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• General Call for Proposals, as published at TAP website site da T-AP

• Guidelines para os pesquisadores do Estado de São Paulo, solicitando financiamento a FAPESP

Researchers must follow the T-AP SI Call for Proposals and its addenda for details regarding eligibility, application, funding, selection criteria, proposal preparation and submission as published on the T-AP website: https://www.transatlanticplatform.com/.

The T-AP Social Innovation Call for Proposals consists of two sections:

• Essential Information as to topic and eligibility to determine whether or not to apply to this call.

• Full Call for Proposals: containing all details and requirements to apply to this call.

ESSENTIAL INFORMATION

1. Introduction

The Trans-Atlantic Platform (T-AP) is a collaboration among key humanities and social science funders in Europe and the Americas. T-AP aims to enhance transnational research collaboration and has identified, with the help of the social sciences and humanities research communities, a series of common challenges and strategic priority areas where such collaboration will bring added value.

2. Funding organisations

This call is supported by selected funders from different countries. These countries are: Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom.

The complete list of T-AP SI funding organisations and the links to the restrictions they set on eligibility can be found on page 3 of this Call and on the T-AP website.

3. Research topic

The multi-national and trans-Atlantic projects funded under this call are expected to both add to understandings of social innovation and deliver social innovation(s) through new research.

Trans-Atlantic collaboration in this research call will facilitate:

• addressing social challenges faced on both sides of the Atlantic (e.g. digital divide; urban and rural developments and cohesion; access to public services and infrastructure; ethnic conflicts; human rights and legislation; the current state of democracy; equality and social, political and human values);

• learning from the experiences of multi-sectoral collaboration for social innovation practiced on both sides of the Atlantic (e.g. innovative forms of economic organization; new (digital) technologies and accessibility; global and local environmental issues and sustainable development; strategies for social cohesion; integration of health and social care services; improvement of education and overcoming of linguistic barriers);

• applying and adapting approaches from one locale to another;

• generalizing and/or scaling-up of local experiences.

More information about the research topics can be found on pages 4-6.

4. Timeline

T-AP Social Innovation Call announcement	Early October, 2018
Closing date for submission of proposals	14 February 2019, 2PM CET
Successful applicants notified	September 2019
Projects start (provided all relevant requirements are met)	November/December 2019

5. Duration of projects

Each project should have a duration ranging between 24 and 36 months. 

6. Application procedure

6.1 Applications must be received by 14 February 2019, 2PM CET and must be submitted via the T-AP website into the online submission system ISAAC, hosted by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). It is the responsibility of the research team to confirm all requirements for each country and funding organisation from which it is requesting funds as specified in the funding organisations’ Addenda to the Call for Proposals.

6.2 The Lead Principal Investigator of each trans-Atlantic project partnership must submit the joint research proposal on behalf of the consortium.

6.3 Applications must be submitted in English only.

6.4 Researchers can participate in no more than 2 (two) applications as Principal Investigator (PI), and they can only act in 1 (one) of these applications as Lead Principal Investigator. Note that Brazilian researchers applying to FAPESP can only participate in one T-AP SI application. Should one PI not strictly comply to this rule, all proposals including that PI will be considered ineligible.

6.5 Applications must be submitted by the deadline, following all set requirements. Applications failing to comply with eligibility requirements and application instructions will be declared ineligible and will not be evaluated. If one of the research partners in a consortium is not eligible, the entire consortium will be declared ineligible. The Lead Principal Investigator should be aware that some countries have specific eligibility requirements and they must ensure that all PIs in their consortium adhere to the relevant requirements to avoid ineligibility of the project proposal.

6.6 All research teams are strongly advised to contact their relevant funding organisations at least four weeks before the application deadline to enquire about the eligibility of the national teams involved¹. Note that the formal eligibility of the Proposals will be determined only after the submission deadline on the basis of all formal eligibility requirements (see section 8 of the Essential Information). 

7. Funding principles

7.1 The T-AP SI call will be implemented through a coordinated funding scheme where each funding organisation will fund its own eligible (national) research teams within a transnational T-AP SI project partnership.

7.2 The available contributions and the upper limits to the budgets that can be requested

per project team are listed in the table below.

7.3 Since funding will be awarded according to the terms and conditions of the relevant funding organisation, the actual costs that can be funded through the project may vary for national research teams in a given transnational project partnership. Applicants should therefore thoroughly check all national and/or regional regulations and rules of the relevant funding organisations as outlined in the funding organisations’ Addenda to the T-AP SI Call for Proposals.

