Include a Widening country partner and boost your Horizon project with the Hop-On Facility

19th September 2024 at 5:34 pm

Committed to improving the inclusiveness of Horizon Europe, the European Commission (EC) funds research institutions and companies to strengthen research and innovation across Europe. To achieve this, the EC offers the so-called Hop-on Facility, which allows research institutions from Widening countries to join ongoing R&I actions under Horizon Europe Pillar 2 and European Innovation Council (EIC) Pathfinder actions. The less R&I advanced countries eligible to coordinate widening actions are 15 EU member states (such as Greece, Poland and Portugal), 14 Associated Countries with equivalent characteristics in terms of R&I performance (such as Albania, Georgia and Turkey), as well as the Outermost Regions (defined in Art. 349 TFEU) (such as the Canary Islands)*.

Calls for proposals for the Hop-on Facility are covered by the WIDERA Work Programme 2023-2025 “Widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area”. The first call was in early 2023 and the current call for proposals (HORIZON-WIDERA-2023-ACCESS-06-01) closes in one week. So, this is good timing to look at the numbers and do a final check of your hop-on proposal or prepare for the next round. There will surely be a third call in 2025.

High success rates in the Hop-on Facility

Below are a few key details of this call, now open and with the deadline of 26 September 2024:

** The Commission estimates that an EU contribution of between EUR 0.10 and 0.60 million would allow these outcomes to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of a proposal requesting different amounts.

What makes a Hop-on proposal?

Hop-on proposals consist of two main parts – Part A and Part B. As always, Part A is the online forms in the EU Funding and Tenders Portal where the details of the new partner and those of the project coordinator, their Hop-on budgets as well as some other administrative information need to be provided. Part B is the proposal document that must not exceed 8 pages and be uploaded as a PDF document (template available in the submission portal).

Want to hop on an ongoing project? We help you in your application!

With an 84% success rate in 2023 and only one more week before the 2024 deadline, we at accelopment have recently been successful in adding a Widening county partner to SOLARX and are supporting “Hop-ons” in some of our ongoing projects eligible for the Hop-on-Facility. With over 15 years of experience in EU-funded innovation projects, we will be happy to help you write a competitive proposal or do a review of your Hop-on proposal documents. We are always interested in supporting new project ideas and consortia, and we look forward to hearing from you!

Dr. Eva Avilla Royo
Research & Innovation Project Manager

Dr. Jörn-Frederik Wotzlaw
Research & Innovation Project Manager

*For an updated and complete list of widening Associated countries with applicable association agreements in place, please consider to regularly visit the official European Commission related page for Updates on the association of third countries to Horizon Europe | European Commission (europa.eu)

	Evaluation criteria: The main selection criteria are excellence and added value of the new partner performing a relevant additional task in the project. All consortium partners need to agree on the accession of the new partner, and the R&I relevance and complementarity need to be demonstrated.The actual proposal will be evaluated based on the following standard Horizon Europe criteria: – “Excellence” (scientific & technical quality, innovation). – “Impact” (potential ‘to make a difference’, incl. economic). – “Implementation” (partnership, sound planning, etc.).
	Eligibility – The Hop-On Facility is limited to the addition of a single partner from a widening country to consortia with no participants from widening countries.
	Applications must: – Demonstrate the R&I added value of the new partner. – Present a visible and distinct WP for the acceding partner.
	Part B should: – Follow the structure and formal requirements of the EC template. – Include a detailed description of the profile of the new partner and its role in the existing project. – Provide details on the new work package and/or the changes to existing work packages resulting from the addition of the widening partner.
	Budget: – Budget increase must be exclusively for the benefit of the new partner. – Exception of a coordination fee of up to 10% of the new beneficiary’s budget for the coordinator. – The coordinator may request the coordination fee and provide an explanation on the additional integration efforts for the new partner.
	Process: – Submission of proposal (Part A and Part B) + DoA of the ongoing action uploaded as an Annex. – Evaluation results expected for January 2025. – Amendment of the existing project Grant Agreement for the accession of the new partner, DoA modification and upgrade of the budget.