Open Call for Proposals:
Participatory Elements in Research and Innovation

The H2020 Project PRO-Ethics is working with research and innovation funding organisations (RFOs) across Europe to test new, ethical ways to involve citizens in research and innovation activities or decision-making processes.

PRO-Ethics will deliver some very concrete outputs in the form of an ethics framework, together with a set of practical guidelines and actionable criteria for assessing the quality and ethics of participation processes. They have the potential to benefit stakeholders across the EU and beyond.

Goals
PRO-Ethics works with six national and regional RFOs. Together with TAFTIE, PRO-Ethics now wants to give another RFO the opportunity to invest in their organisation’s capabilities to try out new forms of participation in the future. To this end, an Open Call is hereby launched. Under the initiative, a budget of 25,000 EUR is available for an innovative project initiated by a European RFO (see target group). Beneficiaries will also be invited to selected PRO-Ethics project activities.

Through workshops, consultations, field visits, etc., the RFO should develop its competencies so that it can carry out participatory activities as part of its portfolio in the future. As in the project itself, future participatory activities can take place in various fields of action: e.g. in research and innovation projects, in strategy development and in evaluation processes. Such future activities must be new territory for the RFO, they must actively involve relevant stakeholders (citizens, NGOs, users of an innovation, etc.), and address ethical issues.

Funded activities must prepare the RFO to implement such participatory activities in the future. Examples for funded activities are:

• Field visits to RFOs already implementing participatory activities in different action fields and countries
• Staff training or train the trainer for capacity building
• Focus groups with multi-stakeholders to learn about needs and interests
• Guided reflection workshops for participation processes with the organisation
• Writing workshop for participatory call development
• Etc.

Funding may be requested for projects that are clearly defined in terms of objectives, target groups and methods by using the attached application form.

Target group
Public research funding organisations (RFOs), based in Europe (EU members and associated countries including UK), especially members of TAFTIE or Science Europe. Consortia out of two or more RFOs are possible, PRO-Ethics partners are not eligible.

Requirements and format
The proposed activities must be described in detail (problem definition, solution approach including methods, desired result and impacts, target groups and methods to reach them, ethical aspects, gender). The qualifications of the applicant (including reference projects and CVs of the responsible persons) must be presented, as well as a precise time and cost schedule.

Length
The entire application should not exceed 10 pages.

Evaluation criteria
• Innovation and novelty of the approach to the agency (25%)
• Implementation (15%)
• Impact on the agency and beyond (20%)
• Qualification of the implementing persons (20%)
• Price/performance ratio (20%)

Qualification of the board members
The jury members have the following qualifications and experience:
• At least 5 years of work in an RFO, a University or a comparable institution.
• Experience with the evaluation of proposals, preferably also in the context of Open Calls.
• Experience with Citizen Science or participatory approaches
• Knowledge of the European RFO ecosystem

Submitting the application
• Start of the call: July 20th, 2022
• End of the call: September 26th, 2022; applications must be submitted by 23.59 CET. Please use the application template including the cost calculation file (see downloads below)
• Please send the application via email to contact@pro-ethics.eu

Allocation
• Funding decision will be found by a board out of 4 experts with the appropriate qualification, by October 10th
• Activities are supposed to start after completion of the contract
• Timeframe for activities: 10 months

Contact
Dorothea Sturn, ZSI, sturn@zsi.at

Eligible costs
• Personnel costs and travel costs
• Other goods and services: e.g., costs for workshops, consultations, moderation, surveys, etc.
• Equipment and subcontracting are not eligible
• The project costs must not exceed a total of 25.000€ (already including 25% overhead costs)
• A detailed cost statement must be submitted by the beneficiary

Processes
Dissemination of the call: Email to all TAFTIE members, Science Europe Networks, TAFTIE HP, PRO-Ethics HP, through PRO-Ethics partner networks, social media: Twitter and LinkedIn
• Acknowledgement of receipt
• Eligibility check according to the eligibility criteria by ZSI
• Proposal evaluation: The board members will evaluate all eligible proposals based on the evaluation criteria by using the individual evaluation form template for evaluators. All evaluators have signed and agreed the evaluator confidentiality form. Evaluators are not allowed to contact the applicants at any stage of the evaluation.
• Board meeting and decision: The board members will agree upon the project to be funded. It is only one proposal which receives funding.
• Information and Transparency: All the applicants will be informed by email on the results of the evaluation process, which will also be published on the PRO-Ethics and TAFTIE websites.