7.4 Researchers from other countries/regions than T-AP SI partner countries/regions, and non-academic partners, may participate in the project as Cooperation Partners. However no funding can be applied for them from the T-AP SI call (unless otherwise stated within the funding organisations Addenda). A formal letter guaranteeing Cooperation Partners’ own funding for participating in the T-AP SI project must be appended to the application. The successful execution of a project should not depend on these outside participants.

8. Eligibility requirements

8.1 Applicants must apply as a transnational research project partnership, and partner with a number of national research teams based in the participating T-AP SI countries listed above. Each project must:

• comprise at least three eligible research partners requiring financial support from funders located in three different T-AP SI participating countries;

• include research partners from both sides of the Atlantic, i.e., from Europe² and the Americas;

• ensure teams in each country are led by an eligible Principal Investigator and designate one of the Principal Investigators as the project’s Lead Principal Investigator; and

• If the project is requesting funds from more than one funding organisation within the same country, only one Principal Investigator may be designated as the lead for that country. 

8.2 Each funding organisation also has its own restrictions on the eligibility of potential applicants and proposals. The links below refer to the funding available and the Addenda containing each Funding Organisation’s eligibility rules, requirements, funding mandates, policies, eligible costs and procedures. Please consult these Addenda before applying.

Table participating funding organizations 

Region	Country	Funding organisation	Total funds available	Contact Person(s)
Americas	Brazil	Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)	U$400.000,00 (FAPESP will fund a maximum of R$300.000/U$70.000 per project	Vera Viviane Schmidt                      chamada-tap-social@fapesp.br
	Canada	Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)	1.000.000 CDN	Anne Torgerson Anna.Torgerson@SSHRC-CRSH.GC.CA
	Canada	Fonds de Recherche du Québec Société et culture (FQRSC)	450.000 CDN	Marc Bélanger Marc.Belanger@frq.gouv.qc.ca
Europe	Germany	Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (DLR Project Management Agency (DLR-PT))	Up to 8 Projects will be funded	Dr. Stephanie Becker Stephanie.Becker@dlr.de Jennifer Striebeck Jennifer.Striebeck@dlr.de
	Finland	Suomen Akatemia (AKA)	700.000 EUR	Satu Huuha-Cissokho satu.huuha-cissokho@aka.fi
	France	Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR)	1.000.000 EUR	Séverine Boué severine.boue@agencerecherche.fr Xavier Engels Xavier.ENGELS@agencerecherche.fr
	The Netherlands	Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO)	800.000 EUR	Anne Cukier T-AP@nwo.nl
	Poland	Narodowe Centrum Badań I Rozwoju (NCBR)	600.000 EUR	Ewelina Wildner ewelina.wildner@ncbr.gov.pl
	The United Kingdom	UK Research and Innovation (ESRC and AHRC)	1.500.000 GBP	Manija Kamal (ESRC) Manija.Kamal@esrc.ac.uk Tim Pank (AHRC) t.pank@ahrc.ac.uk

Eligibility Requirements - Link to all addenda and excel files: https://www.transatlanticplatform.com/social-innovation/  

For detailed proposal characteristics and guidelines and more detailed descriptions of this transnational funding opportunity, please consult the next pages of this Call for Proposals below.

Please do use the “Eligibility and budget check list for all T-AP SI Principal Investigators” on page 12 of this Call for Proposals.  

Full Call for Proposals: Description / Scope 

The full T-AP Social Innovation Call for Proposals consists of the following sections:

• Context and Scope

• Eligibility and Funding Partners

• Application Instructions

• Evaluation Criteria and Review Process

CONTEXT AND SCOPE

T-AP is a collaboration among key humanities and social sciences research funders in Europe and the Americas. It aims to enhance transnational research collaboration and has identified, with the help of the research community, a series of common challenges and strategic priority areas where such collaboration will bring added value.

The T-AP SI Call will bring together transnational research teams from both sides of the Atlantic to advance research and to share their results openly, so that others may learn from them.

Addressing the global challenges of the 21st century through research on or for Social Innovation

T-AP partners acknowledge that there is a wide range of definitions, meanings, orientations, and uses of the concept of social innovation in scholarly, political and professional discourses and practice.

The T-AP partners are not aiming to present a single definition of social innovation, and different approaches and interpretations are therefore encouraged. Proposals are expected to provide a working definition of social innovation and how it applies to the project.

