What?

Announcement: Open Call is now closed! 44 Application Experiments (AEs) were selected and conducted to demonstrate the transfer of flexible and wearable electronics technologies into new products. If you are interested to know more about selected companies following each cut-off date, and their application experiments, visit our Application Experiment page.

• Call identifier: SmartEEs203-2020 call
• Project acronym: SmartEEs2
• Project full name: SUSTAINABLE ECOSYSTEM FOR THE ADOPTION, RAMP-UP AND TRANSFER OF EMERGING ELECTRONICS SOLUTIONS
• Project grant agreement number: 872076

SmartEEs2, a European acceleration program, is organizing an open Call for Application Experiments with the objective of providing support to Innovative Companies to digitalise their businesses and access new markets by integrating Flexible and Wearable Electronics technologies (FWE) into advanced products / series of products and services.

Interested companies can apply to one of the following two topics:

1. Experimenting and testing end-product ideas with FWE technologies
2. Support to manufacturing of FWE based end-products including upscaling

Important notice for applicants applying to both topics:

• Applicants can contact the Helpdesk prior to applying to the Call for AEs in case they need to check technical and business feasibility / scope of their ideas. The feasibility check will be performed by SmartEEs2 technical and business experts. A concise description of the idea together with indication of which flexible and wearable technologies would be integrated and how should be sent to the Helpdesk at least three weeks prior to submission. A simple email should suffice.
• SmartEEs2 project would like to directly contribute to reducing spread of COVID – 19 and other viruses with flexible & wearable electronics as solutions in the field of prevention, diagnostics, therapy, etc. Therefore, SmartEEs2 will preferentially support 2 application experiment proposals related to this thematic under any cut-off date.

1. Experimenting and testing end-product ideas with FWE technologies

The types of activities that qualify for receiving support have to be related to industrial and societal adoption of new digital products, services and business models enabled by Flexible and Wearable electronics (visit Technical Marketplace for technology details):

• OLED lighting
• Organic photovoltaics
• Flexible displays
• Electronics and components
• Integrated smart systems
• Smart textiles
• Structural electronics

Specifically, the aims of Application Experiments for this topic will be:

• The transformation of a product idea into a functional product demonstrator;
• The creation of an exploitation plan.

Please take careful note of the following:

• A supported product idea must focus on an end-product application;
• SmartEEs2 supports the fabrication and commercialization of only one product demonstrator;
• Limited number of functionalities is available for integration (limited resources, integrable in 9-12 months);
• Only validated technologies will be made available for fabrication and integration into product demonstrator;
• The research activity and development of new technologies (including materials, processes and components) will not be supported by SmartEEs2 (including proprietary solutions);

2. Support to manufacturing of FWE based end-products including upscaling

The types of activities that qualify for receiving support have to be related to the following manufacturing technologies (visit Technical Marketplace for manufacturing technologies):

• Electronics Printing
• High volume component assembly
• Post-processing / Finishing
• Structural electronics

This topic is open for companies which already have a Flexible and Wearable Electronics demonstrator but do not have the necessary manufacturing capacity to transform the existing demonstrator into production demonstrator for volume manufacturing. Examples of typical applicants are given below:

• I would like to produce samples on large quantity and at good quality;
• I have a product demo and want to do clinical trials;
• I want to show the potential of my products to a large set of potential customers;
• I have a large size product;
• I want to validate “state of the art” production methods;
• I want to validate technology close to implementation.

Specifically, the aims of application experiments for this topic will be:

• Small series of demonstrators;
• Advancement and validation of the exploitation plan (e.g. cost calculation, supply chain, market expansion).

Please take careful note of the following:

• You have a Flexible and Wearable Electronics demonstrator;
• You are planning to do validation experiments;
• Work is focused on TRL 7;
• You want to set up a manufacturing value chain;
• The demonstrator may be originated from other European projects.

When?

Open Call is now closed. The Call was opened from March 2020 to September 2021. 

Who?

The Call was open to:

• SMEs and Mid-caps
• Tech (technology companies) or non-tech (traditional companies)
• Operating in any sector

For the purposes of this Call for Application Experiments, all applicants are considered to be “Innovative Companies (ICs) ”.

Automotive		Logistics
Building & architecture		Medical & pharmaceutical
Consumer electronics		Packaging
Energy		Printing & graphic arts
Lighting		Textile & fashion
		Others

Important:

• Primary target of the SmartEEs2 Call for Application Experiments are ‘Early adopters’ (i.e. consolidated companies willing to innovate and integrate FWE technologies in their businesses) and not ‘Innovators’ (i.e. companies pushing the development & integration of their own technologies and without established businesses)
• Secondary target is ‘Early majority’ (i.e. consolidated companies replicating successful cases from early adopters on other related businesses)
• In terms of value chain position of applicants/companies, SmartEEs2 targets technology end-users (product designers, developers, integrators, etc.) and manufacturers.

