Cross-Network Best Practices:
Financial Support to Third Parties
The Financial support to third parties (FSTP), also known as Cascade Funding, is a European Commission mechanism that distributes public funding to support start-ups, scale-ups, SME, and mid-caps in digital innovation. It is crucial for Europe’s AI community, helping it advance in research, development, and deployment of AI technologies. The VISION project, financed by the European Commission, aims to strengthen the European AI community and accelerate its transition to a world-leading position in AI technologies. It supports the European AI Network of Excellence Centers (NoEs) in managing Financial Support to Third Parties (FSTP) projects. On this topic, the project has helped in various activities related to FSTP, including preparation and management of open calls, their promotion, and providing financial and accounting guidance. To report on these activities, the VISION project has prepared a document in which the Best Practices for the Financial Support to Third Parties have been collected.
Lessons Learned
The lessons learned by the ICT-48’s NoEs have been divided into five different categories.
Administrative and financial aspects of the FSTP projects
The funding received from FSTP projects has been crucial for their application and research activities, allowing beneficiaries to invest time without excessive pressure. However, in some cases the large number of proposals caused an increased administrative work, as well as the strict requirements of FSTP funding and back-and-forth with 80+ administrations. This was resolved by devoting extra staff and streamlining the process through automated forms. Limiting the number of proposals accepted at each round and defining additional Open Calls was found to help reduce administrative workload.
Lessons learned on the type of support needed
This kind of financial support provided by the European Union (EU) for funded projects have been appreciated, as well as the networking and mentoring support offered by the NoEs. In particular:
- It is crucial to maintain networking among the EU and their funded projects throughout the project lifecycle.
- A coach/mentor for each awarded project is essential for valuable mentorship and support.
- To schedule regular sessions with coaches, administrative monitoring, and bootcamps can help ensure that the project evolves in the most efficient way. Indeed, a well-established support framework is essential to ensure beneficiaries are regularly monitored and aware of their obligations. Devoting at least 5-10% of the funds available for FSTP open calls to support and mentoring activities is recommended.
- Mobility funds are a useful and effective tool for European AI researchers, resulting in new collaborations and outcomes at low costs. An increased use of these funds is suggested. However, if no visits are possible for mobility funds, as seen during the Covid period, other ways to connect and realize the project must be considered. If impractical, a mitigation strategy, such as requesting an extension, can be defined to ensure no additional time is lost.
Dissemination / Communication
Cross-project events should be organized annually to foster sharing of best practices and potential collaborations. Sub-granted projects should be promoted through the NoEs’ channels, showcasing successful collaborations as case studies. Limited visibility for Open Calls can be managed through a stronger online dissemination campaign and additional promotion through support projects like VISION. Despite initial challenges, a well-planned dissemination campaign and additional promotion can help increase visibility and encourage funding for similar collaborations.
Open Calls
Having an open approach to FSTP calls allows for a wide range of challenges to be addressed, resulting in increased applications and participation from various parties. However this can cause some difficulties in managing the workload, which can be controlled using an Agile management process. An Agile iterative management process can also help in preparing for Open Calls. Additionally, adding a Scientific Advisor can help build connections between the ecosystem and research activities and avoid having out of scope applications.
Additional Lessons learned
Working in the same location on a well-defined project can improve success and produce tangible results. This solution is more feasible for mobility funds and smaller projects. Also, using interdisciplinary teams to carry out research can create a multiplier effect, creating value far beyond the funds invested. Indeed, engaging partners from academia, business, and social sciences and humanities allows for a multifaceted approach to the same problem.
Comparison with Lessons learned from ICT-49 projects
In addition, the ICT-48 and ICT-49 projects have been compared in terms of lessons learned from Open Calls. ICT-49 projects prepared a document on lessons learned from Open Calls that has been used to through a comparison. This shows that:
- The ICT-49 projects focused on selecting appropriate challenges to avoid limiting potential applicants, while the ICT-48 project focused on addressing a wide range of challenges. However, the high number of applications required additional resources and administrative work. The ICT-49 projects also faced administrative issues, such as signing contracts with beneficiaries and dealing with a high number of entities.
- Joint dissemination efforts were found to increase participation with less effort, such as using VISION as a support project and publicizing awarded projects through their channels. Joint calls for collaborative projects, such as those between HumanE-AI-Net and ELISE, were also explored.
- Both the ICT-48 and ICT-49 projects emphasized the importance of a well-established support framework to ensure recipients are consistently observed and promptly informed of any problems arising within project implementation. This support framework should be established at the GA level, not just before the launch of Open Calls.
Looking to the future
Since 2022, two new European Networks of Excellence (NoEs) – ELSA and euROBIN – have been added to the FSTP community. ELSA has held an Open Call to fund innovative AI projects, with funding for AI/Machine Learning applications. EuROBIN has held an Open Call to integrate and test advanced robotic platforms in Europe.
From fall 2023, three new networks, ELIAS, ENFIELD, and dAIEDGE, have been added to the community. ELIAS has two Open Calls to select 8 SMEs/startups to fund for 6 months. ENFIELD plans to have 4 Open Calls to support 76 top-level researchers in foundational research activities related to specific scientific challenges in artificial intelligence. dAIEDGE aims to maintain advanced AI advancements and foster the growth of a European cutting-edge AI ecosystem under the European Lighthouse for AI. The first open call will open on August 29th, 2024, seeking 10 researchers or PhD students to conduct collaborative research for 7 months.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the following people for their contributions to this report. From AI4Media: Samuel Almeida, from TAILOR: Joaquin Vanschoren, from ELISE: Urszula Sobek (Fundingbox). Without their support and what they reported, this report would not have been concluded. The authors would also like to thanks Eva Dolezanova (CIIRC) and Marc Schoenauer (INRIA) for their valuable revision of the document and their very useful observations.