Key characteristics of social innovation may include:

• Both processes and outcomes;

• Contributions to individual and collective empowerment and wellbeing;

• Creation of social and economic value through new or improved processes, services, policies and methods;

• The means to social change and transformation;

• New approaches to multi-sectoral engagement across the public and/or not-for-profit and/or private sectors;

• The goals of social cohesion, resilient societies, inclusive growth, sustainability, equity, diversity and inclusion;

• Transformative or incremental approaches;

• Disruption, uncertainty and failure (and learning from failures);

• Results that might benefits some parts of society and not others; and

• Historical, political and cultural contexts.

1. Objectives for the T-AP Funding organisations

The T-AP-SI call is intended to support excellent social science and/or humanities research that can contribute meaningfully to the understanding of societal transformations and the role of social innovation by integrating the local, national, and global levels, as well as the diverse human activities related to the public, social, and private spheres.

Moreover, the trans-Atlantic collaboration in this research call will facilitate:

• addressing social challenges faced on both sides of the Atlantic (e.g. digital divide; urban and rural developments and cohesion; access to public services and infrastructure; ethnic conflicts; gender, human rights and legislation; the current state of democracy; equality and social, political and human values; migration-related issues);

• learning from the experiences of multi-sectoral collaboration for social innovation practiced on both sides of the Atlantic (e.g. innovative forms of economic organization; new (digital) technologies and accessibility; global and local environmental issues and sustainable development; strategies for social cohesion; integration of health and social care services; improvement of education and overcoming of linguistic barriers);

• the applying and adapting of approaches from one locale to another;

• generalizing and/or scaling-up of local experiences.

The role of Social Sciences and Humanities Research on or for Social Innovation

Most conceptions of social innovation emphasize to some degree the role of the public and not-for-profit sectors and citizens in exploring and shaping a social innovation. Because of this, T-AP funders are open to social sciences and/or humanities proposals for research on or for social innovation that employ any approach or combination of approaches along the spectrum of traditional academic research, user-engaged research, field-labs, artistic and / or practice-based research, and research for design and partnered research with organizations from public, not-for-profit or private sectors.

The T-AP SI Call is open to proposals that seek new insights and perspectives within one of the following two areas, or a combination of the two:

A. Research questions on social innovation which may include questions such as:

• Questions on conceptual, theoretical developments, and historical analyses of social innovation;

• Questions on policy and legislative drivers and inhibitors of social innovation;

• Analyses from different perspectives of societal, cultural, sectoral or technological trends in social innovation;

• Questions about the process(es) of social innovation;

• Questions pertaining to the interactions between individuals, communities, institutions and infrastructure in social innovation;

• Questions about the outcomes of social innovations;

• Theoretical and empirical investigation of the nature of the value added to citizens and communities by social innovation;

• Questions about the impact and evaluation of social innovation.

B. Research questions for social innovation focused on advancing, challenging or enhancing social innovation and / or delivering new social innovations as outputs of the research in areas such as:

• Social Innovation and Community Cohesion : e.g. social innovation in integrating communities, including diaspora groups, forcibly displaced communities, and migrant groups; innovative approaches to inclusion, equality and diversity and tackling exclusion and conflict; social innovations that address issues of the democratic deficit and trust; and consideration of the ethical dimensions of social innovation including the potential for negative or deleterious impacts of social innovations on parts of a community.

• Social Innovation and Inclusive Growth : e.g. innovative approaches to enhancing access to digitalization and addressing the ‘digital divide’; the challenge of the urban- rural divide/cohesion; approaches to community heritage and the development of sustainable spaces, places and environments; the creative economy and inclusive growth; corporate responsibility towards externalities; and the social, political, cultural and economic contingencies of social innovation.

• Social Innovation and Public Service Delivery : e.g. the role and application of social innovation in the delivery of public services for example through design, digital technologies and the engagement of relevant stakeholders in the exploration and exploitation of new ideas to improve the delivery of public services.

• Social Innovation and Wellbeing : e.g. innovative approaches to ageing and recovery and mental health; social innovations underpinning extensive transformations across the health and social care system; approaches to diverse factors (such as ‘drivers’ and ‘barriers’) that influence the process of social innovation in health and social care; and innovative processes in public, not-for-profit or private sectors influencing the integration of health and social care.

• Social Innovation and enabling technologies : e.g. the role of Big Data, digital technologies and artificial intelligence as tools or drivers for social innovation and the ethical and societal (legal, psychological/behavioral, social, economic) aspects of enabling technologies.

