SAF€RA’s 2021 “fast track” call for proposals

Date: 2020-12-08

SAF€RA has launched its sixth joint call for transnational, collaborative research projects. The “fast track” call aims to foster collaboration between researchers from different countries in Europe and from different scientific disciplines, in order to improve safety and the management of technological risks. The call title is Industrial safety in the context of pandemics and exponential change, with two topics:

Topic 1: Lessons learned from Covid-19 and capacity building for resilient response
Topic 2: Nanostructured materials in personal protective equipment and filtration devices

Funding available

The total available budget for the 2021 call is approx. 1.2 M€. Two forms of funding are available:

research grants for researchers from universities, institutes, research organizations and public firms;
person-months for personnel from certain participating institutes and research organizations.

Most projects funded within this call will include 2 to 4 partners, for a duration between 12 and 24 months and funding between 20 and 150 k€ per project partner. The call aims to fund mainly applied research carried out in universities or research institutes, though contributions from industry are also eligible. Interdisciplinary research is encouraged. Cooperation and joint activities between different consortia funded within the call will be encouraged.

Call timeline

The 2021 joint call will use a single-stage application process (no pre-proposal stage). The calendar of the various stages is shown below.

Publication of the call	December 8 2020
Deadline for submissions of proposals	March 30 2021
National funding decisions transmitted to applicants	End of May 2021
Contracts established; projects start	June to September 2021

Call documentation

The following documents are available:

The Guidelines for proposers contains a description of the topics covered by the 2021 joint call, information on the participating funding organizations and the budgets available, and other important information for researchers wishing to submit a proposal.
The Guidelines for evaluators are written for the experts who will evaluate the projects, but will be useful to researchers who wish to understand the evaluation criteria.
The proposal form is available in Microsoft Word (.docx) or OpenOffice/LibreOffice (.odt) formats.
Templates for the SAF€RA progress reports, which must be sent to the SAF€RA Call Secretariat by the project coordinator on behalf of the project consortium. The mid-term reporting template should be submitted halfway through your project, assuming the project has a duration greater than 18 months. A final administrative report should be sent by all projects, within three months of the end of the project. (This report is distinct from the final scientific report which most projects will be producing as one of their deliverables.)

Contact information

For general queries concerning the 2021 joint call, please email the call secretariat at call-secretariat@safera.eu. Make sure you read the call documents above and check the list of frequently asked questions first.

If you have questions concerning the eligibility criteria of specific funding organizations, please check the contact information provided in the Guidelines for proposers document, which can be downloaded above.