Call Open: Africa-EU Collaborative R&I on Renewable Energy 2021 // ZSI

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Call Open: Africa-EU Collaborative R&I on Renewable Energy 2021

16. Jan. 2021

Deadline for pre-proposals: 1 April; Deadline for full proposals: 15 Sept

The Long term Europe-Africa Partnership on Renewable Energy (LEAP-RE) programme co-funded by the European Commission (EC) under Horizon 2020 aims to increase the use of renewable energy via a well-balanced set of research, demonstration, and technology transfer projects in both continents.

For full information please see http://www.leap-re.eu/leap-re-call

This programme is led by a consortium of partners from European and African countries. The total budget of the programme is approximately € 32 Million, including € 15 Million from the EC. The LEAP-RE is structured around three Pillars: Pillar 1, the focus of this pre-announcement call, comprises the implementation of transnational proposals for research, innovation and capacity building, funded by national/regional funding agencies and by the EC; Pillar 2, is a cluster of individual Research and Innovation (R&I) and capacity building projects implemented by members of the consortium, whilst Pillar 3 focuses on programme management and the design of a long term AU – EU strategic partnership on renewable energy.
LEAP-RE Pillar 1 Call

Bringing together 16 African and European funding agency members of LEAP-RE consortium, this pillar is devoted to the preparation and implementation of transnational joint calls for proposals co-funded by European and African national research funding agencies, with an additional EC top up. The projects funded under the calls will focus on achieving goals of mutual benefit based on a balanced and cooperative approach. Particular attention will be given to strengthening the impact of R&I supported activities for the well-being of society in Europe and in Africa. The total indicative call budget is € 11 million provided by funding organizations + 6 million € from EC contribution. The funding decisions made for the first joint transnational call in 2021 will determine whether a second call is needed in 2022.

Scope of the Call and Priority Areas for Collaboration

The range of activities recommended for collaboration under LEAP-RE, will focus on 6 identified multi-annual roadmaps presented in the Call:

Mapping RE joint research and innovation
End of life of RE components
Smart stand-alone systems
Smart grids
Productive uses of energy
Domestic uses of energy

The LEAP-RE Joint Call 2021 will fund basic research, applied research and experimental development projects that are 12-36 months long. However, applicants should be aware that each funding agency participating to the Call will apply its own rules and regulations regarding eligibility and criteria (nationality, thematic, nature of the project, TRL, rate of subsidy…).

More information is available in the call documents - please consult the website: http://www.leap-re.eu/leap-re-call/ for the call text, submission guidelines, templates, etc.

Eligible organisations

Please consult the call text for details. In general, all actors in the renewable energy value chain are targeted (including universities, research institutes, companies, private sector, NGOs and public authorities, but specific eligibility criteria may apply.

Participating countries/regions are those who have at least one funding institution participating in Pillar 1 (see table 1 in the call text), basically from Africa: Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, South Africa, Togo; from Europe: Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Portugal, Romania, Spain, UK (specific criteria may apply).

A consortium applying to the Call must consist of at least four project partners from 4 different countries (2 from Europe and 2 from Africa). At least one partner of the Consortium should be from a European country participating to the Call and eligible to receive support from the relevant participating funder and one partner from an African country participating to the Call and eligible to receive support from the relevant participating funder. In general, organisations from European countries/regions not participating in the Call can be partners of the consortium on the condition that they provide evidence of the availability of their own funds to cover their project activities. African Organisations from countries/regions not participating in the Call and African Organisations from countries participating in the Call but not eligible to their national funding rules are eligible to apply for funding, although the resources available for this are limited. Such organisations wishing to be a partner within a consortium can be funded through a limited number of the funding institutions involved in this joint Call (those that don’t have any nationality restrictions (details in the call texts and appendixes) on who they may fund and may therefore fund partners from African countries not participating in Pillar 1). The potential for funding these African partners will be examined by the funding institutions at the time of the pre-submission evaluation of all projects.

Activities funded

LEAP-RE Joint Call 2021 addresses all aspects of the renewable energy value chain, covering energy production as well as transformation, storage and utilization. It is encouraged to include cross-cutting issues. Overall, LEAP-RE Joint Call 2021 can fund basic research, industrial research, applied research and experimental development projects (covering all innovation steps) that are 12-36 months long. However, not all funding agencies can fund all types of research (or TRL) or the full 12-36 months (details are provided in the call texts and annexes). The maximum funding for each project is 1 Million € and the maximum funding per partner in one project is 600 k€. However not all funding agencies will apply these amounts (see again call text and annexes).

Call calendar

15 January 2021   Publication of the Call
1st April 2021, 17:00:00 CEST   Deadline for Pre-proposal submission (mandatory)
15 June 2021   Communication of pre-proposal assessment
15 September 2021, 17:00:00 CEST   Deadline for Full Proposal submission
30 November 2021   Communication of full-proposal assessment

Proposal preparation

A joint transnational pre-proposal shall be prepared in English by the consortium and submitted in pdf form via the LEAP-RE Electronic Proposal Submission System by the lead researcher representing the coordinator. The pre-proposal submission is mandatory and must be submitted no later than 1st April 2021 at 17:00:00 CEST. If required by the national/regional regulations, submission forms or other documents must be submitted directly also to the participating Funding Organisations according to with their deadlines (see details in the call text and annexes and contact the national contact points).

The total pre-proposal length cannot exceed 6 pages. Partners requesting funding should sign statements of commitment and partners not requesting funding should sign statements of own funding. Forms are provided.

The total proposal length (Form A) cannot exceed 30 pages, including the Gantt chart, the references, the Budget table, the transnational and international collaboration and the Ethics, Gender balance, and other issues. All images and tables must be included in the maximum page length.

Information about evaluation criteria and selection processes are giving in the call text as well as procedures for contracting, reporting, etc.
Contacts

For all general inquiries contact: pilier1@leap-re.eu

For questions about the national/regional funding regulations: contact your national contact person (table 1 and appendix IV of the Call text).

For technical inquiry on the electronic submission system contact: Marie-laure.tarot@anr.fr

Please consult the webpage of the LEAP-RE programme for any updates and further information: http://www.leap-re.eu/leap-re-call/