Interested companies can do a self-assessment against a set of criteria distinguishing among innovators, early adopters, and early majority by downloading and answering a simple questionnaire.

Please note that the main factors determining the type of the company are staff headcount and, either, turnover or balance sheet total (see the COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION of 6 May 2003 concerning the definition of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises). If you are still not sure, please check the User Guide to the SME Definition. Please also note that the check of the type of company will be complete if your application experiment is selected for funding.

In order to be eligible for this Call, your company will also have to be established in one of the eligible countries. Please check the list of countries in the attached document.

The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020. There is now a transition period until the end of 2020 while the UK and EU negotiate additional arrangements. UK participants will continue to receive EU grant funding for the lifetime of individual Horizon 2020 projects, including projects finishing after the transition period ends at the end of 2020.

European Commission’s general notice for UK applicants: ‘’In conformity with the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement[1], the UK and persons or entities established in the UK continue to be eligible to receive Union funds under actions carried out in direct, indirect or shared management, which implement Union programmes and activities committed under the MFF 2014-2020 until the closure of those Union programmes and activities. Restrictions may, however, apply for security-related reasons or concerning financial instruments. When such restrictions apply, these will be clearly specified in the call for proposals.”

For more information, please check the links below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/continued-uk-participation-in-eu-programmes/eu-funded-programmes-under-the-withdrawal-agreement

https://www.ukri.org/research/international/ukri-europe/.

[1] Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community

Why?

All applicants to the SmartEEs2 program will get access to FWE and manufacturing technologies as listed above to integrate advanced features/functions inside new products and / or to make a series of products.

The winners of the Call will benefit from SmartEEs unique ecosystem composed of leading research organizations, a number of innovative technology suppliers, recognized experts in business development and investors.

The selected Innovative Companies will be provided customized support through a complete set of services integrating technical, business, ecosystem expertise which will enable them to build up sustainable business cases.

With SmartEEs2, Innovative Companies will benefit from freedom in design, high flexibility in functions integration and the agility of flexible and wearable electronics to make the difference in the marketplace.

The financial support available for an Application Experiment is up to 100 k€:

1. Up to 60 k€ worth of technical services delivered directly by the SmartEEs community, or by third party suppliers affiliated to the SmartEEs Community in the form of a Voucher assigned to the selected third-party supplier.
2. Up to 20 k€ Voucher assigned to the Innovative Company for technical activities integrating above technical services and directly related to the product prototyping / support to manufacturing activities (Deliverable 1 of the Application Experiment).
3. Up to 20 k€ assigned for non-technical activities related to the setting-up of the exploitation plan (Deliverable 2 of the Application Experiment). Supply of these activities as a Voucher or direct service to be decided by the SmartEEs2 team and after the pre-selection stage. 

The financial support of the Application Experiment will be complemented by the in-Kind contribution of all third parties benefiting from the Voucher (being suppliers of services or Innovative Companies), complying with the H2020 funding rules (70% funding rate of eligible costs for private organisations). This can be translated as follows for the 3 cases described above:

• Case 1.: The third-party supplier will provide 25k€ in-kind contribution. Hence, the Voucher (60 k€) will represent 70% of the total financing for its services (85 k€)
• Case 2.: The Innovative Company will provide 8.5 k€ in-kind contribution. Hence, the Voucher (20 k€) will represent 70% of the total financing for its activities (28.5 k€)
• Case 2. + Case 3.a.: The Innovative Company will provide 17 k€ in-kind contribution. Hence, the Voucher (40 k€) will represent 70% of the total financing for its activities (57 k€).

The Voucher and the In-kind contribution from the IC will be used to cover services and costs that are not available within SmartEEs which are necessary to the successful realization and completion of the Application Experiment. Only the costs listed below are eligible:

• Qualified human resources from the IC dedicated to the Application experiment
• Consumables, Components, Materials for the product demonstrator
• Travelling (E.g. meeting for kicking of the Application Experiment)
• Subcontracting (other third parties than the IC)
• Only costs incurred after the Service Delivery Agreement (SDA) contract has been signed.

Please note that equipment and investment costs are not eligible.

Other third parties (table) are optional to the Application Experiment. Other third parties must be sub-contractors proposing products & services readily available at the time of the application. The sub-contracted products & services must have no impacts on the risk assessment of the Application Experiment. Sub-contractors are not partners in the Application Experiment.

Detailed information about the SmartEEs services can be found on the Ecosystem Management Platform.

