The Fifth Call for Applications will run from the 3rd of February to the 24th of March 2010.
The call is open to applicants from across the programme area and to projects addressing both priorities:
Promoting innovation and competitiveness in remote and peripheral areas
Sustainable development of natural and community resources
Themes
At its last meeting, the Programme Monitoring Committee (PMC) made an analysis of the themes addressed by the 27 approved main projects so far. In addition it took into consideration the results on the 1st ongoing evaluation exercise that has been carried out in autumn 2009. The Fifth call encourages applicants to address the economic crisis where projects should demonstrate their potential to fight the severest impacts of the economic crisis, creatively seek to the creation of jobs and businesses that prevent unemployment and develop innovative solutions for finding new ways out of the economic crisis. Projects should seek to turn the economic crisis into opportunities by combining technological sectors with non-technological sectors, even taking risks to be different and collaborate where traditional and creative industries can meet.
The economic crisis and its current impacts indicate that applications to the Fifth call should focus on Priority 1, in the Objective 1.
However, the PMC has identified the following programme gaps that need to be addressed:
The economic crisis and its current impacts indicate that applications to the Fifth call should focus on Priority 1, in the Objective 1.
However, the PMC has identified the following programme gaps that need to be addressed:
exchange of best practise and establishment of cooperation networks between R&D institution and SMEs to increase the capacity for innovation, facilitate the design of innovation systems and strengthen competitiveness
urban-rural partnerships for new service solutions
In addition, the PMC specially welcomes proposals to the following six themes that could be more strongly addressed:
cooperation and exchange of best practice between SMEs on how to address and reach markets with existing and new products
increased use of ICT to overcome distance
developing innovative product and service solutions for developing and maintaining transport infrastructure with regard to roads, railways, airports and ports under harsh climatic conditions
development of transport schemes that benefit rural communities, such as new maritime routes
private, public and voluntary sectors cooperation and networks to develop new and innovative service solutions for remote and peripheral regions
promotion of natural and cultural heritage that supports the development of sustainable industries
The PMC also welcomes applications in all other programme objectives and themes. However, these proposals strongly justify the need for the operation and demonstrate complimentarity to existing projects within the NPP.
Partnerships should try to cover interest in the West-Atlantic area, the North-Atlantic area and the Nordic countries and to encourage participation from all these different areas. Projects having pre-dominantly a cross-border character are discouraged. In addition, projects should try to demonstrate SME involvement or at least associate with SME partners where appropriate.
Projects should realise industrial development based on collaboration between traditional and creative sectors to produce products and services, thereby, reducing the innovation and creativity gap within the Northern Periphery Area to become more competitive than other economic trading blocks.
Available Funding
No specific budget allocation has been set for this Fifth Call. Between 2007 and 2013 the Programme will commit around €45 million to projects that address the priorities for transnational cooperation: €35.115 million of European funds (ERDF) will be available to partners in Member States and €10.155 million for partners in the Non member States. 60% of the funds is available for projects applying under Priority 1 and 40% for projects under Priority 2. After the first four calls, in which 27 projects were approved, 64% of the programme funds for projects have been allocated.
The recommended minimum size for a main project’s total budget is €250 000 and the recommended maximum size is €1.5 million. In general, a 60% grant rate is applied for partners in Member States and 50% for Non Member States of Norway, Iceland and Faroe Island. For Greenlandic partners a grant rate of 60% applies. Note that 10% funding source and 20% funding source have a grant rate of 50%.
For the Fifth call it should be underlined that partnership could consider to balance the grant rate between different member state partners in a project partnership to ensure a broad participation from all regions, especially to ensure inclusion of regions strongly affected by the economic crisis (e.g. 65% Grant rate for partners from Northern Ireland and Ireland and a lower intervention rate for other Member State partners in the same partnership) However the overall Grant rate for member state partners in one project would stay at 60%.
Application Pack
The Application Pack for the Fifth Call is available below from 3rd of February 2010. The pack will consist of 3 main documents, all of which should be downloaded and read carefully:
Application Form: Parts 1-2 in Word format and Part 3 in Excel format
Application Instructions
Programme Manual Part 1: How to Apply and Part 4: Common Eligibility Rules
Decisions
Decisions on all main project applications submitted to the Fifth Call for Applications will be made at the Programme Monitoring Committee meeting in June 2010.
How to Apply Seminar
The Programme Secretariat is organising a How to Apply Seminar for the Fifth Call, to be held on 23rd of February 2010 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The purpose of the event is to assist applicants in the development of a good quality application. More information...
Pre-assessment
As a new service, projects can have their project descriptions (sections 2, 3.3 and 4.1 of the main application) pre-assessed by the Programme Secretariat. The deadline for submission is 9th February 2010. Also, there will be a possibility to meet with the pre-assessing Desk Officer in connection to the How to Apply seminar held in Copenhagen. More information...
Sixth Call
Please note that the Sixth Call for Applications will be launched 3rd of September 2010. The PMC views the Sixth Call as potentially a focused call with few and potentially more elaborated themes. More information about the exact nature of the Sixth Call will be published in June 2010 to inform applicants in good time about what will be expected from them.
Please contact the Regional Contact Points or Northern Periphery Programme Secretariat for further guidance on the programme. Contact details are available here.
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