excellence & impact in horizon 2020 dr. juliet a. ellis ... · excellence & impact in...
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EUROPEAN RESEARCH AND INNOVATION OFFICE
EXCELLENCE & IMPACT IN HORIZON 2020
Dr. Juliet A. Ellis
Bid Proposal Manager (Health)
University College London, [email protected]
Agenda Who am I?
What is Horizon 2020?
Innovation
impact
EU rules of engagement
Getting started
Assembling collaborators and ideas
Writing section 1 & 2 - Excellence & Impact
Evaluation/reviewers feedback
Q & A
• Ph.D Biochemistry - Bristol, UK
• Post-docs (Cambridge, UK): gained medical
science interest & background
• PI: 1. Wellcome Trust, Cambridge, UK
2. Senior lecturer, KCL, UK
3. Expert grant reviewer since 1997
• From 2009, Research Facilitator, UCL, UK
• From 2014, European Proposal Manager, UCL
• From post-EU UK referendum day- Health bid
proposal manager
Me
H2020: a new type of EU R & I programme
• Completely different goals to Framework
– FP outputs failed to contribute to improve the economic
status of the EU
• Low publication numbers; little impact
– Basic science-driven
• H2020 is all about innovation
– aim is to transform research outputs into economic
growth within EU
• High impact;
• basic science lower priority
– End-users/market-driven
H2020 overall thematic priority
Delivering strategic technologies
(innovation) that can drive
competitiveness and growth using
an impact-orientated approach
H2020: a new type of EU R & I programme
• Challenge-based – open to innovative proposals
– Very broad topics (particularly in health)
• More emphasis on innovation
– Scope to propose own innovation solutions
• Greater emphasis on impact – topic-specific
impact statements
• Proposals are both inter-disciplinary and cross-
sectoral in nature to tackle specific challenges
What is Innovation?
• The process of translating an idea or invention
into a good or service that creates value or for
which customers will pay. An idea must be
replicable at an economical cost and must satisfy
a specific need.
• For EU grants the specific priority is to achieve
this first in the European arena, then globally.
invention
exploitation
innovation
THE INNOVATION TREE
“The successful exploitation of new ideas to
produce tangible benefits for others”
Innovation categories
• Open Innovation 2
– co-created shared value
• Disruptive innovation
– initially appeal
• to low end footholds
• or new-market footholds
• Sustainable Innovation
– development of new products or re-deployment of
existing ones e.g. Uber
• Non-technological and social innovation
• All types can be addressed in EU grants
Innovation Examples
• Substantial support to activities
– prototyping and testing, demonstrating and piloting, first market replication
i.e. establishing technical and economic viability in (near) operational
environments
• Significant support to demand side approaches
– innovation procurement (pre-commercial procurement and public
procurement of innovative solutions), standard-setting, inducement prices
• Piloting new forms and sources of innovation
– extending beyond technological and research-based innovation
• Leveraging and boosting engagement of industry
– Public Private Partnerships, SME measures, Debt and Equity Instruments
• Emphasis on activities operating closer to the
end-users and/or market
What is impact?
The extent of the benefits derived from the
innovation(‘Extent’= range or magnitude or distance your innovation stretches)
• Who are the drivers/champions/undecideds you
wish to influence? i.e. your selected
audience/clients
• Who/what in turn influences those clients? (e.g.
government policy/regional regulations)
• How do you raise awareness of and interest in
your specific impacts?
• Can you involve your clients in your project at
some point?