Proposals are also expected to include:

• A clear articulation of the trans-Atlantic added value of the research and research activities;

• transnational comparisons and/or case studies; and

• the identification of specific intended impacts (such as academic, economic and societal impacts) of the research, including a plan for knowledge mobilization/exchange and knowledge dissemination.

2. Type of research that can be funded

T-AP SI proposals should address humanities and/or social sciences research questions and address the Social Innovation topic as described above.

Projects must constitute substantive integrated work. Costs for travel and subsistence, meetings, workshops and events or dissemination can be requested (subject to national funding rules) as part of larger research operations, but proposals should not consist solely of networking activities or requests for mobility funding.

3. Proposals must consider providing access to grant products and research outcomes whenever possible

All funders of the T-AP SI endeavour to make the products and research results from their grants available to the broadest possible audience. The goal is for scholars, educators, students, and the transnational public to have ready and easy access to the wide range of publicly funded project outcomes. Detailed guidance on access and dissemination matters can be found in the instructions in Section 12, below (see the heading “Regulations for uses and dissemination of knowledge & information”).

ELIGIBILITY AND FUNDING ORGANISATIONS

4. Eligibility

• Applications must be complete, correct and in English.

• Applications must be in accordance with all relevant eligibility requirements (see below under section 5 for a link to the table with specific funders’ requirements.)

• Researchers can participate in no more than 2 (two) applications as Principal Investigator (PI), and they can only act in 1 (one) of these applications as Lead Principal Investigator. Note that Brazilian researchers applying to FAPESP can only participate in one T-AP SI application.

• Applicants must apply as a transnational research project partnership, and partner with a number of national research teams based in the participating T-AP SI countries listed above. Each project must: comprise at least three eligible research partners requiring financial support from funders located in three different T-AP SI participating countries; include research partners from both sides of the Atlantic, i.e., from Europe³ and the Americas; ensure teams in each country are led by an eligible Principal Investigator and designate one of the Principal Investigators as the project’s Lead Principal Investigator; and if the project is requesting funds from more than one funding organization within the same country, only one Principal Investigator may be designated as the lead for that country.

• All required commitment letters or e-mail(s) or required declarations are attached.

• Applications must be submitted by the deadline, following all set requirements. Applications failing to comply with eligibility requirements and application instructions will be declared ineligible and will not be evaluated. If one of the research partners in a consortium is not eligible, the entire consortium will be declared ineligible.

5. Participating funding organisations

Each funding organisation has its own restrictions on the eligibility of potential applicants and proposals. The links within the table on page 3 of this call refer to the funding available and the Addenda containing each Funding Organisation’s eligibility rules, requirements, funding mandates, policies, eligible costs and procedures.

Please consult the appropriate Addenda prior to applying.

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS 

6. Online application process

On the T-AP website you can find the document “Guidelines to submit an application”, specifying the technical instructions for submitting a proposal which are to be used in conjunction with the instructions below.

The application must be submitted by the Lead Principal Investigator on behalf of all partners in the consortium via the online submission system ISAAC, hosted by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). The link to ISAAC and further instructions can be found on the T-AP website (https://www.transatlanticplatform.com/).

After logging into ISAAC (see the separate document “Guidelines to submit an application” for details), you must first enter some basic information in the online web form which will be used to automatically generate a cover sheet for your application document.

Having filled out the online form in ISAAC, you are required to upload the Proposal as one document in PDF format (see the separate document to be filled in: “Application Template”), as well as at least one document in Excel format, containing the filled out project information and the budget tables (see the separate file “Summary Budget Tables”).

Some national funding organisations require additional documentation and spreadsheets/excel files to be submitted. Please carefully check the relevant national requirements well before the submission deadline! 

7. Proposal structure

In order to prepare the application, the application structure given below must be followed. To prepare the application, the “T-AP SI Application Template” and the “T-AP SI Summary budget tables” (Excel) must be used (both available for download on the T-AP website).

The application should be written in English. All pages must be numbered and each page should contain the project acronym . The minimum font size allowed is 11. All margins should be at least 15 mm (not including footers or headers). Note that documents should not be password protected. All word counts are inclusive of all text, tables (excluding the budget tables), references, diagrams, and pictures.

Cover page with

• Project title and acronym
• Lead Principal Investigator (= Principal Investigator 1): name, email address, institution, city, country
• Principal Investigators 2, 3, 4, ...: name, email address, institution, city, country (note that countries should be listed in the same order as in the project’s budget table).
• Cooperation Partner(s), if applicable: name contact person, email address, institution, city, country
• Proposed start date and duration of the project
• Keywords (5 max.) 

