EMSO ERIC 2nd Call for Physical Access is now open! The objective of this call is to offer physical access to EMSO Facilities where users’ devices can be installed, including sensors, instruments, systems, new technologies and where new procedures/experiments can be tested/take place. The set of Regional Facilities offered for access provides the broadest scientific and technological capabilities to future users. In 2023, seven Facilities are available (up from four last year), two at the Atlantic Ocean and five at the Mediterranean Sea.
This is a unique opportunity for scientists and research engineers to avail of high-quality, interlinked instrumented platforms operating in open ocean for carrying out research and/or testing activities. Regional Facilities’ engineers and scientists can also provide training and co-development to users interested in learning specialised techniques/methodologies and developing new products, taking advantage of years of experience gathered at EMSO Facilities’ labs.
Tailored data collection by the Facilities’ instruments is another service that may be provided.
The evaluation of project proposals will be performed every two months and the selected ones will be funded.
Funding consists in Facility Access Units (days of usage) and economic support for operations, travel, shipping and consumables. This economic support amounts to 75000 euros for all projects in 2023 and will be distributed evenly among the six cut-off dates.
This 2023 call is expected to fund a minimum of seven projects.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this call is to offer physical access to EMSO Facilities where users’ devices can be installed, including sensors, instruments, systems, new technologies and where new procedures/experiments can be tested/take place. The set of Regional Facilities offered for access provides the broadest scientific and technological capabilities to future users. In 2023, seven Facilities are available (up from four last year), two at the Atlantic Ocean and five at the Mediterranean Sea.
This is a unique opportunity for scientists and research engineers to avail of high-quality, interlinked instrumented platforms operating in open ocean for carrying out research and/or testing activities. Regional Facilities’ engineers and scientists can also provide training and co-development to users interested in learning specialised techniques/methodologies and developing new products, taking advantage of years of experience gathered at EMSO Facilities’ labs. Tailored data collection by the Facilities’ instruments is another service that may be provided.
The evaluation of project proposals will be performed every two months and the selected ones will be funded.
Funding consists in Facility Access Units (days of usage) and economic support for operations, travel, shipping and consumables. This economic support amounts to 75000 euros for all projects in 2023 and will be distributed evenly among the six cut-off dates. This 2023 call is expected to fund a minimum of seven projects.
All material for responding to the call and requesting access will be made available through this website section: Application Steps, Application Rules, Available Facilities, Letter of Intent, Project Proposal Form.
IMPORTANT DATES
Next deadline to submit a Project Proposal is February 28th 2023.
The 2023 call is currently open and applications can be submitted until December 31st, 2023. There are six cut-off dates in which proposals received before their deadlines will be evaluated and, if positive, given green light for execution on the programmed dates. Please check the selected regional facility special requirements, provided services, availability, costs and operational constraints.
HOW TO PROCEED
- Send to EMSO ERIC this Letter of Intent
- The chosen Facility manager will get back to you to prepare a Project Proposal
- Send the proposal to EMSO ERIC and wait for evaluation
- Sign contract and execute project
Signed application forms should be sent in PDF to physical-access[AT]emso-eu[DOT]org.
APPLICATION STEPS
Call opening
The call is open from January 16th to December 31st 2023, proposals can be sent anytime and will be evaluated in six cut-off dates: February 28th , April 30th, June 30th , August 31st, October 31st and December 31st . The period of access needs to be discussed with the chosen regional facility. Depending on the nature of the experiment it can be days, weeks or months and can be performed in 2023 and 2024. The project starting date and kick-off meeting must be within 8 months of the cut-off deadline it is submitted to. For a clear view of the process, from Letter of Intent to Project Execution, please consult the chart at the bottom of this page. The physical access contact point is available for questions regarding the call. You can send an email to physical-access@emso-eu.org.
Letter of intent
The interested applicant needs to fill out a letter of intent and send it to the EMSO physical access dedicated email. In this letter, the applicant formalises the interest to participate in the EMSO physical access programme and provides a one page project proposal. EMSO will treat the information in a totally confidential manner and will by no means distribute or publicise the applicant’s ideas and proposals.
Host facility assignment
The managers of the regional facilities selected by the applicant will be contacted by the order of preference provided by the applicant and shown the one page project proposal. The available facility manager will contact the applicant to prepare the project proposal. If the one page proposal is seen as unfeasible by the facility managers, the applicant will be contacted and asked to reformulate the proposal.
Joint project proposal
The applicant will fill in the project proposal form once a host facility has been appointed. This will be a more detailed document in which the applicant will expose its know-how, ideas, work plan and budget for the execution of the project. This is the document that will be reviewed and evaluated by the Evaluation Panel.
The host facility manager will help the applicant in order to adjust the experiment to the facility features and also will be the link to the EMSO Physical Access contact point. He or she will intervene in the proposal writing also in terms of adjusting the work plan and the budget, whether it is in Access Units (Regional Facility use time) or in monetary support provided by EMSO ERIC. None of those are unlimited and the applicant will have to take the budgetary constraints into account.
Evaluation
Once a cut-off date is reached, all received project proposals will be sent to an Evaluation Panel. The panel will be formed of experts in the proposed topics and will set its own functioning rules to evaluate the proposals, always having in mind the established evaluation criteria to rank the proposals. To avoid conflict of interest, the experts will not belong to any of the facilities participating as hosts in the intermediate call. The evaluation criteria can be found in the project proposal form and in the Access Rules tab.
Waiting List
EMSO physical access coordinator will have the evaluation results in two months after the cut-off date. If the evaluation fulfils the thresholds, the project will have the green light to be executed unless other projects being evaluated during the same intermediate call have a higher score and, due to budget constraints, make the lower rated projects unfundable. If this is the case, projects can enter the next intermediate call without the need to be evaluated again, but will need to compete again with the new incoming proposals. Another way to be able to carry out the project in the same call is the user providing the funding necessary to complete the available budget.
Contract signature
A three party written contract or agreement between the “Access Provider“ or host facility, the “End User” or applicant and the “Call Coordinator” or EMSO ERIC will delineate the actions to be undertaken, the resources that will need to be allocated, the length of planned user stays (if any), and the period of use. It will also define the rights and obligations of all the Parties involved, including data sharing and eventual provisions for early termination of the conferred access. It will also clearly define the Intellectual Property Rights policy in case the project yields a patent or a commercial product.
Project execution
Once the contract is signed, the project can start following the work plan. The user will be given guidelines on administrative matters, especially those concerning monetary refunds due to travel and consumables costs. The project will be executed taking into account the contract clauses and any deviation from them will need to be reported and, if needed, renegotiated.
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