10 December 2008
Funding under FP7’s second call for Galileo and EGNOS project proposals will open further opportunities for European businesses, including SMEs.The second call for Galileo and EGNOS project proposals under the European Commission’s 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7) will target a wide variety of sectors and wider SME participation.
Europe’s global navigation satellite system (GNSS), made up of Galileo and EGNOS, represents an opportunity for entrepreneurs and existing businesses to develop new applications and services. The system will provide a more accurate and verifiable worldwide satellite positioning and timing infrastructure than is currently available.
The announcement of the second call will be made before the end of the year. Of the €40 million in funding available for the second call, around €28 million will be allocated to collaborative projects, €11 million to tenders (launched later in 2009), and €1 million to administrative and technical support in relation to developing Galileo and EGNOS services.
The total sum represents a 60% addition to the amount available last year for FP7’s first call for Galileo and EGNOS R&D projects, and about 110% if we refer only to the application projects.
The money will be allocated to projects promoting growth in the use of Galileo and EGNOS services in the open, commercial and regulated sectors. The proposals should demonstrate the benefits and efficiency of satellite navigation technology. The focus is on research with a short time to market as to maximise impact of the programme in the short term.
Details of the areas to which the funding available for collaborative projects will be made available later this year, while information on the other tenders will be released in early 2009.
More information on collaborative projects
Growing Galileo 2009
Collaborative projects will typically be 50-75% funded through FP7, with industry contributing the rest. Under the second call, more funding is being targeted at projects involving small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Bidding consortia are composed of at least three organisations from three different countries.
To encourage participation, the GSA will hold a conference and an information day on 27-28 January 2009 in Brussels to explain the procedures and details of the call. Growing Galileo 2009 is also an opportunity for participants in project proposals to network and form consortia with other organisations.
The GSA will also support other smaller information days around the EU and beyond over the coming months. More than five have been planned so far. In addition, the GSA will link up with national research and business network centres so as to get information spread more widely to SMEs and in general to companies not yet involved in FP7 projects.
Funding for collaborative projects will target a number of areas, including mass market, professional, scientific, safety-of-life, search and rescue, and innovative applications and services. The funding will also target collaborative projects to develop satellite receivers and infrastructure, education, international co-operation and awareness raising relating to Galileo and EGNOS. The focus will be on innovative projects that have short-term market impact. In most cases, proposals are required to submit a preliminary business plan for the commercialisation of project results.
Proposals for collaborative projects directed at mass-market applications and services should demonstrate that the outcomes will foster the use of positioning and navigation functions. Typical projects could be directed at developing location base services (LBS), fleet management, and transport applications.
Proposals made for projects to develop professional applications would deal with the development of applications requiring high performance GNSS and quality of service guarantees. For example, proposals could address the use of EGNOS for precision agriculture or for the location of work teams, individuals and construction machinery.
Projects focused on the scientific applications segment would address the benefits derived by the use of Galileo and EGNOS to the scientific community. Such projects should also consider the future commercial impact that such applications might have. The GSA expects that innovative scientific applications and the exploitation of synergies with other space-based services and systems will be positive outcomes of such projects.
Safety-of-life applications should seek to introduce EGNOS in the aviation sector, and prepare railway and maritime sectors for Galileo. Funding for projects to develop innovative ideas will also have a specific emphasis on supporting research and development activities by SMEs.
In any case, applicants should provide the details and assumptions for the actual deployment of their FP7 proposals and their business plans.
Growing Galileo 2009 presents an opportunity
The GSA plans to use the Growing Galileo 2009 conference and information day in January to promote all of the areas under which project proposals are sought. The conference will be held on the first day, the information session on the morning of the second.
Those attending will also learn about the successful projects accepted for funding under FP7’s first call for GNSS proposals, launched in November 2007.
Last year, the first call attracted over 80 proposals involving more than 200 organisations, of which 30 projects were approved for a total of €27 million in available funding. The project coordinators of the approved projects came from 10 different countries. Grants varied from about €300,000 to €2 million.
Registration for the Growing Galileo is now open.
More information
FP7 2nd call announced!
Growing Galileo 2009 1st Announcement
Register for Growing Galileo 2009