The cover page must be followed by the 10 sections below. The resulting document should be saved as one non-password protected PDF (Portable Document Format) file prior to uploading via the online submission system⁴

7.1 Statement of significance (maximum 300 words): Provide an abstract of the project, written for a general audience, which explains the significance of the project. This project summary will be published on the T-AP website if the proposal is selected for funding.

7.2 Table of contents: List all parts of the application and number all pages consecutively.

7.3 Narrative (maximum of ten pages): Within the narrative, provide the following information:

a. Provide your working definition of social innovation and how it applies to the project.

b. Describe and discuss the objectives and research questions you are addressing in your project and make the case for their importance to the humanities and/or social sciences. Discuss your proposed methodology for addressing these questions.

c. Provide a clear and concise literature review/state of the art survey of the relevant field. If there are existing projects that are similar in nature to your project, please describe them briefly and discuss how they relate to the proposed project. Please explain how the proposed project contributes to and advances the field.

d. Discuss how the project addresses the overarching goals of the T-AP SI Call, including the added value to the research endeavour of the proposed transnational partnership.

e. Provide a concise history of the project including information about preliminary research or planning.

f. If data are used in your projects, describe them in detail and provide some evidence as to their availability.

7.4 References cited (maximum of two pages): Include a table with a list of bibliographic references cited.

7.5 Data Management Plan (DMP) (maximum of two pages): Applicants should jointly prepare a DMP for their project. The plan should describe how the consortium will manage and disseminate data generated or collected by the project given possible ethical, intellectual property or privacy restrictions.

7.6 Project Management, Dissemination, and Communications Plan (PMDC) (maximum of five pages): Applicants should jointly prepare a PMDC which also specifies how all project partners plan to implement it. The PMDC should contain the following sections:

a. Roles and responsibilities: Briefly describe how the project will be managed. In addition, list all members of the project team(s), their roles and contact details (including primary affiliation and country) in the tables below. Indicate the time allocated by those members to the project in hours per week over the course of the project. Main possible “roles” are: Lead Principal Investigator (LPI), Principal Investigator (PI) and Team Member (TM).

Country 1

Role	Name & First Name	Organisation	Department or unit	Email Address	Average time spent on project (hours per week)
LPI
…
…
…

Country 2

Role	Name & First Name	Organisation	Department or unit	Email Address	Average time spent on project (hours per week)
PI
…
…
…

 Country 3

Role	Name & First Name	Organisation	Department or unit	Email Address	Average time spent on project (hours per week)
PI
…
…
…

 

b. Collaborations: Please describe relevant present and past collaborations of the PIs and Team Members relevant to this proposal.

c. Work plan: Describe the project’s key anticipated results (e.g., publications, data, public policy recommendations, etc.). Include a detailed work plan that describes tasks, deliverables and milestones. Discuss what “success” means for these deliverables and milestones and how you plan to measure it. Also discuss possible risks or barriers to success, their likelihood, and how you plan to avoid or mitigate them. These risks might be related to time (e.g., staff time, length of project), resources (e.g., money, materials), assumptions/expectations etc.

d . Dissemination and communication: Identify the target audiences for your project’s work products, how you will engage with them and how they will benefit from your research. Describe the communication channels to be used such as web pages, social media outreach (e.g., a project Twitter account and/or blog), training or mentoring opportunities, events, videos, or publications that the project team plans to create should it receive the award. Applicants should keep in mind that outreach is an important part of the T-AP call. Please note that the funders encourage all resulting publications to be available via open access.

e . Cooperation Partners: If applicable, please list all Cooperation Partners and their roles and responsibilities.

f. Training: If relevant, describe how your research project will assist in the training of students and early career researchers on your team.

7.7 Budget and justification of resources/budget : Each (national) project team that is applying must submit a budget request. For example, if your project has a Brazilian team, a UK team, and a Canadian team, you should submit at least three team budgets and a summary total budget overview of these team budgets. Each team budget should be prepared using the relevant templates that are available on the T-AP website per funding organisation. Please ensure that you adhere to all relevant additional funder requirements specified in the funding organisations’ addenda. 

At the end of the grant period, the funders plan to sponsor a major conference to highlight all the funded projects. In your budget(s), please include funds for your Principal Investigators to travel to this conference. As the exact location has not been set yet, we recommend assuming it will be an transnational trip of approximately three nights.

