Apply for Integrated Air and Rail Network Backbone Grant Programme

Scope

• Aviation and railway are integral parts of the intermodal transport ecosystem expected to optimise door-to-door (D2D) mobility for people, and ultimately to meet citizens’ expectations for increasingly seamless mobility, where they can rely on the predictability of every planned door-to-door journey and can choose how to optimise it (shortest travel time, least cost, minimal environmental impact, etc.).

Funding Information

• The check will normally be done for the coordinator if the requested grant amount is equal to or greater than EUR 500 000, except for:
  • public bodies (entities established as a public body under national law, including local, regional or national authorities) or international organisations; and
  • cases where the individual requested grant amount is not more than EUR 60 000 (lowvalue grant).

Expected Outcomes

Project results are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:

• Operational efficiency: improved predictability and punctuality for journeys involving both air and railway modes of transport, thanks to a better overall planning and monitoring of operations;
• Capacity: a better integration of air and railway modes of transport will enable a better use of existing and future capacity e.g. by monitoring multimodal passenger flows information (e.g., status, demand, delays, etc.), share it to relevant stakeholders in air and railway modes e.g., transport service operators (TSPs) to take mitigation actions to help reducing potential delays;
• Resilience: improved resilience in case of disruption in either railway or air transport modes, or both will contribute to improve the passenger experience;
• Environment: optimised operations in rail and air transport due to improved intermodal planning, contributing to the optimisation of fuel-burn and therefore reductions of CO₂ emissions per journey. Additional environmental benefits (i.e. emissions, noise and/or local air quality) will come from alleviating congestion at and around airports/railway stations by improving passenger flows (through multimodal decision making, etc.), from helping access/egress to/from airports/railway stations via environmentally-friendly means, etc.;
• Passenger experience: optimised and seamless passenger experience by reducing the inefficiencies and friction points and overall travel time and transfer time between air-rail modes;
• Cost-efficiency: the data-sharing-powered applications between air and railway modes of transport will enable increased predictability of traffic flows coupled with increased intermodal network flexibility and resilience. This would in turn help reduce congestion and costs.

Eligible Activities

• Projects must focus exclusively on civil applications and must not:
  • aim at human cloning for reproductive purposes;
  • intend to modify the genetic heritage of human beings which could make such changes heritable (except for research relating to cancer treatment of the gonads, which may be financed);
  • intend to create human embryos solely for the purpose of research, or for the purpose of stem cell procurement, including by means of somatic cell nuclear transfer.
• The following activities are generally eligible for grants under Horizon Europe:
  • Research and innovation actions (RIA) — Activities that aim primarily to establish new knowledge or to explore the feasibility of a new or improved technology, product, process, service or solution. This may include basic and applied research, technology development and integration, testing, demonstration and validation of a small-scale prototype in a laboratory or simulated environment.
  • Innovation actions (IA) — Activities that aim directly to produce plans and arrangements or designs for new, altered or improved products, processes or services. These activities may include prototyping, testing, demonstrating, piloting, large-scale product validation and market replication.
  • Coordination and support actions (CSA) — Activities that contribute to the objectives of Horizon Europe. This excludes research and innovation (R&I) activities, except those carried out under the ‘Widening participation and spreading excellence’ component of the programme (part of ‘Widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area’). Also eligible are bottom-up coordination actions which promote cooperation between legal entities from Member States and Associated Countries to strengthen the European Research Area, and which receive no EU co-funding for research activities.
  • Programme co-fund actions (CoFund) — A programme of activities established or implemented by legal entities managing or funding R&I programmes, other than EU funding bodies.
  • Innovation and market deployment actions (IMDA) — Activities that embed an innovation action and other activities necessary to deploy an innovation on the market. This includes the scaling-up of companies and Horizon Europe blended finance.
  • Training and mobility actions (TMA) — Activities that aim to improve the skills, knowledge and career prospects of researchers, based on mobility between countries and, if relevant, between sectors or disciplines.
  • Pre-commercial procurement actions (PCP) — Activities that aim to help a transnational buyers’ group to strengthen the public procurement of research, development, validation and, possibly, the first deployment of new solutions that can significantly improve quality and efficiency in areas of public interest, while opening market opportunities for industry and researchers active in Europe.

Eligibility Criteria

• Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from non associated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations) is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met.
• A ‘legal entity’ means any natural or legal person created and recognised as such under national law, EU law or international law, which has legal personality and which may, acting in its own name, exercise rights and be subject to obligations, or an entity without legal personality.
• To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the following countries:
  • the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions:
    • Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden.
  • the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States:
    • Aruba (NL), Bonaire (NL), Curação (NL), French Polynesia (FR), French Southern and Antarctic Territories (FR), Greenland (DK), New Caledonia (FR), Saba (NL), Saint Barthélemy (FR), Sint Eustatius (NL), Sint Maarten (NL), St. Pierre and Miquelon (FR), Wallis and Futuna Islands (FR).
  • countries associated to Horizon Europe:
    • Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine.
• Specific cases
  • Affiliated entities — Affiliated entities are eligible for funding if they are established in one of the countries listed above, or in a country identified in the specific call conditions.
  • Associated partners — Entities not eligible for funding (and therefore not able to participate as beneficiaries) may participate as associated partners, unless specified otherwise in the specific call conditions.
  • Coordination and Support Actions – To be eligible to participate as beneficiaries (or affiliated entities) in ‘Coordination and support’ actions, legal entities must be established in a Member State or Associated Country, unless the specific call conditions provide otherwise. Legal entities established in a non-associated third country may, however, participate in ‘Coordination and support’ actions as associated partners, unless this is explicitly excluded by the specific call conditions.
  • EU bodies — Legal entities created under EU law may also be eligible to receive funding, unless their basic act states otherwise.
  • International organisations — International European research organisations are eligible to receive funding. Unless their participation is considered essential for implementing the action by the granting authority, other international organisations are not eligible to receive funding. International organisations with headquarters in a Member State or Associated Country are eligible to receive funding for ‘Training and mobility’ actions and when provided for in the specific call conditions.

For more information, visit European Commission.