ACTIVAGE 2nd Open Call

Deadline: Jun 21, 2019  
CALL EXPIRED

1 Introduction

1.1 Overviewof the ACTIVAGEproject

Europe face a new challenge and paradigm in the Welfare Society: to answer the increasing population’s demand to maintain the Active and Healthy Ageing (AHA). Life expectancy increases progressively as well as the resources required for older people and age-related spending.

The last advances allow the developing of innovative solutions focused on improving and keeping older people’s quality of life an autonomy (home accommodation, transport, e- health...) in an efficient and sustainable way. This Silver Economy is offering a large number of opportunities for developing markets and economic growth.

The ACTIVAGE project is an EU-funded initiative under the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme. This project is being implemented by 49 partners from 10 European countries between 2017 and 2020.

In this context, ACTIVAGE is leading the digitalization of the AHA market:

•   Building the interoperable and open Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem providing

  interoperability across heterogeneous IoT platforms.

•   Providing the evidence of the socio-economic impact and benefits of AHA services based on IoT, in terms of better prevention, health, quality of life and autonomy of older citizens.

•   Validating value-based business models for care delivery that empower AHA market based on IoT as main pillars of the sustainability of the Health and Care Systems.

The ACTIVAGE project is developing in 9 different deployment sites (DSs) across Europe: Finland, Galicia, Greece, Isère, Leeds, Madrid, Region Emilia Romagna, Valencia, Woquaz. More information about each DS is available at ACTIVAGE web site.

ACTIVAGE Deployment Sites’ composition represents the European reality: a wide range of social models, different target elderly populations with the goal of extending independent life, informal and formal carers, different types of potential business models and mixed participation of public and private service providers; different IoT solutions mixed in different ways.

USERS in ACTIVAGE project are senior people ranked from level 1: “active” to level 6: “mild frailty” of the Clinical Frailty Scale1. USERS include as well senior people’s relatives, informal and formal caregivers, having an important role in the co-creation of AHA services. It is important to highlight that end users are directly involved in the piloting of several reference USE CASES (RUCs) (see appendix A for more details on RUC). These RUCs address specific end-users needs, improving their quality of life and autonomy. The figure 1 shows the RUCs covered in each DS.

 

Available use cases deployed in the 9 deployment sites.

Applications (hardware and software components) and services supporting such UCs are implemented and deployed in every DS on top of local IoT legacy infrastructures. Interoperability across DS and across the multiple applications and services is provided by ACTIVAGE through the called “ACTIVAGE IoT ecosystem suite” (AIOTES). AIOTES provides a layer of semantic interoperability, APIs and tools to facilitate the design, implementation and test of new AHA applications and services, as well as their deployment in the ACTIVAGE ecosystem, in every DS. More information about AIOTES and technical aspects of the ACTIVAGE project is available in the document “Open Call technical information”.

Important remarks: A) Proposals shall provide innovative solutions to the requested replication of reference use cases of the call, B) Proposed solutions must be integrated through AIOTES including the provided interfaces and tools.

1.2 Objective of the Second Open Call

The main objective of the Second ACTIVAGE Open Call are:

•   Extend the foot print of ACTIVAGE current 9 DSs to 3 new DSs in the EU.

•   Enlarge the ACTIVAGE ecosystem with mature deployment sites (cities, regions), providing IoT based services to their citizens, replicating ACTIVAGE reference use cases and demonstrate the interoperability capabilities of ACTIVAGE’s AIOTES framework.

•   NDSs to integrate into ACTIVAGE working dynamics contributing to evaluation and evidence creation

•   NDSs engage into the new born European open IoT for AHA Ecosystem community and help in the propagation of ACTIVAGE values worldwide.

•   Co-create with NDS the reference model for future expansion of AHA Ecosystem

ACTIVAGE is funded by the European Commission and is subject to the regulations established in the Horizon 2020 Programme and other regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation concerning privacy of personal data.

 

2 Application process

2.1 Why to apply?

The advantages of joining ACTIVAGE are many. Some of there are the following. But you can find the ones that best fit your needs

Create the conditions or sustainability and scale up. Easy setup of truly IoT for SLE ecosystem adapted to your local conditions, legacy systems and policy.

Improve the QoL of your elder population at general and individual levels. Scaling up the population served by enabled services at lower cost per head count, and scaling up the portfolio of services adapted to specific needs.