When you have completed the individual team budgets in the budget templates relevant for your Principal Investigators, please fill out the special T-AP SI Summary budget excel file which is also available on the T-AP website. Fill out both tabs/worksheets (Project Information; Summary budgets) according to the instructions below.

The summary budget tables must be filled out in Euros.

When filling out the Summary budget tables please indicate:

- For each PI: the PI number, name, and country.
Please make sure that the PI numbers in the budget tables correspond to those in the project information work sheet and also in the cover sheet of the application.

- Using the figures from the individual team budget tables, please enter the total costs in Euro, including potential additional budget that is invested in the project on top of the requested T-AP SI funding, for each PI for the whole duration of the project. The Summary budget should indicate clearly the cumulative amounts that each PI would spend on employment (all research and administrative positions), travel, equipment, publications or other items for the whole duration of the T-AP SI project.

- After filling in the table for the total costs of the project, please continue with the table for the overall requested T-AP SI funding. This table only lists the actual amounts that are being requested from the participating T-AP SI funding organisations. If no additional funding is invested, the amounts in this second table will be the same as in the first table.

- Please also fill in the third table, listing the overall additional funding in Euro. This includes own/organisational funds. If no additional funding is invested in the project, please fill in amounts of zero in this table.

The following costs can be entered into the budget summary table (provided these are eligible according to the relevant national T-AP SI Eligibility Requirements). Please check the relevant National Eligibility Requirements for more information.

- Employment costs should comprise personnel costs in accordance with national eligibility requirements. The employment costs should be detailed by person (e.g. please indicate the costs of each Senior Researcher, each Ph.D. student, etc.). Indicate for each position what percentage of Full Time Equivalent (FTE) will be allocated to the project each year both in the budget table (next to the title of each position) and also in the justification below.

- Equipment is material used for the project. Please specify the type and purpose for each major item. Small equipment/material should be listed under the category “Other costs”.

- Travel and meeting costs also include subsistence costs as well as other costs necessary for the organisation of the project meetings (e.g. hiring venues, catering, etc.). Please specify the type of trips to be made in the framework of the collaborative research proposal (e.g. conference, fieldwork, project meeting, etc.). Please also include costs here for participation at T-AP SI events.

- Consumables are goods that must be replaced regularly (e.g. office supplies).

- Dissemination and Knowledge Exchange costs may include both the costs for scientific publications (e.g. Open Access publications) and other dissemination materials (e.g. reports, leaflets, websites, etc.), events, exhibitions or other knowledge exchange activities targeting users and the general audience.

- Other costs should list any other costs that cannot be categorized in the above sections. This would include external services or subcontracting costs.

- Overheads are all eligible costs which cannot be identified as being directly allocated to the project but which can be justified in line with the relevant Eligibility Requirements. They usually comprise costs connected with infrastructures and the general operation of the organisation such as rental or depreciation of buildings, water/gas/electricity, maintenance, insurance, supplies and petty office equipment, communication and connection costs, postage, etc. and costs connected with horizontal services such as administrative and financial management, human resources, training, legal advice, documentation, etc.

After filling out the Summary budget table, please copy and paste these tables in Section 7.7 of the Application Template.

Below the table in Section 7.7, please justify the distribution of costs across the PIs and explain how this relates to the planned outputs and the division of work across the PIs. The funding among the PIs can be distributed unevenly. The differences may be due to the different national eligibility rules (e.g. regarding the overheads) but also due to the division of work. Please summarise the rationale behind the overall financial plan and its relation to the consortium in this section.

Finally, please describe the resources which would complement the T-AP SI project, if applicable (e.g. contributions from PI/PL host institutions, Cooperation Partners). Please note that all additional contributions must be guaranteed either in the statement from a host institution of the respective PI attached to the proposal or in a signed letter from the Cooperation Partners attached to the proposal as section 7.9.

NB. In addition to providing the budget information in Section 7.7 of the application, the Summary Budget excel files/spreadsheets and all relevant national budget excels must be uploaded with the application.

If your project is selected for funding, you may be asked to provide additional funding documentation to clarify items in the budget.

7.8 Résumés (maximum one page per résumé): Include résumés for the Principal Investigators only. You may use the format of your choosing. Regardless of format, please ensure that the résumé indicates all institutional affiliations, as this is required to ensure there are no conflicts of interest with peer reviewers. Please also include per PI a maximum of 10 most relevant publications and a listing of relevant present and recent collaborations/collaborators.

