Scope:

This action focuses on the establishment of a forum/network of national representatives from EU Member States and Associated Countries in support of the implementation of the gender equality priority of the ERA Roadmap. Various activities will be developed, such as benchmarking, joint workshops, enhanced cross-border brokerage events, specific training. Special attention will be given to mutual learning to enhance the competence of national gender representatives, including helping less experienced national gender representatives acquire rapidly the know-how accumulated in other countries.

The consortium should be composed of national representatives of all the EU Member States. The participation of national representatives of Associated Countries is welcome. National representatives from EU Member States and Associated Countries shall be officially appointed by the relevant national authorities and the corresponding appointment letters provided in the proposal. The consortium shall have a good representation of experienced and less experienced gender representatives.

The consortium should have a good representation of experienced and less experienced gender representatives.

The network/forum will liaise with the Helsinki Group on gender in research and innovation.

The duration shall cover at least the remaining period of Horizon 2020.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of the order of 1.95 million EUR would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

This action allows for the provision of financial support to third parties in line with the conditions set out in Part K of the General Annexes.

Expected Impact:

This action will develop a more consistent and professionalised level of national gender representatives in support of the implementation of the ERA roadmap leading to better coordination of Member States' efforts; it will also help ensure the consistency between national gender equality strategies in research and innovation and the implementation of the gender equality objectives and initiatives in Horizon 2020

Topic conditions and documents

Please read carefully all provisions below before the preparation of your application.

1. List of countries and applicable rules for funding: described in part A of the General Annexes of the General Work Programme.
   Note also that a number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon 2020 projects (follow the links to Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Hong Kong&Macau, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Taiwan).
    
2. Eligibility and admissibility conditions: described in part B and C of the General Annexes of the General Work Programme [, with the following exceptions]:
   
   Proposal page limits and layout: Please refer to Part B of the standard proposal template.
3. Evaluation
   
   3.1  Evaluation criteria and procedure, scoring and threshold: described in part H of the General Annexes of the General Work Programme [, with the following exceptions]:
   
   3.2 Submission and evaluation process: Guide to the submission and evaluation process
4. Indicative timetable for evaluation and grant agreement:
   
   Information on the outcome of single-stage evaluation: maximum 5 months from the deadline for submission.
   Signature of grant agreements: maximum 8 months from the deadline for submission.
    
5. Provisions, proposal templates and evaluation forms for the type(s) of action(s) under this topic:
   
   Coordination and Support Action:
   
   Specific provisions and funding rates
   Standard proposal template
   Standard evaluation form
   H2020 General MGA -Multi-Beneficiary
   Annotated Grant Agreement
    
6. Additional provisions:
   
   Horizon 2020 budget flexibility
   
   Classified information
   
   Technology readiness levels (TRL) – where a topic description refers to TRL, these definitions apply.
   
   Financial support to Third Parties – where a topic description foresees financial support to Third Parties, these provisions apply.
    
7. Open access must be granted to all scientific publications resulting from Horizon 2020 actions, and proposals must refer to measures envisaged. Where relevant, proposals should also provide information on how the participants will manage the research data generated and/or collected during the project, such as details on what types of data the project will generate, whether and how this data will be exploited or made accessible for verification and re-use, and how it will be curated and preserved.

This topic participates per default in the open access to research data pilot which aims to improve and maximise access to and re-use of research data generated by projects:
• The pilot applies to the data needed to validate the results presented in scientific publications. Additionally, projects can choose to make other data available for open access and need to describe their approach in a Data Management Plan (to be provided within six months after the project start).
• Note that the evaluation phase proposals will not be evaluated more favourably because they are part of the Pilot, and will not be penalised for opting out of the Pilot.
• Projects can at any stage opt-out of the pilot.

The legal requirements for projects participating in this pilot are in the article 29.3 of the Model Grant Agreement.
Further information on the Open Research Data Pilot is made available in the H2020 Online Manual.

8. Additional documents:

H2020 Work Programme 2016-17: Science with and for society

H2020 Work Programme 2016-17: Dissemination, Exploitation and Evaluation

H2020 Work Programme 2016-17: General Annexes