Q & A

Chips JU


Here you will find answers to the most frequently asked questions about our Calls. If you do not find the information you need, please submit your question, and it will be directed to the appropriate staff member. You will receive a response via email, and your question, along with the answer, will be added to this Q&A section to assist other users.


Frequently Asked Questions
Will Appear Below.

No, there are not any mandatory national requirements for the FPA phase. However, we encourage participants to already contact their national authorities, and if the consortium wishes to add any related information to the proposal, this may be included as an appendix to the PDF file of Part B of the application.

For both QAC-1 and QAC-2, at the FPA stage, consortia are not required to submit a consortium agreement. This will be a requirement at the SGA stage for the successful FPA consortia.

No, participation is limited to legal entities established in Member States of the European Union, Iceland, Norway and Israel, on the basis of Article 22(5) of the Regulation (EU) 2021/695.

At this stage, we cannot fully answer this question. Although Equipment costs (C2 category in the Grant Agreement) would be included in a 25% flat rate, details on the options to purchase equipment will be known once the SGA calls following this FPA call are open.

There is no specific page limit per section. We only encourage to limit the overall narrative part of the application to 150 pages, and even this limit is only indicative.

As the SGAs are signed under different grant agreements, profit rules from a first SGA would not affect the second SGA under the same FPA.

Any revenue-generating service that makes profit during the project life time, using the resources of the project, must adhere to Horizon Europe rules, i.e., those revenues will be deducted from the grant. Clarificacion: Under Horizon Europe, income generated by exploitation of results are NOT considered as revenues. This is the case regardless of whether exploitation of the results takes place during or after the end of the action.

Indeed, for this call, the participation is restricted to legal entities established in one of the following: EU Member States, Iceland, Norway or Israel.

In terms of country of origin of the hosting entity, the call is restricted to the EU Member States, Iceland, Norway and Israel. Industrial partners from that list of countries, and which are not controlled by (an entity from) a third-country, are eligible as hosting entity.

Pre-operational environments mean pilots where testing and validation is possible, but that are not yet available for full-scale production. However, this does not exclude that, if fully operational clean rooms do already exist, these are already incorporated into the pilot.

On page 99 of Appendix 4 to the MAWP 2023-2027, concerning the Admissibility requirements for the Design Platform, the call text clearly states that “There are no page limits for the application but the consortia are encouraged to limit the narrative part of the application to 200 pages excluding the tables that are expected.”

 

The template of the application form is the standard DEP one, which is not allowed to be changed. It indicates a default limit of 70 pages indeed. However, there is also a clear text in template’s “Important notice” indicating that the call document may overrule this limit. Therefore, the call text prevails over template’s defaults.

Please find here below a link to a document with further information on the ownership control assessment procedure where the “controlled” term is explained:

https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/common/guidance/guidance-participation-in-dep-he-edf-cef-dig-restricted-calls_dep-he-edf-cef-dig_en.pdf

Please do not use the default template for the field “List of previous projects” in the attached documents of your DEP proposal (Call Chips-2024-CPL-5). You must follow the instructions of the Guide For Applicants (Guide_for_applicants_DEP_PL5.pdf, page 9) where it is indicated that the template is: Appendix2&4_Annex1_Template_ApplicationForm_v2.docx (from the Call documents ZIP package). 

The HE and DEP budget forms on the Portal must indicate only the EU/JU funding (not national funding, which has a separate template). The EU/JU financial contribution for the implementation of the pilot line shall cover up to 50% of the total costs of the pilot line (see Appendix 4 of the Work Programme, section 3.2.2 Budget available). This maximum funding must be manually indicated in the “Requestable EU Funding” field for each beneficiary. Please ensure that each beneficiary requests a maximum funding of 50% in HE and 50% in DEP.

Indeed, there is an error in that formula (template Estimated_Budget_EU_CfEoI.v2). The formula must actually include Procurement costs in the Total costs. Thank you for spotting this error.

The standard DEP's and HE page limits for Part B do not apply to this call (Chips-2024-CPL-5). Our recommendation is to keep the DEP technical proposal for this call as much DEP-specific as possible without including HE-specific aspects. However, if you deem it necessary for the completeness of the descriptions, you can either briefly describe the HE's WPs or refer to Part B in HE. The goal is to keep the three different applications comprehensible and sufficiently distinguished for the Evaluation phase, as well as for the contract preparation phase if the proposal is selected. 

There is no possibility to get additional EU/JU funding allocated during negotiation as the funding decision is taken before the start of the Grant Agreement Preparation (GAP). If this partner expects to have the EU/JU funding during the funding decision phase then why would this partner start as associated?

Ministries of countries granting funding for this Call are not eligible because of possible Conflict of Interest (CoI).

Yes, it is. An application for the Call Chips-2024-CPL-5 is not admissible if it has not been submitted under the 3 calls:

 

  • Call for Expression of Interest for the selection of a Hosting Consortium (DIGITAL-Chips-2024-CfEoI-CPL-5)

  • Call for Set-up, integration and process development, funded under Horizon Europe (HORIZON-Chips-2024-RIA-CPL-5)

  • Call for Operational activities of the pilot line, funded under Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL-Chips-2024-SG-CPL-5).

We must clarify that any subcontracting costs must be justified in Part B of the proposal (as suggested in the template for Part B). Subconstracting costs beyond 30% of the total eligible costs will receive special attention as it is expected that activities assigned to subcontractors may under no circumstances include project core tasks (core research and development tasks). Every case will be assessed to ensure this general principle of subcontracting. There are not specific grounds to accept high costs of subcontracting.

The Mandate letter (file Appendix2&4_Annex1b_Mandate.docx in the Call documents package) is agnostic regarding the nature of the consortium (national or international).