7.9 Letters of commitment as appropriate : A letter of commitment is typically provided by a person or organisation that is committing something to your project, either in-kind or in-cash. This can be the PI’s host institution or a Cooperation Partner. As to the commitment letters of the PI’s host institution, please carefully check the relevant Addenda to the Call for Proposals for the (national) eligibility requirements⁵. As to the commitment letters of the Cooperation Partner, please include the Cooperation Partner’s own funding for participating in the T-AP SI project.

7 .10 Appendices (maximum of five pages): Attach any relevant diagrams, or other materials critical to your project. Also attach any IRB/Ethics Review Board documentation, if appropriate. Note that the T-AP SI funders require that all funded research be conducted in accordance with relevant ethical and research integrity principles and be approved by the relevant ethical authorities. Please consult individual funding organisations’ Addenda for more information on each funder’s ethics requirements.

8. Eligibility and budget check list for all T-AP SI Principal Investigators

The Lead Principal Investigator should check that:

- All Principal Investigators are eligible according to all relevant T-AP SI general eligibility requirements and the relevant national/regional eligibility criteria;

- The rules on maximum number of participations in T-AP SI applications per Principal Investigator are respected;

- The application is complete, i.e., the Application Template is filled out completely and a document containing all 10 required sections specified in Section 7 is uploaded;

- All required commitment letters or e-mail(s) or required declarations have been attached;

- The information in the application is correct and in accordance with all relevant national and general T-AP SI guidelines and eligibility requirements;

- All budget totals are eligible according to all relevant T-AP SI Funding organisations’ eligibility requirements;

- The budgets in the Summary Budget Excel sheet and the national budget tables are the same;

- The necessary permits and approvals are in place at the start of the project e.g., regarding ethical review, use of data;

- The project information and summary budget excel is filled out and uploaded;

- The relevant national budgets excel files are filled out and uploaded; and

Any additional documentation has been submitted to relevant funding organisations (please check all relevant Addenda available on the T-AP SI website).

EVALUATION CRITERIA AND REVIEW PROCESS 

9. Evaluation criteria

Proposals will be evaluated on the basis of the criteria below, which are weighted equally.

a. Intellectual merit: What is the potential for the proposed activity to advance knowledge and understanding and new insights within its own field or across different fields?

b. Quality, innovation and feasibility of the research plan: Is the proposed project addressing new questions and/or new approaches? Is the research plan well-specified and feasible? Does the project provide value for money?

c. Broader impacts: Does the proposal demonstrate the contribution that this project will make to society and/or to the pursuit of advancing academic inquiry? Where relevant, does the proposal describe the sustainability of any resulting tools or other research outcomes beyond the life of the project?

d. Relevance to the call: Does the project promise to meet the overarching goals of the T-AP SI Call? Those goals are listed on page 4-6.

e. Partnership and planning: Does the proposal describe an effective and balanced transnational partnership? Is the partnership well-coordinated and likely to extend beyond the funding period? Does the partnership have appropriate plans in place to address collaboration, data management, project planning and dissemination?

Projects will be scored based on the following scoring matrix:

0	Unacceptable	Poorly designed research with too many concerns or weaknesses to be taken forward as it stands.
1	Weak	Interesting research but with some clear weaknesses and therefore likely to make only a limited contribution to knowledge.
2	Average	Sound research likely to make a valuable contribution to knowledge, with some strengths, but also moderate weaknesses and therefore not necessarily with (inter)national impact.
3	Good	Transnationally significant research, with no significant flaws or concerns, likely to contribute to knowledge at the transnational level.
4	Very good	Transnationally important research, robust and at the leading edge, likely to make an important new contribution to knowledge.
5	Excellent	World leading, rigorous and innovative research, likely to make a major new contribution to knowledge.

10. Evaluation procedure

The T-AP SI proposals will be evaluated by transnational independent experts and subsequently be reviewed and ranked by a transnational independent peer review panel.

