The Horizon Europe EIC Pathfinder represents a significant opportunity for researchers and innovators to secure funding for groundbreaking projects. To maximize your chances of success, it's crucial to meticulously prepare your proposal, ensuring it adheres to the provided structure and guidelines. This article delves into the details of the standard application form (Part B) and provides a comprehensive guide to crafting a compelling technical description for your project.

Note: This article is for educational purposes only and no warranties are made regarding its accuracy. All rights belong to the original authors of the templates.

Understanding the Proposal Template

The proposal consists of two main parts:

1. Part A: This part is generated by the IT system based on the information you enter through the submission system in the Funding & Tenders Portal. It includes administrative details about the project and the participating organizations.
2. Part B: This is the narrative part of your proposal, where you detail the technical aspects of your project. Part B must be uploaded as a PDF and follows a specific template that addresses three core evaluation criteria: Excellence, Impact, and Quality and Efficiency of the Implementation.

Section 1: Excellence

The first section of Part B focuses on the Excellence of your proposal. Here, you must clearly articulate the visionary aspects of your project and its potential to push the boundaries of current technology and science.

• Long-term Vision: Describe your vision of the radically new technology towards which the project will contribute in the long term. Highlight the transformative potential of this technology.
• Science-towards-technology Breakthrough: Explain the science-towards-technology breakthrough that your project aims to achieve. Discuss the novelty and ambition of your approach compared to the current state-of-the-art, and describe how this breakthrough will contribute to the envisioned technology.
• Objectives: Outline the concrete objectives of your project, ensuring they are measurable, verifiable, and realistically achievable within the project's duration. Detail the overall methodology and explain its suitability in addressing the scientific and technological uncertainties.
• Interdisciplinarity: Describe how your project integrates contributions from different scientific and technological disciplines. Explain the added value of this interdisciplinary approach in achieving your project's goals.

Section 2: Impact

The second section addresses the Impact of your project. This section is crucial in demonstrating the broader significance of your research and its potential to drive innovation and societal change.

• Long-term Impact: Detail the potential transformative effects of your technology on the economy, environment, and society. Explain how your project will contribute to long-term positive changes.
• Innovation Potential: Highlight the potential of your project to generate disruptive innovations and create new markets. Describe the measures you will take to protect and exploit your project's results.
• Communication and Dissemination: Provide a plan for how you will communicate and disseminate your project's outcomes to stakeholders, the scientific community, and the public. Ensure these activities will maximize the project's impact.

Section 3: Quality and Efficiency of Implementation

The final section covers the Quality and Efficiency of the Implementation. This part focuses on the practical aspects of how you will execute your project.

• Work Plan and Allocation of Resources: Present a detailed work plan, including work packages, tasks, and deliverables. Explain the allocation of resources and justify their adequacy and appropriateness.
• Quality of the Consortium: Describe the composition of your consortium, emphasizing the expertise and complementarity of the partners involved. Highlight previous successful collaborations and specify the roles of each participant.

Tables and Annexes

To support the narrative, several tables need to be included, detailing work packages, deliverables, milestones, critical risks, and staff efforts. Additionally, depending on the call, you may need to include annexes providing further information on specific aspects such as clinical trials, financial support to third parties, security issues, and ethical considerations.

Formatting and Submission Instructions

The proposal must adhere to specific formatting guidelines:

• Font and Spacing: Use Times New Roman (Windows), Times/Times New Roman (Apple), or Nimbus Roman No. 9 L (Linux) with a minimum font size of 11 points and standard character spacing.
• Page Size and Margins: The page size is A4 with at least 15 mm margins on all sides.
• Page Limit: The combined length of sections 1, 2, and 3 should not exceed 20 pages.

Conclusion

Preparing a successful proposal for the Horizon Europe EIC Pathfinder Open call requires meticulous attention to detail and adherence to the specified template. By clearly articulating the excellence, impact, and quality of your project, and ensuring all required tables and annexes are included, you can significantly enhance your chances of securing funding for your innovative research.

For more detailed guidance, refer to the full proposal template and instructions provided in the Funding & Tenders Portal.

Proposal Template Part B: Technical Description

TITLE OF THE PROPOSAL

[This document is tagged. Do not delete the tags; they are needed for processing.] #@APP-FORM-HEEICPAOP@#

1. Excellence #@REL-EVA-RE@#

1.1 Long-term vision #@PRJ-OBJ-PO@#

Describe your vision of the radically new technology, towards which the project would contribute in the long term.

1.2 Science-towards-technology breakthrough

Describe in concrete terms the science-towards-technology breakthrough of the project. Discuss the novelty and ambition of the proposed breakthrough with respect to the state-of-the-art. Describe the contribution of the science-towards-technology breakthrough to the realization of the envisioned technology.

1.3 Objectives

Describe the objectives of your proposed work. Explain how they are concrete, plausible, measurable, verifiable, and realistically achievable within the duration of the project. Describe the overall methodology, including the concepts, models, and assumptions that underpin your work. Explain its suitability to deal with the scientific and technological uncertainties and how it enables alternative directions and options.

1.4 Interdisciplinarity

Describe the proposed interdisciplinary approach engaging contributions from different scientific and technological disciplines. Explain to what extent the combination of disciplines brings new scientific collaborations and how it contributes to the achievement of the proposed breakthrough.

