EU Marine Robots

Our proposal is to build a network of marine robotics RIs to help ensure that the EU remains a world-leader in ocean science and engineering, with a thriving maritime industry. The proposed RI will enable, expand and reduce risk of access to next-generation marine robotics technologies and operational expertise and will build confidence in end-users to accelerate the adoption of next-generation marine robotics for the marine sector as a whole.

To do so we will have a series of Trans-national access activities (TNA) with the focus of:

providing a coherent framework for stakeholders to gain access to both the “standard” and the “developing” capacities of the RI providing access to appropriate levels of training and best-practices, to build sustainability by educating the next generation of practitioners
providing access to experimental activities proposed by external partners or use-cases that are chosen to provide a broad cross-section of experimental opportunities for end-users

Through all this EUMarineRobots is making available a huge range of marine robotic and support infrastructure with a capital value of well in-excess of €500M and its associated support personnel.

Previous Calls Applicants

Calendar

Who can apply?


Students school students, undergraduate, graduate, PhD, Master	Industrial researchers and Academics including postdoctoral	Entrepreneurs Micro and SMEs, Mid-Caps, Large industries.

Proposals for access to any of the offered infrastructures need to fulfill the following criteria:

The Principal Investigator (PI) and the majority of the users must work in an institution established in a member state of the European Union or state associated to H2020 Programme. Other countries can apply but their allocated uses will be limited to a maximum of 20% of all allocated uses.
The PI of a project and the majority of the users must work in a country other than the country where the infrastructure is based. They cannot apply for use time on a research infrastructure from their own country.
Proposals must involve at least one partner. A larger partnership will be highly appreciated, for the embarked scientific party as for data treatment and exploitation but the funding will be awarded per access, independently of the number of participating institutions.
Collaborative applications from teams and institutions with limited or no access to marine infrastructure are strongly encouraged.
Applicants must be aware that, if granted, they must complete the training associated to the usage of the infrastructure they have applied for.
Only user groups that are entitled to and willing to disseminate the knowledge they will generate under the project are eligible to benefit from access free of charge to the infrastructures under the EUMR flag.

How to apply?

Proposal submission involves five steps, as outlined below. Proposals have to be submitted online via the project website:

Step 1: Download your applicant package. There, you will find: the Proposal Application Template that will need to be completed, the Guidelines for Applicants and the Report template (to be filled out after the completion of the use, if awarded).
Step 2: Prepare your proposal offline based on the provided template.
Step 3: Complete the online application form and upload the proposal application template.

The document must:

be an unprotected pdf file of maximum 8 pages
not exceed 4MB in size
follow the given format

Step 4: The evaluation of proposals will be based upon the information provided in the completed application form, which should be correct, sufficient and adequate for this purpose, taking into consideration the evaluation criteria outlined below.

Submit here

Selected participants will later be asked to fill the Contract Agreement Model that can be consulted here.

Selection Process

The EUMR User Selection Panel established by the EUMR Consortium consisting of 5 to 10 international experts covering all fields of marine robotics and project representatives, will judge eligible proposals based on the evaluation of each proposal by at least three independent reviewers. All reasonable measures will be taken to ensure Objectivity, Transparency, Equality of Treatment, Impartiality, Quality and Confidentiality.

The evaluation of proposals is managed by the EUMR Coordinator. The process aims to be fair and transparent and will provide constructive feedback to applicants

Evaluation is conducted in four steps, as follows:

Step	Undertaken by
1. Eligibility Check	EUMR Coordinator
2. Feasibility Check	TNA access provider
3. Individual Evaluations	Evaluators, overseen by the EUMR coordinator
4. Consensus Evaluations	User Selection Panel

Evaluation Procedure

Evaluation criteria

Eligible proposals will be evaluated using the following criteria.

*Criteria*	*Weighting*
Scientific and technical quality of the infrastructure time proposal General scientific background Is the current state of knowledge in the research area well described? Are cited references relevant and reflect the state-of-the-art? Specific aims of the usage Is the proposed topic of high scientific quality and does it provide innovative aspects? Are the research objectives and expected deliverables/outputs of the proposal clearly stated? Are they achievable? To which extent do the expected results lead to a progress beyond the current state-of-the-art?	30%
Quality of the work plan Is the work plan adequate? Is it clearly described and well defined? Can the proposed work plan be realized in the set time? Are the scheduled tasks and methods adequate to the set objectives? Is it clearly stated which methods and equipment will be employed? Does the proposed project maximise the use of the infrastructure? Has the proposal assessed any likely risks and are provisions for downtime/bad weather included (if applicable) ?	25%
Scientific qualification/track record of the proposing PI and user group Background/track record of the PI Background/track record of the scientific team Are the roles and responsibilities of the scientific team clearly stated? Is the combined expertise suitable to achieve the research objectives of the mission?	10%
Technical capability to carry out the infrastructure usage and data exploitation Is all necessary equipment available to carry out the proposed project? Is a clear concept presented how the gathered data will be shared with shore based scientists, analyzed and published? Is additional funding available to support the infrastructure usage and analysis of gathered data and samples (if applicable)? Will data be fed into international/national data banks or models?	10%
Collaboration with international/national partners/industry To what extent are new European user groups with limited access to marine infrastructure integrated? To what extent is the proposed project embedded into larger research programmes on a national, EU or international level? What is the potential for a long term integration/collaboration on an international level? Are collaborations with industry envisaged?	15%
Training of young scientists/public outreach How many young scientists and students at PhD level and below will be involved? Are dissemination activities addressing the general public planned? Are spare berths devoted to (international) young researchers/scientists in a training role?	10%

Applicants must ensure that sufficient information is provided in the proposal to enable a thorough evaluation of all criteria

Call Open	May 14, 2019
Call Deadline	July 14, 2019 Postponed to August 15, 2019
Notification of Results	October, 2019
Access	November 2019 - December 2020