Over the span of your project, you might have thought twice about adding a new beneficiary with key expertise out of fear of paperwork and bureaucracy. Today, a new type of call – the Hop-On Facility– rewards projects that take this commitment.
The Hop-On Facility aims at stimulating the contribution of underrepresented countries to European projects by widening existing consortium. The call allows specific projects to include an additional beneficiary from the following, so-called “widening countries and regions”:
- Member States: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
- Associated countries (on condition of an association agreement): Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, North Macedonia, Serbia, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine.
- Outermost regions are: Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, Réunion, Mayotte Saint-Martin, The Azores, Madeira, Canary Islands.
On the basis of a joint proposal from the project coordinator and the new beneficiary, the call grants between 100k and 600k euros. This funding is intended to enable the new member to implement its project contribution, and the coordinator to meet the additional administrative and management requirements arising from the extension of the consortium.
The call is solely open to projects funded under Horizon Europe Pillar 2 or EIC Pathfinder actions, and that do not already a participant from these countries. It does not allow to change the main scientific goals of the project, nor extend its duration. However, it allows the original consortium to start additional activities not planned from the beginning and to widen the scope and impact of the project.
Currently, only a few CERN projects are eligible to apply to this call given that the new framework programme only began recently. However, it should be considered for future projects, in particular those contributing to the policy objective of the transition towards a green and digital economy.
The call is open until September 2024 with 2 cut-off dates:
- 28 September 2023
- 26 September 2024
Are you unsure if your project is eligible? Do you have any questions? Contact us at EU.projects@cern.ch