Grand Challenge on Quantum Sensors for Inertial Navigation

Grand Challenge on Quantum Sensors for Inertial Navigation <div class="eui-u-mt-l>"><h4>General conditions</h4><div><h4>1. Admissibility conditions: Proposal page limit and layout</h4><div class="eui-u-mt-s"><p>The page limit of the application is 25 pages.</p></div><div class="eui-u-mt-s"><p><strong><em></em></strong>described in <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/wp-call/2026-2027/wp-15-general-annexes_horizon-2026-2027_en.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Annex A</a> and <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/wp-call/2026-2027/wp-15-general-annexes_horizon-2026-2027_en.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Annex E</a> of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes.</p><p><strong>Proposal page limits and layout:</strong> described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System.</p></div></div><div><h4>2. Eligible countries</h4><div class="eui-u-mt-s"><p>described in <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/wp-call/2026-2027/wp-15-general-annexes_horizon-2026-2027_en.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Annex B</a> of the Work Programme General Annexes.</p><p>A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/guidance/programme-guide_horizon_en.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Horizon Europe Programme Guide</a>.</p></div></div><div><h4>3. Other Eligibility Conditions</h4><div class="eui-u-mt-s"><p>The conditions are described in General Annex B. The following exceptions apply:</p><p>The eligibility conditions are those established in the EuroHPC JU Council Regulation (EU) 2021/1173 as last amended by Council Regulation 2026/150. In accordance with Article 22.5 of the HE Regulation, the Governing Board has decided that in order to achieve the expected outcomes, and safeguard the Union’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy, or security participation is limited to legal entities established in Member States, Norway and Iceland. Proposals including entities established in countries outside the scope specified in the action will be ineligible.</p></div><div class="eui-u-mt-s"><p>For the duly justified and exceptional reasons listed in the paragraph above, in order to guarantee the protection of the strategic interests of the Union and its Member States, entities established in an eligible country listed above, but which are directly or indirectly controlled by a non-eligible country or by a non-eligible country entity, may not participate in the action unless it can be demonstrated, by means of guarantees approved by the eligible country of establishment, that their participation to the action would not negatively impact the Union’s strategic, assets, interests, autonomy, or security<em>.</em></p></div><div class="eui-u-mt-s"><p>The consortium may exceptionally be composed of a single legal entity (mono-beneficiary grant) which is an SME.</p></div><div class="eui-u-mt-s"><p>described in <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/wp-call/2026-2027/wp-15-general-annexes_horizon-2026-2027_en.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Annex B</a> of the Work Programme General Annexes.</p></div></div><div><h4>4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion</h4><div class="eui-u-mt-s"><p>described in <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/wp-call/2026-2027/wp-15-general-annexes_horizon-2026-2027_en.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Annex C</a> of the Work Programme General Annexes.</p></div></div><div><h4>5a. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds</h4><div class="eui-u-mt-s"><p>Eligible proposals submitted under this topic and exceeding all the evaluation thresholds will be awarded a STEP Seal [<a href="https://strategic-technologies.europa.eu/about/step-seal_en">https://strategic-technologies.europa.eu/about/step-seal_en</a>]<em>.</em></p></div><div class="eui-u-mt-s"><p>described in <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/wp-call/2026-2027/wp-15-general-annexes_horizon-2026-2027_en.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Annex D</a> of the Work Programme General Annexes.</p></div></div><div><h4>5b. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes</h4><div class="eui-u-mt-s"><p>The criteria are described in General Annex D. The following exceptions apply:</p><p>The following modifications to the general award criteria apply:</p><p>1. Excellence:</p><ul level="0"><li>credibility of the technical approach for road-mapping and benchmarking;</li><li>adequacy of performance metrics and methodology (e.g. drift rate, SWaP-C, environmental resilience)</li><li>early end-user engagement to define requirements</li></ul><p>2. Impact:</p><ul level="0"><li>enhancing the EU stance around quantum inertial navigation from different angles[[https://qt.eu/media/pdf/Strategic-Reseach-and-Industry-Agenda-2030.pdf]]</li><li>expected contribution to EU technological sovereignty (including mitigation of non-EU supply-chain dependencies) and to societal, industrial and economic benefits;</li><li>credibility of the path to commercialisation and investor-readiness.</li></ul><p>3. Quality and efficiency of the implementation:</p><ul level="0"><li>credibility of the work plan, resources and risk management for a mono-beneficiary CSA;</li><li>capacity to deliver the specified outputs (technical &amp; financial roadmap, validation/benchmarking reports, viability assessment);</li><li>appropriateness of the team and access to facilities for validation/benchmarking of existing prototypes.</li></ul></div><div class="eui-u-mt-s"><p>described in <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/wp-call/2026-2027/wp-15-general-annexes_horizon-2026-2027_en.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Annex F</a> of the Work Programme General Annexes and the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/common/guidance/om_en.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Online Manual</a>.</p></div></div><div><h4>5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement</h4><div class="eui-u-mt-s"><p>described in <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/wp-call/2026-2027/wp-15-general-annexes_horizon-2026-2027_en.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Annex F</a> of the Work Programme General Annexes.</p></div></div><div><h4>6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants</h4><div class="eui-u-mt-s"><p>described in <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/wp-call/2026-2027/wp-15-general-annexes_horizon-2026-2027_en.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Annex G</a> of the Work Programme General Annexes.</p></div></div></div><div class="eui-u-mt-l"><h4>Specific conditions</h4> <div class="eui-u-mt-s"><p>Expected project duration: <strong>6 months</strong></p></div></div><div class="eui-u-mt-l"><div class="eui-u-mt-s"> </div><h4>Application and evaluation forms and model grant agreement (MGA):</h4> <div class="eui-u-mt-s"><p><strong>Application form templates</strong></p><p>Please use the application form that you will find in the Submission System. You can find examples of standard application forms in the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/how-to-participate/reference-documents?programmePeriod=2021-2027&amp;frameworkProgramme=43108390" rel="noopener noreferrer"