Getting started: EC Europa participant portal
• http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/de
sktop/en/home.html
• Register for an account
• Select ‘Funding Opportunities’
• Select ‘H2020’ from left hand menu
• Click on relevant boxes
• Or select ‘search topics' from left hand menu, and
type in key words
• Calls will be listed in your field
RIA Health proposal call texts and template(see supplied handout)
• Click on the title of chosen call
– Open ‘topic description’ for call text
• Single or two stage call
– 30% funded if reach stage 2
• Note deadline(s)
– Open ‘topic conditions and documents’
• Proposal templates section 1-3 and 4-5
• Clinical trial template (if relevant)
• Supporting ethical documentation (if relevant)
• For two stage applications:
– address curly bracket area on template for Stage 1 submission
• Allow 2-3 months for preparation: good grants evolve
EU rules of engagement
• See the EU ‘General Annexes’ PDF– https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/other/wp/2016-
2017/annexes/h2020-wp1617-annex-ga_en.pdf
• Check country eligibility
• RIA grants-Minimum of 3 independent legal entities,
each in a different EU member/associated countries
• For RIA - @TRL 5-6 at submission
• Open Science (data/access)
• Cross-sectorial and cross-cutting
– interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary
– diverse partner composition
• Study evaluation rules
Beneficiaries (partners) in your consortium
• Include a range of partner types to generate a strong consortium– universities, research institutes, hospitals, SMEs, industry, pharma,
charities, regulators, NGO, project and business management companies, patient representatives
– 20% of TOTAL H2020 funding goes to SMEs
• Demonstrate some consortium members have worked together before
• Identify third parties and subcontractors AT SUBMISSION
Quality and appropriateness
of consortium
members is evaluated
(OFTEN FIRST)
Trans-disciplinary
• Grants must involve more than one science discipline– and NOT exclusively sub-disciplines of 1
subject e.g. different types of bioinformatics
• Grants are cross-sectoral– e.g. academia/institutes/industry/parent
support organisations/policy
• Integrating cross-cutting themes– Social sciences & humanities
– Relevant sex/gender analysis
– International cooperation (‘third countries’)
– Science education
– ethics
– open science
Health proposal template for health (N.B call specific)
• Part A (on-line)
– Budget and administration
• Part B
– 1. Excellence
• Objectives, meeting call text, background, methodology
• Ambition, State of the Art
– 2. Impact
• Expected impacts
• Exploitation and dissemination plan (mandatory)
• Business plan (where needed)
– 3. Implementation
– 4. Beneficiaries descriptions
– 5. Ethics and security
Stage 1
Example of the structure of a Health call text
• Topic Structure
– Specific challenge
– Scope
– Expected Impact
• Need to meet all of the key
words under the above
criteria EXACTLY AND
COMPLETELY
• Note any footnotes
• H2020 grants less flexible
than RC/charity/FP grants
• €3-6Million
• Can (& recommend) add
external funding
SC1-BHC-01-2019: Understanding causative mechanisms in co- and multimorbidities
Specific Challenge: The increasing number of individuals with co-and multimorbidities
poses an urgent need to improve management of patients with multiple co-existing
diseases. A better understanding of their causative mechanisms is needed to develop early
diagnosis, efficient prevention and monitoring, and better treatments adapted to co- and
multimorbid patients throughout their life course. Furthermore, there are many different
etiological models of comorbid conditions (e.g., direct causation model or a consequence of
treatment). In this context, capturing and measuring patient's complexity in the
context of co- and multimorbidities is crucial for adequate management of these
conditions and requires innovative approaches.
Scope: Proposals should identify and validate causative mechanisms (e.g. molecular, genetic,
correlative, drug-drug interaction) combining mental and physical disorders through the
integration of basic, pre-clinical and/or clinical research11. Applicants should prove the
relevance of the identified mechanisms for co-morbid development. Where pertinent,
development of biomarkers and other technologies for diagnosis and monitoring of comorbid
conditions in patients is encouraged. A purposeful exploitation of existing data, biobanks,
registries and cohorts is expected12, but does not exclude generation of new data. Sex and
gender aspects, age, socio-economic, lifestyle and behavioural factors and any other non-
health related individual attributes should be taken into consideration. SME participation is
strongly encouraged.
The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between
EUR 4 and 6 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately.
Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other
amounts.
Expected Impact:
· New directions for clinical research to improve prevention, diagnosis, prognosis, therapy
development, and management of co- and multimorbidities.
· Whenever relevant identified biomarkers for more accurate and earlier diagnosis,
prognosis as well as monitoring of patients' condition.
Objectives- guidance
Your chosen objectives need to reflect ‘ambition’• Be strikingly novel, unusual or different
• Very challenging, highly ambitious i.e. HIGH-RISK
• Grants constructed around totally assured
outcomes will not be attractive for funding
• Demonstrate each objective outcome is of the
highest degree of development of an art or
technique at the current time
• Objectives need to meet impact (not vice versa)
• Have 5-8 objectives
Select project objectives to maximise the
impact (& not vice versa)
Impact
Objectives
Proposal
SMART:
Specific,
Measurable,
Achievable,
Resourced,
Time boundReflect Ambition
Example of what objectives should look like
(idea of topics one should cover)• To deliver safe and effective XX therapy as a licensed medicine….
with disease Y initially within Europe and then worldwide.
• To develop the expertise and manufacturing protocols that can be
used for other diseases of ZZZZZ and to publically disseminate these
to the science community across Europe.
• To develop the new science (define them) technologies that will
become future therapeutic medicines, to be used routinely globally.
• To engage and involve Y families and patient support groups to help
design clinical studies and to keep patient/family stakeholders
informed of scientific progress.
• To engage with EU regulatory agencies in order to achieve marketing
authorization across the EU WWWW therapy by the end of the project.
• To disseminate through various media …….publicise
…….expeditiously…..allow effective commercialization…….
Example of what objectives should not look like
• Do not have detailed science objectives
• To not mention dissemination, IP, end-users,
commercialisation, marketing
• Must not look like a shopping list
• To not mention Europe…..
• Do not say ‘to improve existing X’ as this is
regarded a incremental and not suited for funding
• Be out of scope with call text and not linked to
impact/ambition
• Be long winded. Keep them short (bullet points)
and not more than ¾ page
Section 1.2 Relation to the work programme
• No long prose
• Recommend you address this through tabulation
• ¾-1 page
• Quick and easy to see you have met the call
requirements
• Two columns
– List the keywords/phrases from the call text
– Address the above succinctly and reference the
relevant WP
Section 1.3 Concept and Methodology
• (a) Concept- include:– Background- not detailed or extensive, project specific
– A TRL flow diagram (see later)
– Tabulate the grants all partners hold, national and international to illustrate your existing collaborations and other projects that feed in. Flag other EU work.
• (b) Methodology- include:– detailed description of research experiments; refer to
individual work packages.
– Sex and gender analysis• Sex-specific condition/disease
• Ratio male:female personnel: need to aim for 50:50 by grant end.
Ambition• Template states:
– …..advances your proposal would provide beyond the state-of-the-art
– …..the extent the proposed work is ambitious
– describe the innovation potential
– …..refer to products and services already available on the market
– list relevant patents
• ‘Beyond the state of the art’ means:– compare your NEW proposed research project with
what is available now to demonstrate your product/service is novel and surpasses SoA
– INCLUDE examples to PROVE your SoA
• Ambition is NOT impact – common mistake
Innovation included in ALL proposal sections
1. Excellence
• Describe any national or international research &
innovation activities which will be linked in to your
project…….those that feed into the project
• Describe the project’s innovation potential
– Defined as: what completely new ideas/outputs the project MAY
generate and what benefit this will bring and to whom
• Ground breaking objectives, new products, business models
• Patent search needs to be included
Innovation included in ALL proposal
sections (contd.)
