Creative SMEs in particular can make use of design as a strategic tool to create innovative products and services addressing new consumers' standards and societal challenges while assuring competitive and sustainable development.

However, the future European exploitation of this rich sector depend on the EU ability to support high-growth creative SMEs and start-ups in exploiting highly innovative technological advances in materials for commercial, cultural and societal applications.

To promote design-driven innovation, a number of action lines have been endorsed by the Commission, including integrating design into research and development and promoting new collaborative innovation strategies (‘Implementing an Action Plan for Design-Driven Innovation’, SWD(2013)380).

Scope:

Proposals should address the development of innovative advanced material solutions (e.g. superhydrophobic/superoleophobic nanomaterials and nanoscale systems, self-cleaning and self-healing systems, smart textile fabrics and papers, biomimetic, shape change/memory materials, self-assembling systems, energy harvesters) for use in the creative industry sectors defined above to make urban living significantly easier, more sustainable, more comfortable, more secure and more functional. Creativity, cultural and societal values, alongside specialist knowledge, should be driving the material innovation (e.g. increased performance, lightness, safety, sustainability, improved lifetime) to add value to products through the use of new intangible material functionalities (e.g. creative design, artistic expression, trend translation, enhanced sensations, cultural values).

Proof of concept in terms of product and/or process must be delivered within the project, excluding commercially usable prototypes (in compliance with European Commission Communication 2006/C323/01), but convincingly demonstrating scalability towards industrial needs.

In order to ensure the industrial relevance and impact of the research efforts, the key properties improvement and commercial potential of the innovative technologies compared to state-of-the-art solutions currently available on the market should be convincingly assessed in the proposal. Sustainability aspects in the whole life cycle of the final products should be taken into account. The active participation of designers, artists, societal stakeholders, material scientists, materials suppliers, researchers, manufacturers and end users of the resulting products represents an added value and this will be reflected in the second stage of the evaluation. As relevant, the proposed activities should address sex and gender specific aspects^[1].

Activities are expected to focus on Technology Readiness Levels 4 to 6, and target Technology Readiness Level 7.

A significant participation of SMEs with R&D capacities is encouraged.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU between EUR 5 and 7 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Expected Impact:

• Novel, higher added-value, better performing, sustainable, versatile, appealing designs and creative solutions for consumer goods based on innovative advanced materials or structures;
• Good integrability of the proposed innovative materials in final products (e.g. using a modular approach) and quickly reconfigurable to new custom requirements;
• Promoting new collaborative innovation strategies and practices along the value chain to develop commercial, cultural and societal applications with a strong user orientation, creating new business opportunities for the European industry and contributing to the circular economy in terms of one or more of the following: increased competiveness, faster recovery of investment, access to new markets, access to new customer segments, increased business effectiveness, increased costumer engagement, increased environmental sustainability;
• Enhancing innovation capability and competiveness of European SMEs by effectively combining and transferring new and existing knowledge with ‘intangible’ factors (e.g. creative design, artistic expression, trend translation, enhanced sensations, cultural values);
• Increasing awareness of designers about new materials;
• Contribute to achieving the relevant EU policy objectives in COM(2012)537, ‘Promoting cultural and creative sectors for growth and jobs in the EU’.

Proposals should include a business case and exploitation strategy, as outlined in the Introduction to the LEIT part of this Work Programme.

[1]See definition of the 'gender dimension approach' in the introduction of this Work Programme part.

Topic conditions and documents

Please read carefully all provisions below before the preparation of your application.
 

LIST OF COUNTRIES and APPLICABLE RULES FOR FUNDING
described in part A of the General Annexes of the General Work Programme.

Note also that a number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon 2020 projects (follow the links to Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, , Hong Kong &Macau, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Taiwan).
 

ELIGIBILITY and ADMISSIBILITY CONDITIONS
described in part B and C of the General Annexes of the General Work Programme.

Proposal page limits and layout: Please refer to Part B of the standard proposal template.

 

EVALUATION

3.1  Evaluation criteria and procedure, scoring and threshold: described in part H of the General Annexes of the General Work Programme , with the following exceptions:

For single-stage and second-stage evaluations, the threshold for the criteria Excellence and Impact will be 4.
The overall threshold, applying to the sum of the three individual scores, will be 12.

In case of equal overall scores in the ranked list, the priority order of proposals will be established in accordance with part H of the General Annexes, except that proposals will be ranked on the basis of individual scores for the Impact criterion before the Excellence criterion.

In case of equal overall scores in the ranked list, the priority order of proposals will be established in accordance with part H of the General Annexes, except, when comparing ex aequo proposals of different topics, the proposals will be ranked first according to the position in the topic ranked lists

3.2 Submission and evaluation process: Guide to the submission and evaluation process
    

INDICATIVE TIMETABLE for EVALUATION and GRANT AGREEMENT

Information on the outcome of two-stage evaluation:
      For stage 1: maximum 3 months from the deadline for submission.
      For stage 2: maximum 5 months from the deadline for submission.
Signature of grant agreements: maximum 8 months from the deadline for submission.

 

PROVISIONS, PROPOSAL TEMPLATES and EVALUATION FORMS
for the type of action under this topic

Innovation Action:

Specific provisions and funding rates
Standard proposal template
Standard evaluation form
H2020 General MGA -Multi-Beneficiary
Annotated Grant Agreement

ADDITIONAL PROVISIONS

Horizon 2020 budget flexibility

Classified information

Technology readiness levels (TRL) – where a topic description refers to TRL, these definitions apply.

Financial support to Third Parties – where a topic description foresees financial support to Third Parties, these provisions apply.

OPEN ACCESS

 

must be granted to all scientific publications resulting from Horizon 2020 actions, and proposals must refer to measures envisaged. 

Where relevant, proposals should also provide information on how the participants will manage the research data generated and/or collected during the project, such as details on what types of data the project will generate, whether and how this data will be exploited or made accessible for verification and re-use, and how it will be curated and preserved.

ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTS

• Legal basis: Horizon 2020 - Regulation of Establishment
• Legal basis: Horizon 2020 Rules for Participation
• Legal basis: Horizon 2020 Specific Programme
• H2020 Work Programme 2016-17: Introduction
• H2020 Work Programme 2016-17: Introduction to Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies (LEITs)
• H2020 Work Programme 2016-17: Nanotechnologies, advanced materials, advanced manufacturing and processing, biotechnology
• H2020 Work Programme 2016-17: Cross-cutting activities (Focus Areas)
• H2020 Work Programme 2016-17: Dissemination, Exploitation and Evaluation
• H2020 Work Programme 2016-17: General Annexes

The second stage deadline is 4 May 2017.