Receiving more value for your money. Unlocking existing vendor locked ecosystems. Creating new opportunities for the growth of an ecosystem of small and medium size, highly specialized service providers, innovative SMEs and start ups.

Making your care system sustainable. Create new business models that maximize the value of technology, open data, open systems and open services. Pursue the value- based-social care model

Creating your own data economy. Use of continuous generated data from users through Big Data and data analytics for research, to improve services delivery and adaptation, to anticipate changes and demands, to improve global quality

To create and foster a culture of social participation. Engage your stakeholders in co- creation open processes that maximize benefits within a model of sustainability that includes older people and their families.

2.2 Who can apply?

The call is open to consortia of public and private entities involving demand and supply side and technology providers legally registered in a member state of the European Union or in a Horizon 2020 associated country.

The NDS should have in execution a Program or Project of delivery of Active Ageing services, currently running and serving a population of senior people and caregivers of significant quantity of users.

ACTIVAGE partners are not eligible for funding and cannot be part of a funded project.

Successful applicants who have been awarded funding will be required to sign the ACTIVAGE Third Parties agreement with Fraunhofer-IGD, on behalf of the ACTIVAGE Consortium in order to be able to receive the funds and become third party of the project

 

2.3 What are the eligibility criteria?

The submitted proposals must meet the next criteria:

1. Proposals shall be submitted on time (Deadline: June 21st, 2019 at 17:00 CET)

2. Proposal should be presented by consortia of public and private entities involving demand and supply side and technology providers legally registered in a member state of the European Union or in a Horizon 2020 associated country.

3. Proposal shall be within the scope of the call, answering one or more of the proposed reference use cases (see appendix A).

4. Proposed IoT solutions must be based on mature IoT technology (TRL≥6)2.

5. The project shall deploy the ACTIVAGE IoT for smart living environment (SLE) ecosystem framework, AIOTES.

6. Proposal should respect the page limit according to the template.

7. Existence of an Exploitation Plan that expands beyond the temporal limits of the project.

8. Compliance with ACTIVAGE Ethics & Privacy guidelines (see appendix C).

9. Existence of a leading entity representing the demand side as a consortium partner

10. The proposal must demonstrate the existence of a Program or Project of delivery of Active Ageing services, currently running and serving a senior population and caregivers of significant quantity of users.

11. To keep the coherence and benchmarking across the existing of DS, expected number of engaged users (elders and caregivers) is between 50 – 100 but in any case, sufficient to provide significance in the assessment of the impact of the proposed solution. Higher number of users will be welcomed.

12. One entity in the consortium who supply IoT solutions and/or basic technologies and have access to the insights/code of the solutions in order to be adapted to the ACTIVAGE interoperable framework.

13. The members of the Deployment Site have a common background and experience in piloting the same or similar solutions,

14. The ambition to scale-up a significant amount of end users in a sustainable way.

15. The solutions to be tested have clear business models, as well as the relevant

    stakeholders to execute them,

16. 16.The solution must be deployed in a geographical area: private space, neighborhood, city or region.

17. 17. The language of the applications must be in English.

 

2.4 Scope and Reference use cases

The proposals may address one of the reference use case listed below and demonstrate how they will implement the solutions through AIOTES. The description of each reference use case is available at Appendix A.

ACTIVAGE reference Use cases address real needs within the AHA market, defining an open framework of application. In this way, the candidates are free to present innovative IoT solutions abled to respond to these reference use cases. We consider that each reference use cases could be cover successfully in many ways, so we avoided restricted requirements of each reference use cases. However, the candidates may justify in the proposal how the proposed service is responding the reference use cases and the expected impact for the ACTIVAGE project using the proposed service.

Additionally, the proposed service will be integrated inside the technological ecosystem (AIOTES), assuring the privacy and security framework requirements.

 

2.5 Conditions for implementation

2.5.1 Technology background

The following are the minimal conditions that your NDS should have in place and in operation. ACTIVAGE has the enough flexibility in its design to adapt to different legacy backgrounds, and it also a feature that the project wants to evaluate. The following scenarios are foreseen:

1. A)  Your NDS has already an operative IoT infrastructure: there is an IoT platform collecting data from sensors and devices installed at home or other premises where end users use to live and stay. Your Active and Healthy Ageing application(s) and services are connected to the IoT platform to perform their job.