2. ImpactStage 1 & 2- address the listed expected impacts for your call text
Stage 2-enhance innovation capacity (can the invention/new
creation/design be used to develop other innovations) and
Integration of new knowledge (IP)
– developing innovations to meet markets needs
– delivering innovations to the markets
3. Implementation (not at stage 1)– innovation management (managing all activities surrounding the
new ideas and their development into a product/service)
• Requires an understanding of market & technological issues
Impact in proposal template
• Describing topic-specific described impact is imperative
– i.e. demonstrate YOUR proposed science will contribute to YOUR
described impacts
1. Answer ‘expected impacts’ listed in call text in the context of
your objectives
• You cannot just say ‘these will be met’; need to detail HOW?
2. Address impact statements on grant template: includes
1. Environmental impact
2. Social impact
3. Add in any other impact subjects specific to project
4. Include barriers/risks to achieving impact goals
5. Answer all of the above in a quantitative manner
e.g. Z number of people suffer from X and we expect Y numbers will
benefit across EU if we achieve W; e.g. Cost/time savings.
Always relevant
Impact: link to innovation
• Describe innovation capacity (see earlier)– Demonstrate how the ‘invention’ will be used to develop future
innovation beyond project end
• Integration of new knowledge & knowledge transfer– Strengthening the competitiveness and growth of
businesses• How will your industrial/SME partners grow?
• How will other businesses external to the proposal benefit across Europe?
• Developing innovations to meet EU/global markets– How will you deliver your innovations to markets?
Technology readiness level (TRL)
• An index to measure
maturity and usability of
the technology you are
using
• A metric for standardising
different tech types
• Initially used by NASA in
1974
• In industry, TRL level 6 is
regarded as a major
transition from research to
real life implementation
and commercialisation
TRL- the facts
• Health grants
– For funding need the project to start overall at TRL5-6
• Can have some objectives starting on lower TRLs
– At least 1 MAJOR objective should reach TRL7/8 by
end of the project
– Illustrate your project TRLs with a flow chart of the
objectives/research outcomes against time
• Thus, within time frame of the grant:
– need to develop a new product/service or re-deploy an
existing one i.e. achieve tangible innovation.
Innovation-Ambition-Impact Triangle
Innovation
Ambition
Objectives
Impact
TRL
Funding criteria
MAJOR
• Innovation• Ambition
• State of the art
• Impact
• Result exploitation & dissemination plan– Technology Readiness Level
(TRL7↑)
– End product/service development/use
– Draft business plan (IP)
Slightly less major
• Inter-disciplinary
• Cross-sectoral
– social component
• Policy/regulatory changes
• Range of beneficiary
types
• Compared to FP7,
proposals shorter in
length, fewer WPs, mainly
3 years (some 4) in
duration
Funding criteria
MAJOR
• Innovation• Ambition
• State of the art
• Impact
• Result exploitation & dissemination plan– Technology Readiness Level
(TRL7+ by end)
– End product/service development/use
– Draft business plan (IP)
Slightly less major
• Inter-disciplinary
• Cross-sectoral
– social component
• Policy/regulatory changes
• Range of beneficiary
types
• Compared to FP7,
proposals shorter in
pages, fewer WPs, mainly
3 years (some 4) in
duration
scie
nce
Evaluation criteria (see handout from EU)
• There are 3 evaluation criteria
– Excellence
– Impact
– Quality and efficiency of the implementation
• Scored for each of 3 sections (3 x 5) for Stage 2
– Either impact or excellence threshold needs to be met FIRST (depends on
call)
• Threshold for funding = 10-12 (grant number dependent)
– results suggest need 14.5 or 15 for health.
• If successful, invited to ‘grant preparation’ stage where you prepare
the ‘Description of Action.’– Only very MINOR changes are allowed
– Grant signature needed by 3 months
• If unsuccessful will be sent evaluator comments
Stage 1 Stage 2
UCL’s experience of H2020 to ensure
funding, it is mandatory to:
• Develop new ‘products’ or re-deploy
existing ones within time frame of grant
• Emphasise following activities:
– operating closer to the end-users
– which brings work closer/faster to the
targeted market
Current EU comments on proposals
• The best proposals have taken 3-4 months to
prepare…….evolution
• “Excellence” be concise, specific and explain your
theory. No long background sections.