2. Impact #@IMP-ACT-IA@#

2.1 Long-term impact

Describe the potential transformative positive effects that the envisioned new technology would have on our economy, environment, and society.

2.2 Innovation potential

Describe the envisioned new technology's potential for generating disruptive innovations in the future and for creating new markets. Explain the measures for the protection of results and other exploitation measures to facilitate future translation of research results into innovations.

2.3 Communication and Dissemination #@COM-DIS-VIS-CDV@#

Describe the proposed communication and dissemination measures, including how you will share the project's outcomes with stakeholders, the scientific community, and the public. Explain how these measures will maximize the impact of the project.

3. Quality and efficiency of the implementation #@QUA-LIT-QL@# #@CON-SOR-CS@# #@PRJ-MGT-PM@#

3.1 Work plan and allocation of resources #@WRK-PLA-WP@#

Describe the work plan, detailing the work packages, tasks, and deliverables. Explain the allocation of resources and how they are adequate and appropriate for the project.

3.2 Quality of the consortium

Describe the consortium's composition and explain how it brings together the necessary expertise and complementarity to achieve the project objectives. Highlight any previous successful collaborations and the roles of each participant.

Tables for section 3.1

Table 3.1a: List of work packages

Table 3.1b: Work package description

For each work package:

• Work package number
• Work package title (Participants involved in each WP and their efforts are shown in table 3.2f. Lead participant and starting and end date of each WP are shown in table 3.2a.)
• Objectives
• Description of work (where appropriate, broken down into tasks), lead partner, and role of participants. Deliverables linked to each WP are listed in table 3.2c (no need to repeat the information here).

Table 3.1c: List of Deliverables

Table 3.1d: List of milestones

Table 3.1e: Critical risks for implementation #@RSK-MGT-RM@#

Table 3.1f: Summary of staff effort

Table 3.1g: ‘Subcontracting costs’ items

Table 3.1h: ‘Purchase costs’ items (travel and subsistence, equipment, and other goods, works, and services)

Please complete the table below for each participant if the purchase costs (i.e., the sum of the costs for ‘travel and subsistence’, ‘equipment’, and ‘other goods, works, and services’) exceeds 15% of the personnel costs for that participant (according to the budget table in proposal part A). The record must list cost items in order of costs and starting with the largest cost item, up to the level that the remaining costs are below 15% of personnel costs.

Table 3.1i: ‘Other costs categories’ items (e.g., internally invoiced goods and services)

Please complete the table below for each participant that would like to declare costs under other costs categories (e.g., internally invoiced goods and services), irrespective of the percentage of personnel costs.

Table 3.1j: ‘In-kind contributions’ provided by third parties

Please complete the table below for each participant that will make use of in-kind contributions (non-financial resources made available free of charge by third parties). In-kind contributions provided by third parties free of charge are declared by the participants as eligible direct costs in the corresponding cost category (e.g., personnel costs or purchase costs for equipment).

ANNEXES TO PROPOSAL PART B

Some calls may ask to upload annexes to proposal part B. The annexes must be uploaded as separate documents in the submission system. The most common annexes to be uploaded in Horizon Europe are (standard templates are published in the Funding & Tenders portal):

• CLINICAL TRIALS: Annex with information on clinical trials.
• FINANCIAL SUPPORT TO THIRD PARTIES: Annex with information on financial support to third parties.
• CALLS FLAGGED AS SECURITY SENSITIVE: Annex with information on security aspects.
• ETHICS: Ethics self-assessment should be included in proposal part A. However, in calls where several serious ethics issues are expected, the character limit in this section of proposal part A may not be sufficient for participants to give all necessary information. In those cases, participants may include additional information in an annex to proposal part B.

Instructions for Formatting and Submission

• Font and Spacing: The reference font for the body text of proposals is Times New Roman (Windows), Times/Times New Roman (Apple), or Nimbus Roman No. 9 L (Linux). The minimum font size allowed is 11 points with standard character spacing and a minimum of single line spacing.
• Page Size and Margins: The page size is A4, and all margins (top, bottom, left, right) should be at least 15 mm.
• Page Limit: The sections 1, 2, and 3, together, should not be longer than 20 pages. All tables, figures, references, and any other element pertaining to these sections must be included as an integral part of these sections and are thus counted against this page limit. Excess pages in over-long proposals will be automatically made invisible and will not be taken into consideration by the experts.

Structure of the Proposal

The proposal contains two parts:

• Part A: Generated by the IT system based on the information entered by the participants through the submission system in the Funding & Tenders Portal.
• Part B: The narrative part that includes three sections, each corresponding to an evaluation criterion. Part B needs to be uploaded as a PDF document following the templates downloaded by the applicants in the submission system for the specific call or topic.

The electronic submission system is an online wizard that guides you step-by-step through the preparation of your proposal. The submission process consists of 6 steps:

1. Logging in the Portal
2. Select the call, topic, and type of action in the Portal
3. Create a draft proposal: Title, acronym, summary, main organization, and contact details
4. Manage your parties and contact details: add your partner organizations and contact details.
5. Edit and complete web forms for proposal part A and upload proposal part B
6. Submit the proposal