💰 Funding Details

EOSC Nodes with Federating Capabilities for the EOSC Federation (HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-EOSC-01)

Essential Facts

* Type of Action: HORIZON-RIA (Research & Innovation Action)

* Total EU Budget for Topic: Up to €45 million per project (100 % direct costs + 25 % overheads)

* Opening Date: 06 May 2025

* Deadline: 18 September 2025 – 17:00 Brussels time (single-stage)

* Max. Project Duration (indicative): 48 months

* Consortium Requirements: Minimum three legal entities from three different Horizon-Europe eligible countries, at least one from an EU Member State

* Financial Support to Third Parties (FSTP): Allowed – max. €60 000 per third party (onboarding costs only)

Strategic Objective

Establish and operate independently managed EOSC Nodes that:

1. Deliver core federating capabilities (AAA, catalogues, workflows, monitoring, helpdesk, etc.) compliant with the EOSC EU Node reference architecture, interoperability framework and Federation Handbook.

2. Represent a well-defined thematic or geographical scope (e.g. advanced computing, marine data, your country regional research infrastructure) and offer unique added value to EOSC users.

3. Progressively assume or share federating responsibilities currently handled by the EOSC EU Node, ensuring long-term sustainability and resilience of the overall EOSC Federation.

Expected Outcomes

* A distributed “system of systems” where EOSC Nodes interoperate seamlessly and resiliently.

* Researchers gain unified, cross-domain access and integration support for their research environments.

* A mature, scalable governance and business model for federated EOSC operations beyond the project lifetime.

Eligibility & Compliance Highlights

* Minimal Node Requirements (EOSC Tripartite Governance): legal status, high-quality service provisioning, capability to onboard third-party services, capacity to provide/assume federating capabilities, adoption of EOSC rules & policies, robust monitoring & reporting.

* Mandatory Open Science & IPR Clauses: royalty-free access for EOSC Association (policy monitoring) and for non-commercial EOSC development; obligatory data deposition in trusted EOSC-federated repositories.

* Security Restrictions: compliance with EU rules for protection of communication networks.

Funding Profile

| Cost Category | Reimbursement Rate |

|---------------|--------------------|

| Direct costs (personnel, travel, equipment, sub-contracting, etc.) | 100 % |

| Indirect costs | 25 % of eligible direct costs |

No pre-defined budget split is imposed, but evaluators expect substantial resources for: coordination with other node operators, community engagement, sustainability planning, and (if used) a clearly justified FSTP cascade funding mechanism.

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📊 Evaluation Criteria

How you will be scored (Annex D + topic-specific additions)

1. Excellence (0-5 pts) – Technical soundness, innovation beyond state-of-the-art, alignment with EOSC reference architecture.

2. Impact (0-5 pts, higher weight) – Contribution to federation goals, uptake by researchers, sustainability, coordination with EOSC Partnership.

3. Quality & Efficiency of Implementation (0-5 pts) – Work plan, resources, risk management, governance, capacity to coordinate multiple nodes.

A proposal below 4/5 on Impact will not be funded.

📝 Application Strategy

Winning Application Blueprint

1. Build a Mission-Driven Consortium

* Map the Node Identity Early: Define whether you aim for a thematic Node (e.g. “Life-Science FAIR Data Node”) or a regional Node (e.g. “Nordic EOSC Node covering your country+neighbours”).

* Mandatory Roles:

* Federating-capability providers (AAA, monitoring, catalogue, workflow engine).

* Domain experts & research infrastructures representing user communities.

* Legal & policy specialists for EOSC rules alignment.

* Sustainability & business-model partner (e.g. e-infrastructure operator with national mandate).

* Balance EU and Associated Countries: Highlight added value for widening participation and integration of smaller RIs from your country.

2. Structure the Technical Work Packages Around Capability Gaps

1. WP1 – Governance, Policy & Compliance: Adapt EOSC policies to Node context; deliver updated participation model, SLA templates, KPIs.

2. WP2 – Core Federating Capabilities Deployment: Implement or integrate AAAI, catalogues, KG connectors, workflows, monitoring, helpdesk—strictly mapped to EOSC-IF specs.