• “Impact”- answer the set call questions.
QUANTIFY. Demonstrate your work will meet
these and say how will monitor them
• “Resources” show you have thought about logistics
of these so that your research will happen
• Answer ALL questions/sections on the proposal
template i.e. read the template
Common Impact failings......
• providing technical/descriptive details of the work
• lack of quantification of arguments
• not addressing ALL ‘expected impacts’
• no discussion of the impact on End Users
• lack of discussion of the global, European, regional impact and social (jobs, growth), financial (value for money), environmental impacts
• no comparisons with countries outside Europe (e.g. China, USA, Russia , Australasia etc)
• Brexit- impact for performing shared research?
Common Impact failings...... (contd)
• written in an UK and not EU context
• no discussion on how research will benefit the European industry
• no discussion of the benefits of the involvement of SMEs and/or industry in the project
• no explanation of how the SMEs involved will benefit from the outputs of the project
• not reading the objectives of the EC’s strategic agenda /white papers relevant to the topic of the call, and including the points mentioned in them– particularly relevant for GACD and IRDiRC
Evaluators- what they look at first (1)
• Consortium composition
– Coordinator needs to have a high profile in his/her field
– Overall complementarity and quality of consortium
• Do not include ‘inferior friends’
• Need a balanced consortium (interdisciplinary)
• How many have worked together before (track record)
• Section 4- Description of partners
– Each partner has to
• Sell their organisation
– Market and potential new markets (if SME)
– Departments/offices important to proposal
• Define role in project
• Define gender of each personnel
• Clarity of objectives and first page
– By end of 1st page need to know what you want to do, why and
its impact TO GRAB INTEREST
Evaluators- what they look at first (2)
• TRL level high enough now, and increases during
grant?
– Make sure you understand TRLs (often incorrectly
described)
– Flow diagram of how each task will increase in TRL
– Realistic increases?
• State of the Art- is your work really this?
– Add evidence
• Quantify- facts and figures
• Interdisciplinary
• WP leaders- are they the best qualified to do this?
Evaluators- what they look at first (3)
• Resources to be committed:
– Paragraph explaining the overall composition of your budget. Flag
up cheap/expensive consumables/equipment
– Justify any external funding
• e.g. company X is providing an extra €1M over the EU funding
– (would encourage this approach if possible)
– Use tables/pie charts
• Total budget distribution/country/partner
• Why partner X has high and partner Y low costs
– e.g. Italian clinical professor earns X10 same job in Estonia
• Subcontractor and third party costs define (tables provided)
• Clear, easy to read proposal, lots of text boxes, tables,
flow charts, diagrams and no verbose text (waffle)
– Proposal only read up to the page limit.
Evaluators- what they say is often wrong/missing
• Avoid repeating text across different sections
WE UNDERSTOOD IT THE FIRST TIME!
• SUMMARISE- not long-winded explanations
• Make sure the Impact and Implementation sections are
relevant to the described Excellence section
• QUANTIFY, QUANTIFY, QUANTIFY!
• Support statements with facts
• Include the imperfections/obstacles/difficulties- nothing is
perfect (not even you!)
• Not clear why some partners are included
• Describe all third parties/subcontractors involvement
Useful websites
• http://cordis.europa.eu/projects/home_en.html– all funded projects
• https://ec.europa.eu/research/health/index.cfm?pg=projects– Funded RIA Health grants
• http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/docs/h2020-funding-guide/index_en.htm– Horizon2020 on-line manual
• http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/docs/h2020-funding-guide/grants/from-evaluation-to-grant-signature/evaluation-of-proposals_en.htm– Evaluation of proposals
Thank you
“Science may never come up with a better
communication system than the coffee break”Earl Wilson