With a total budget of over €1.2 billion for 2018-2020, the H2020 Research Infrastructures Programme aims to support scientific excellence in Europe. The new INFRAIA calls for proposals open on 28 November 2019.

Research Infrastructures in a nutshell

As part of the “Scientific Excellence” pillar of Horizon 2020, the Research Infrastructure Programme targets three central objectives:

• developing world-class European infrastructures for 2020 and beyond;
• fostering the innovation potential of the infrastructures and their human resources;
• reinforcing European policy on research infrastructures and international cooperation.

In their European definition, research infrastructures include not only major scientific facilities, but also research instruments, knowledge resources (collections, archives, scientific libraries, etc.) and e-infrastructures (databases, computer systems, communication networks, etc.).

The actions funded under the RIs programme

More specifically, the Infrastructure calls for proposals support:

• projects which provides transnational access to European Research Infrastructures for researchers, including virtual access (INFRAIA);
• design studies projects for the development of new infrastructures;
• the further development of existing RIs.

Several one-stage calls for proposals for particularly relevant research infrastructures are opening in 2019. For example:

• INFRAIA-02-2020 (Integrating Activities for Starting Communities): Research and Innovation Action. EU budget: up to €5 million per project. Call open from 28/11/2019 to 17/03/2020.
• INFRAIA-03-2020 (Pilot for a new model of Integrating Activities): Research and innovation action. EU budget: up to €15 million per project. Call open from 28/11/2019 to 17/03/2020.

A few tips to prepare your proposal

RICH, the network of National Contact Points for RIs, provides ample information on how to prepare project proposals in response to H2020 calls. In particular, this consortium organised an Info Day at the end of 2017, which video is available online (here). In May 2019, RICH also organised a symposium on the transition from Horizon 2020 to Horizon Europe calls. The presentations and video broadcast are also available on their website.

As an H2020 expert, Euronovia has developed a special offer on Research Infrastructures to support project coordinators in their proposal submission. Indeed, we are partners in two H2020 INFRAIA projects. In addition, we were previously subcontractors for three FP7 Infrastructure projects (closed). Do not hesitate to contact us!