3. WP3 – Onboarding & Interoperability Extensions: Pilot onboarding of ≥30 third-party services via FSTP; refine semantic & technical adapters.

4. WP4 – Sustainability & Business Modelling: Prepare cost-recovery models, national/regional co-funding routes, hand-over plan beyond EU funding.

5. WP5 – Community & Training Programme: Continuous engagement, Node-operator certification, webinars, hackathons.

6. WP6 – Impact & Exploitation: KPIs, open-science compliance, policy feedback loop to EOSC Partnership.

3. Demonstrate Alignment & Added Value

* Reference Every EOSC Handbook Requirement and state how the Node meets or exceeds it.

* Showcase Complementarity with running Horizon projects (e.g. EOSC-Future, FAIR-IMPACT, Skills4EOSC). Embed letters of collaboration.

* Interoperability Proof-Points: Plan at least two live cross-node use cases (e.g. authentication token reuse across Nodes A & B, workflow portability test).

4. Nail the Impact Section

* Quantify expected user base growth (e.g. “from 5 000 to 25 000 researchers in 4 years”).

* Provide risk-mitigation tables for governance fragmentation, sustainability gaps, technology obsolescence.

* Detail policy contribution pathways: seat in EOSC Association TFs, annual white-papers, etc.

5. Budgeting Tips

* Keep FSTP ≤15 % unless strongly justified.

* Allocate ≥8 % for community engagement & training—evaluators look for visible uptake actions.

* Ring-fence funds for independent security audit (network protection condition).

6. Proposal Writing Essentials

* Respect page limits (RIA Part B: 45 pages core content).

* Use clear cross-references to evaluation criteria (Excellence, Impact, Quality & Efficiency).

* Provide Gantt & PERT diagrams showing inter-node synchronisation.

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💡 Success Factors

Clear Node Identity and USP

Define a **precise thematic or geographical niche** and articulate why this Node is indispensable to EOSC (e.g. first pan-European marine genomics data node).

Full Stack Federating Capability Offering

Deliver at least **five core capabilities—AAA, Catalogue, KG connector, Workflow execution, Monitoring/Helpdesk—** fully interoperable with the EOSC EU Node.

Demonstrated Inter-Node Collaboration

Include **MoUs or letters of intent** with at least two other candidate Nodes to show early alignment on governance, APIs and policy adoption.

Robust KPI Framework

Define **SMART indicators** (e.g. service onboarding time ≤6 weeks, 99.9 % availability) and integrate them with EOSC Observatory dashboards.

Inclusive Capacity-Building Programme

Allocate resources for **training Node operators from widening countries (your country)**, ensuring skill transfer and adoption of EOSC best practices.

Compliance-First Data & IPR Policy

Provide templates for **royalty-free licences** to EOSC Association and clear workflows for depositing data in trusted repositories, removing evaluator doubts.

❌ Common Mistakes to Avoid

Ignoring the Minimum Node Requirements

Proposals that **do not map each EOSC Tripartite Requirement** (legal status, service quality, onboarding capacity, etc.) to concrete deliverables will fail the Excellence and Impact thresholds.

Thin Sustainability Plans

Submitting a budget that ends exactly at Month 48 without a **credible post-grant revenue or mandate model** (e.g. national funding, subscription, in-kind contributions) signals high risk and scores low on Impact.

Over-dependence on the EU Node

Merely reusing EOSC EU Node services **without showing how the consortium can *take over* or *replicate* those capabilities** contradicts the call’s resilience objective.

Generic Community Engagement

Listing standard workshops and webinars **without tailoring them to the Node’s thematic or regional scope** fails to demonstrate added value for specific researcher groups.

Unclear Governance Interfaces

Not detailing **how decision-making aligns with EOSC Association bodies** or how conflicts between Nodes will be resolved weakens the Quality & Efficiency assessment.

Misuse of FSTP

Proposing FSTP for research activities instead of **strictly for onboarding and making services FAIR-compliant** violates call conditions and risks ineligibility.

EOSC Nodes with federating capabilities for the EOSC Federation

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