Please consult the Service Delivery Agreement (SDA) for detailed information about:

• Terms and Conditions for the Financial Support
• Liability
• Intellectual Property Rights Policy
• Confidentiality
• Dissemination
• Checks and audits
• Termination
• Specific obligations
• Joint Implementation Plan
• Final Report Template.

Maximum financial support to third parties (FSTP) received via calls from H2020 I4MS and SAE projects is 100,000 Euro. Please also note that financial support will not be awarded to individual legal entities that have already received 100,000 Euro via calls (FSTP) from H2020 I4MS and SAE projects.

Process?

Any submitted proposal will be evaluated by 3 evaluators in the nearest cut-off. All proposals will be evaluated (scores ranging from 0 to 5) according to the following criteria:

• Concept;
• Implementation;
• Impact

The maximum overall score is 15. The standard threshold for individual criteria is 3, and the standard overall threshold, applying to the sum of the three individual scores, is 9. The average of the 3 scores given by evaluators per section and total will be calculated for each proposal. Proposals failing to achieve the threshold score per individual criteria and the overall threshold will be rejected. Proposals will be ranked according to the overall scores in descending order.

The most successful proposals, having passed the evaluation and technical feasibility check, will be offered the chance to negotiate and define a Joint Implementation Plan (JIP) with the Service Delivery Manager (SDM) assigned by SmartEEs2. The negotiation should normally take 2 months, but additional 2 months could be awarded in duly justified cases. In this case, JIP definition and SDA signature must be completed within 4 months at the latest from the notice period.

Evaluation will be returned approximately 8 weeks from submission deadline. The entire process from proposal submission until the end of service delivery could take from 13 -16 (+5) months in the case that your proposal is selected for funding.

How?

If you are interested in applying to the Call, please follow the steps listed below before submitting your application.

1. Check out the smartees.eu;
2. Discover & review validated FWE and manufacturing technologies on the Technical Marketplace;
3. Select & identify the technology(ies) that could bring advanced features/functions to your novel product idea / series of products;
4. Download & read Application Guidelines;
5. Register through the submission software at https://apply.smartees2.eu;
6. Answer the listed questions/fields and Download Application Form from the software;
7. Complete the Application Form, save it as a PDF file (MAX 5 pages), upload it and submit it through the submission software.

We will accept only applications in English language.

Call documents

SmartEEs2 Call for Application Experiments

Application Guidelines

Service Delivery Agreement (SDA)

Contact

If you need assistance with applying to the Call, or explanations about technology offerings and your possibilities with SmartEEs2, please send us your enquiries by phone to:  +420 226 217 422 or by email to helpdesk@smartees.eu . Helpdesk will be active Monday – Friday from 9 a.m. to 17.00 p.m. We will be happy to help you. We suggest that you check your application experiments ideas well in advance of submission.

Complaints

Upon reception of the feedback, applicants will have the possibility to submit to the SmartEEs2 Evaluation Panel complaints related to decisions of proposal evaluation and selection, if there is an indication that there has been a shortcoming in the way a proposal has been evaluated. The complaint procedure is not meant to call into question the judgement made by the evaluators; it will look at procedural shortcomings and – in rare cases – into factual errors.

Such complaint requests should be raised within 7 working days from the date of the evaluation feedback sent by the SmartEEs Helpdesk. If a complaint is submitted after that deadline it will be rejected without further examination.

Complaint requests sent by applicants must be:

• related to the evaluation process;
• sent by email to SmartEEs Helpdesk;
• received within the specified time limit specified.

An initial reply will be sent to complainants no later than two weeks after the deadline for complaint requests. This initial reply will indicate when a definitive reply will be provided.

A complaint committee may be convened to examine the peer review evaluation process for the case in question. The committee’s role is to ensure a coherent interpretation of requests and equal treatment of applicants. The complaint committee itself, however, will not re-evaluate the proposal, but it will examine the admissibility of the complaints, the legality of the actions against which the complaints are launched and factual arguments and claims of the complaints. Depending on the nature of the complaint, the committee may review the evaluation report and individual comments. In the light of its review, the committee will recommend a course of action. If there is clear evidence of a shortcoming that could affect the eventual funding decision, it is possible that all or part of the proposal will be re-evaluated. Unless there is clear evidence of a shortcoming there will be no follow-up, or re-evaluation.

Please note:

• This procedure is concerned with the evaluation process;
• The committee will not call into question the judgment of the individual evaluators;
• A re-evaluation will only be carried out if there is evidence of a shortcoming that affects the quality assessment of a proposal. This means, for example, that a problem relating to one evaluation criterion will not lead to a re-evaluation if a proposal has failed anyway on the other criteria;
• The evaluation score following any re-evaluation will be regarded as definitive. It may be lower than the original score;
• Only one complaint request per application experiment will be considered by the committee;
• All complaint requests will be treated confidentially.