The evaluation process involves five steps:

a. Eligibility check: The Call Secretariat, in cooperation with the national funding organisations, will check all proposals after the deadline to ensure that they meet the call’s formal criteria (e.g., date of submission; number of participating countries; inclusion of all necessary information; appropriate limits on length, etc.) and that applicants are eligible to submit proposals according to the rules of the relevant funding organisations.

b. Expert peer review: Each eligible proposal will initially be remotely reviewed, according to the review criteria listed above, by experts in the field of research of the proposal.

c. Review Panel(s): depending on the number and scope of proposals received, one or several review panels will be formed, consisting of experts chosen by the funding organisations. Panel members, taking into account the written input from the expert peer reviewers, will discuss the merits of each proposal using the review criteria as a guide and issue funding recommendations.

d. Funders Forum: After the panel meetings, representatives of the T-AP SI funding organisations will meet separately, as a group, to put together the recommended slate of projects to be funded. In determining the slate, the guiding principle will be scholarly merit. In case of a tie in the overall grade, the group of funding organisations may also address such considerations as institutional, disciplinary, and geographic balance with the goal of creating a “balanced portfolio”.

e. Funding decision: The funding decision will be subject to formal approval by the national/regional T-AP SI funding organisations. 

11. Award notification

Once the list of selected projects is established, the Lead Principal Investigator will be notified by e-mail in September 2019 about the outcome of the selection procedure and receive a copy of the evaluation report as formulated by the Review Panel for that project. Subsequently, each funding organisation will notify all relevant Principal Investigators and award the funds to support the approved projects according to its usual practice. Note that for some funding organisations the actual funding will be dependent on a Letter of Agreement to be signed by the organisations with which the research teams are associated with establishing how Intellectual property rights, confidentiality, and publications will be handled in the project.

12. Regulations for uses and dissemination of knowledge and information

12.1 Open access to research results is strongly encouraged and intended to improve and promote the dissemination of knowledge, thereby contributing to academic discovery, fostering innovation and maximizing the return of public funding of research. Funding recipients are expected to ensure that their research data and peer-reviewed papers are freely accessible online in accordance with the policy of the relevant national funding rules and/or constraints on data openness, e.g., as defined by ethics committees.

12.2 The following conditions will apply to all research projects that are funded under the T-AP SI framework.

a. Funded T-AP SI consortia involving researchers funded by FAPESP must sign an IPR agreement.

b. In any publication of results, mention must be made of the support received in the framework of the Trans-Atlantic Platform. (“This work was supported in the framework of the Trans- Atlantic Platform by the following funding organisations: …). The T-AP internet address http://www.transatlanticplatform.com/ should also be shown on the publication.

c. All Principal Investigators must submit progress and financial reports following relevant funding organisation requirements. Funders will insist that each progress report must report on the main (interim) results and outputs of the individual project as well as on the main (interim) results and outputs of the collaborative project as a whole.

d. In addition all funded projects will be asked to do the following:

· Submit a final project “white paper” to the T-AP coordinator. The white paper should include contributions from all research teams participating in the transatlantic partnership and describe the results of the T-AP SI project. It should discuss how the project progressed over time, and how the project was managed; document meetings and important milestones; propose indicators to measure success; describe lessons learned (both positive and negative); discuss the success in addressing the project’s research question(s); and provide the researchers’ candid opinions about the success of the project overall. The white paper will be posted on the T-AP website, so that others may benefit and learn from the research.

· The white paper will be due 90 days after the end of the grant period, or the last extension received by the team. The white paper should be about as long as a typical academic paper in the discipline(s) involved in the project. A white paper could in fact be a pre-press version (or an early draft) of an academic paper. More details will be provided at a later date.

· The text of the white paper may also be used to satisfy the reporting requirements of some of the project’s funding agencies. Please consult the Addenda for individual funders for details. Please bear in mind that the paper will be a public document.

· If any data or code is developed under the grant, researchers are encouraged to deposit copies into an appropriate repository, and follow any additional funder-specific guidelines.

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Footnotes:

1. E.g. FAPESP will provide an official eligibility declaration to São Paulo Principal Investigators (who must apply for it at least 45 days before the T-AP Social Innovation deadline) and these declarations must be submitted with the T-AP Social Innovation proposal, otherwise FAPESP will not consider that project – see FAPESP Addendum.)

2. Universities of the French DOM-TOM (such as the University of the West Indies and Guyana) or the UMIFRE and CNRS laboratories located abroad (including on American soil), will be considered as part of the European side of the Atlantic for this call.

3. Universities of the French DOM-TOM (such as the University of the West Indies and Guyana) or the UMIFRE and CNRS laboratories located abroad (including on American soil), will be considered as part of the European side of the Atlantic for this call.

4. Note that some funding organisations require that applicants also upload the proposal to the relevant Funding Organisation(s) online submission system (see Funding Organisations’ Addenda for detailed instructions.)

5. São Paulo team Principal Investigators must also append here the eligibility declaration they should request from FAPESP up to 45 days before the T-AP SI deadline.

 

 

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