The start date for the depreciation of new equipment should follow the usual financial practice of the hosting entity. This can be the date of the equipment acceptance or the date of the equipment acquisition.

The EU budget (in the part A of the proposal in the portal) and the national budget (in the provided template) should both include the total costs of the project, each of them respecting respectively the Digital Europe and the corresponding national costs eligibility rules. Participating States are expected to co-finance their national competence centres together with the Union, i.e. 50% will be funded through EU contributions and 50% through national contributions.

As a reminder, following principle needs to be respected: the Union will make available up to EUR 1 million per year, per country, for a 4-year period provided that the corresponding Participating State provides the same amount of maximum annual, financial contributions as the Union, i.e. EUR 1 million per year.

Chapter 4 "Work Plan, Work Packages, Activities, Resources and Timing" of the Tpl_Application_Form_(Part B)_DEP template is included within the 60 pages limit of the IMPLEMENTATION section.

The list of previous projects ( annex 4 to the Part B of the proposal template) is not required for this call.

The list of previous projects ( annex 4 to the Part B of the proposal template) is not required for this Competence Centres call.

The Chips JU office can’t discuss specific details of the proposals under preparation. The only questions we can answer are related to the templates and portals for submission as well as schedule and deadlines.

Organizations from UK cannot participate to Call Chips-2024-CSA-CDP-1 as it is not associated to the Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL).

Chapter 4 "Work Plan, Work Packages, Activities, Resources and Timing" of the Tpl_Application_Form_(Part B)_DEP template is included within the 60 pages limit of the IMPLEMENTATION section.

No, the section 3.3 "Environmental sustainability and contribution to European Green Deal goals" of the proposal template is not applicable to this call.

No, the section 3.3 "Environmental sustainability and contribution to European Green Deal goals" of the proposal template is not applicable to this call.

There is no restrictions for subcontracting Swiss organizations. However, please note that the subcontracting needs to comply with the general and specific cost eligibility conditions, in particular ensure best value for money or lowest price and avoid any conflict of interest. The beneficiary must be able to demonstrate that the criteria defining quality were clear and coherent with the purpose. Having identified apriori a specific entity seems contradictory with this principle.

When opening the EU F&T Portal link for submission, there might be filtering issues. Please click on "Clear all filters" and open again the submission link. The submission page will be available then.

The Project Consortium Agreement (PCA) is a private agreement that can be organized as required by the PL-5 consortium. We recomend to have only one PCA for the three interrelated PL-5 calls, for the sake of simplicity.

The Joint Procurement Agreement (JPA) and the Hosting Agreement (HA) are the only applicable contracts associated to Call DIGITAL-Chips-2024-CfEoI-CPL-5 (Call for Expression of Interest for PL-5).

The Model Grant Agreement (MGA) for the Call DIGITAL-Chips-2024-SG-CPL-5 is available via the link provided in the Guide for Applicants for this call (Guide_for_applicants_DEP_PL5.pdf), Section 11, page 8 ("Portal Reference Documents" link). Once you open the link, you must select the Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL) programme > Grant agreements and contracts > DEP MGA, version 01.11.2023. For further information and guidance, you can also refer to the Annotated Grant Agrement, as indicated in Section 2 of the Guide for Applicants (DEP), which is applicable to all EU Funding Programmes.

The Model Grant Agreement (MGA) for the Call HORIZON-Chips-2024-RIA-CPL-5 is available via the link provided in the Guide for Applicants for this call (Guide_for_applicants_HE_PL5.pdf), Section 11, page 8 ("Portal Reference Documents" link). Once you open the link, you must select the Horizon Europe (HORIZON) programme > Grant agreements and contracts > HE MGA, version 01.04.2024. For further information and guidance, you can also refer to the Annotated Grant Agrement, as referred in Section 2 of the Guide for Applicants, which is applicable to all EU Funding Programmes.

The budget to be included in the part A of the application form is the EU budget following the Digital Europe budget rules. The budget to be included in the National Budget Table is the budget according to the appropriate national rules. Costs rules and costs eligibility might be different at European and at national level.

No, chapters "1.3 Digital technology supply chain" and "1.4 financial obstacles" do not apply to this call.

No, chapters "1.3 Digital technology supply chain" and "1.4 financial obstacles" do not apply to this call.

The recommended duration for the CSA is 4 years.

No, there is no such impediment. An entity might participate in multiple proposals submitted to the same call for proposals.

The costs eligibility for proposals resulting from the Competence Centres calls follows the rules described in the Annotated Grant Agreement, article 6. Kindly refer to this document for further information. Please find here the link to the document: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/common/guidance/aga_en.pdf.

Call Chips-2024-CPL-5 is not not exclusively for research and technology organizations (RTOs) or Universities. There are no eligibility constraints for other kind of organizations.

Affiliated entities are entities with a (usually legal or capital) link to a beneficiary. ‘Link to the beneficiaries’ means in particular a legal or capital link, which is neither limited to the action nor established for the sole purpose of its implementation. More information about affiliated entities with some examples can be found in the Annotated Grant Agreement, article 8 (https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/common/guidance/aga_en.pdf).

The Competence Centres can be composed of industrial partners as long as the Competence Centre itself has a non-profit objective. There are no restrictions on the type of entity (public/private) taking the coordinator role of a Competence Centre’s consortium. However, I would like to bring to your attention that including for profit organizations in a Competence Centre consortium opens up questions on state aid funding that need to be discussed with and resolved by the national authorities that provide the matching grant.

The Ownership Control Declaration template states, “entities that are validated as public bodies by the Central Validation Service do not have to fill in the form but will automatically be considered as controlled by their country.” Therefore, any entity validated as public body by the Commission Validation Services does not need to provide this form.

The expected date for the signature of the hosting agreement of PL-5 is May 2025.