1st OpenLab Competitive Call for additional Project Partners

OpenLab, a project currently active in the Seventh Framework programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities contributing to the creation of the European research area and to innovation (2007-2013) requires the participation of new partners to carry out certain tasks within the project. In particular the tasks pertain to the execution of innovative experiments that demonstrate technological expertise, scientific novelty and quality in the area of Future Internet.

Project full name: OpenLab: extending FIRE testbeds and tools

Project grant agreement number: 287581

Call identifier: OpenLab-1

Call title: Innovative Experiments

Language in which the proposal must be submitted: English

Submission deadline: 30 November 2011, at 17:00 Brussels local time

Detailed information about the open call and its aspects can be retrieved online, including:

• Call announcement
• General Information and Requirements
• Description of technical work and tasks expected
• Guide for applicants
• OpenLab Consortium Agreement
• Frequently asked questions

Proposal submission is accepted only electronically.

Internet address for submission and full open call information:
www.ict-openlab.eu

Contact: Anastasius Gavras, Eurescom, phone: +49 6221 9890

E-mail: info@ict-openlab.eu

General Information and Requirements

Call identifier – OpenLab-1

Call title – Innovative Experiments

Language in which the proposal must be submitted – English

Date of close of call – 17h00 Brussels time on 30 November 2011

One of the OpenLab project objectives is to make the infrastructure available for execution of innovative experiments by users. It is required that these users come from organisations that are not part of the project consortium. To ensure this, the project is issuing this open and competitive call for innovative experiments, where independent evaluations of the submitted proposals will be performed, in order to select the most innovative experiments which will be executed within the project.

Once an organisation (or a group of organisations – up to three partners), is selected to perform the proposed experiment, it will be included in the project consortium for a time period corresponding to the duration of preparation, integration, execution, and evaluation of the experiment. The experiment duration (including preparation and evaluation) must not exceed 12 months and the planning must allow for at least 3 months of evaluation period at the end.

Proposals for user experiment have to demonstrate technological expertise, scientific novelty and quality. In addition, the participating organisations must be eligible for participation in the EC Framework Programme 7 (FP7) – related and further useful information can be found at http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/participate_en.html. Estimations of resources necessary for implementation and execution of the planned experiments have to be provided in the submitted proposal for user experiments. Following the selection of experiments, an updated resource and project plan will be developed through negotiations between the proposing partner(s), the project coordinator and the project Executive Committee, as well as with the consent of the EC Project Officer. Successful negotiations with additional partners will lead to an amendment to the project Grant Agreement.

The selected partner(s) will be added in the project consortium as additional partner(s), which will be realised by signing the necessary accession forms to the project Grant Agreement and Consortium Agreement. Consequently, the additional partners will participate in the project in accordance with all relevant FP7 rules and procedures. In particular the additional partners will be required to respect the consortium management procedures, e.g., with respect to project meetings, reporting, etc.

The proposal must state precise costs for the experiment in terms of personnel and other costs following the financial rules for EC FP7 projects. The maximum EC contribution for individual experiments is set at 200,000 € per experiment, which is a requirement of the call. The additional partners will receive the contribution in accordance with standard FP7 payment rules: covering 50 or 75% of eligible costs, depending on the type of organization, and considering direct and indirect costs.

The proposals will be evaluated by independent experts, who will be briefed by the consortium about the selection criteria. Selection criteria will include:

• degree of innovation,
• scientific excellence,
• appropriate scale and complexity for federated experiments,
• degree of end-user involvement,
• qualifications of the organizations performing the experiment,
• consideration of socio-economic and other relevant non-technical aspects,
• and expected impact of the results.

The objective is to select at least five proposals over the two calls.

Summary of the main points:

• Innovative experiments
• Duration: max 12 months (with at least 3 month of evaluation period)
• Contribution: max 200k€
• The proposer:
  • Must be eligible for participation in the EC FP7
  • Must respect the consortium management procedures

Open call for experiments - supporting documentation

If you are planning to submit a proposal in response to OpenLab's 1st open call, please read carefully the following documentation. The details of the open call will be available when the call will be officially launched (est. end of September or Oktober 2011). In any case the process will follow the guidelines published by the European Commission.

• "GUIDE FOR APPLICANTS participating in a competitive call for additional beneficiaries in an ICT Integrated Project or Network of excellence"

OpenLab is planning two open calls for experiments.