call 2 – Focus
aerOS aims to establish a common meta Operating System that follows a collaborative IoT-Edge–Cloud architecture supporting flexible deployments (e.g., federated or hierarchical), enabling the distribution of intelligence and computation – including AI, ML, and Big Data analytics – to achieve an optimal solution while satisfying the given constraints.
aerOS Open Call focuses on 2 main key points:
- extension of functionalities delivered by aerOS,
- expansion of application of aerOS in the five use case verticals considered in the project.
Funding
For the second round of aerOS Open Calls, a budget of 480k€ is available considering the following:
- A maximum of 8 proposals will be funded.
- A maximum requested amount of 60.000€ per proposal might be accepted.
- Fixed duration of projects is 8 months.
A table to indicate the budget of the proposal is included at the final page of the “Proposal template” within Applicant Package.
The form of financial support to be used will be a pre-defined lump sum. Funds will be provided to the third parties following the accomplishment of different milestones verified on the basis on the presentation of technical and financial reports.
Payments will be:
(i) pre-financing
(ii) one interim payment according to the results of monitoring actions
(iii) final payment.
In the lump-sum to be requested, the costs will be eligible (‘eligible costs’), if they correspond to the lump sum set out in Annex 2 and if the corresponding tasks have been properly implemented in accordance with the Proposal submitted.
In addition, to be eligible the costs must meet the following criteria:
i. they must be incurred in the period set out in Article 9.4 of the Collaboration Agreement (see Application Package), with the exception of costs relating to the submission of the technical report and financial statement (see Article 9 of the Collaboration Agreement);
ii. they must be identifiable and verifiable, in particular recorded in the applicant’s accounts in accordance with the accounting standards applicable in the country where the applicant is established and with applicant’s usual cost accounting practices;
iii. they must comply with the applicable national law on taxes, labour and social security, and
iv. they must be reasonable, justified and must comply with the principle of sound financial management, in particular regarding economy and efficiency;
In contrast, the following will be considered ineligible costs:
i. costs that do not comply with the conditions set out above (see Article 7.1 of the CollaborationAgreement)
ii. costs reimbursed under another EU or Euratom grant (including grants awarded by a Member State and financed by the EU or Euratom budget and grants awarded by bodies other than the European Commission for the purpose of implementing the EU and Euratom budget)
A detail of the costs (and how to calculate them, regulation applicable, etc.) is given in the Collaboration Agreement template provided in the Applicants Package. Costs for the contribution (direct and indirect costs) are eligible (‘eligible costs’).
Applicability and eligibility criteria
Only the following type of entities will be able to submit proposals:
- European SMEs
- Universities
- Research centres (RTOs)
- Individuals
Operational eligibility criteria for proposals will also be:
- Only one entity per proposal will be admitted, so activities in co-operation will not be considered eligible (no Consortia allowed).
- Proposals must contribute to the aerOS paradigm and stick to aerOS technological principles.
- (For Open Call #2) – The proposal must be contextualised application sectors different to those present in the pilots of the project (thus, the sectors that will not be acceptable are: manufacturing lines, physical containers close to renewable energy sources, agriculture machinery, maritime ports, smart buildings).
- (For Open Call #2) – The proposal must clearly depart from an existing product / project, thus guaranteeing a quick/prompt integration and exploitation capacity.
- (For Open Call #2) – TRL higher than 6 must be exposed.
Administrative (and other) criteria are as follows:
- Proposals must be written in English in all their parts in order to be eligible.
- The applicants must base their proposals on original work and, going forward, any foreseen developments should be free from third party rights, or they are clearly stated in a specific space in the submission form (Previous IP background).
- Applicants are not allowed to submit multiple applications. If that is the case, only the first submitted application will be considered.
- No entity with economic interest, family or emotional ties or any other shared interest (‘conflict of interest’) towards aerOS Consortium partners will be accepted as candidates for funding.
- All cases of conflict of interest will be assessed case-by-case, based on pertinent EU stipulations.
Proposal preparation and submission
The submission of proposals will be managed through a dual-channel procedure after proper registry per applicant. The procedure is divided in three steps that are explained here below:
(1) The applicant must fulfil an online form with data relative to the proposal.
The form includes several fields that will correspond to the information that needs to be analysed for eligibility and for evaluation of the proposal:
- Informative boxes including entity name, entity type, person registering the application, PIC of the entity, country and website.
- Excellence boxes (limited characters different in each box):
- Innovative idea and relation with aerOS technology
- Expected results
- Previous background, IP and departing solution
- Impact and sustainability boxes (limited characters different in each box):
- Uptake/upscale of aerOS technologies
- Scientific outreach and expected KPIs
- Exploitation and commercialization plan
- Implementation boxes (limited characters different in each box):
- Workplan explanation: WPs, tasks and deliverables
- Technologies, methodologies, milestones and control of the advance
- Team boxes (limited characters different in each box):
- The Company
- The Team
- Ethics and GDPR Compliance (a check box): The form complies with all GDPR and ethical provisions as well as with aerOS procedures defined in deliverable D2.3 of the project. Informed consent and other legal details to ensure compliance with applicable regulations are included, designed in a secure way and including contact emails.
(2) Employing the user and password data generated out of the form above (using the associated submission number), the applicant can Upload a Document via a specific endpoint. Here, a PDF composed of only one page with maximum of 3 diagrams (including Gantt chart) will be admitted.
The URL for uploading the PDF is: https://opencall.aeros-project.eu/author/upload.php
In order for uploading the file, the submission number (previously obtained) must be used, together with the created password.
Joining the Consortium
Successful applicants will be required to sign a collaboration agreement* with Universitat Politècnica de València (partner UPV), the Project Coordinator, on behalf of the aerOS Consortium in order to be able to receive the funds.
*Note: The Application Package currently published in aerOS’s website contains a draft Collaboration Agreement Model. This must be interpreted as a guiding template for Athe Collaboration Agreement that will need to be signed. aerOS Consortium reserves the right to add minor modifications during the period of final formalisation of the document to be signed.
Selected entities will thereof enter the Consortium of aerOS as third parties of the Project Coordinator. The draft collaboration agreement with the rights and obligation assumed by the third party is included in the Applicants Package. The applicant (if accepted to be funded) will be requested to fulfil the indicated fields. From then on, all managing aspects will be dealt with via communication with the Project Coordinator. Likewise, any question/issue related with technical/operational participation in the project will be conducted through the leader of task T1.4 of aerOS (Ignacio Lacalle – UPV – iglaub@upv.es).
The aerOS Open Call #2 is now closed.
Guidelines for becoming aerOS Open Call Εvaluator
Are you a professional or expert interested in becoming aerOS Open Calls evaluator?
For applying to be an evaluator of aerOS Open Calls, the candidates must submit via email to the address iglaub@upv.es the following documentation before September, 15th, 2024, 5pm CEST.
Please carefully read the Guideline of Evaluators for the application process details.