2. B)  Your NDS lacks IoT infrastructures. Your Active and Healthy Ageing application(s) and services are connected directly to sensor and devices.

3. C)  Other scenarios of ICT infrastructure might be possible, but you must have in operation AHA applications delivering services to end users at: a) home (this is the preferred option), b) day care centres, c) on mobility, d) nursing homes. Delivering services at hospital premises is not an eligibly option!

Additionally, you should consider eligibility criteria 3 and 9, regarding your AHA applications and services.

Users’ homes should be equipped with sensors, smart devices and gateways. Use of wearable devices are encouraged. You have to consider that devices transmitting data to external-third party clouds is highly discouraged in ACTIVAGE, as it breaks the security and privacy environment.

2.5.2 Project implementation

The project shall deploy the ACTIVAGE IoT for smart living environment (SLE) ecosystem framework (AIOTES), on top of the legacy IoT background. You can read 4. ACTIVAGE Open Call - Technical information to know more about AIOTES

ACTIVAGE has defined a reference architecture for IoT Platforms Interoperability. This architecture aims to build general approaches to face the interoperability in a universal way with the objective of serving as common framework to build interoperable smart ACTIVE AGEING solutions that can be deployed, extended and replicated at Deployment Sites across Europe.

ACTIVAGE’s AIoTES Framework consists of a set of software techniques, tools and methodologies for semantic interoperability, privacy and data protection, and security between heterogeneous IoT Platforms and Active and Healthy Ageing applications, services and solutions.

 

For your project implementation the following steps are needed: For scenario A):

1. your will have to build a BRIDGE that will connect your IoT platform with AITOES. If your IoT platform is one of the supported platforms by ACTIVAGE (see details in the technical document), this step is not necessary as the bridge is already available. ACTIVAGE support team will support you in doing the bridge, which will be certified by ACTIVAGE and will become one of the supported platforms by AIOTES.

2. You will have to deploy AIOTES and interconnect to your legacy IoT platform through the bridge

3. Regarding the AHA application, you shall choose from two options of interconnection: a) you continue working as in your legacy system connecting your applications directly to your IoT platform, or b) connect the application through the AIOTES API. The last one is the preferred option for ACTIVAGE because you will maximize the interoperability capabilities of AIOTES. However, the option a) is also eligible.

For scenario B):

4. You will have to select one of the IoT platforms supported by ACTIVAGE, or another third-party platform, and deploy both, the platform and AIOTES. If you choose third party platform, apply scenario A) steps i) and ii).

5. Regarding the AHA application, you shall connect the application through the AIOTES API.

Important remark: in your proposal you have to describe which is your preferred option that better fit in your existing environment. Nevertheless, at the start of the project, your technical team and ACTIVAGE support team will work together in defining and implementing the best way for AIOTES integration into your site to maximise the outcomes of the project.

2.5.3 Extension of the AHA services delivered in the NDS

One of the outstanding capabilities of ACTIVAGE is the easiness to extend the number and type of AHA services to larger cohorts of users and needs.

In ACTIVAGE project almost 40 different AHA applications were developed and tested in the 9DS, covering the 11 reference use cases. It’s the aim of the project that most of these applications will be available and ready for replication in any other NDS. For this purpose, they will be published and made available in the ACTIVAGE MARKETLACE in the 4Q 2019.

It is optional for NDS projects to integrate one or more of these AHA applications that complement and/or extend your current service portfolio of services to you senior people population, This is a nice-to-have option for ACTIVAGE as it permits to roll out the full value of ACTIVAGE ecosystem.

You should describe your interest in going to this optional alternative of services extension, advancing the type of use case you would be willing to incorporate. This will help us in selecting and tailoring the list of available applications, which will be published by the end of September 2019.

2.6 Information requested in your proposal

Proposals are submitted in a one-stage process that means that applicants submit a full proposal prior to the deadline. The proposal language is English. Proposals submitted in other language will not be eligible.

The ACTIVAGE consortium has prepared an application toolkit that the interested entities must use (download in this link). This toolkit includes the proposal template (word document) and budget project (excel file).

The information needed in your proposal are the next:

Members of Consortium:

•   Describe partners background, skills, experience.

•   Resources needed to achieve objectives of the proposal.

Description Proposal:

•   Description of the contribution and the objectives, relating to the ACTIVAGE approach, and how the proposed collaboration may fit in ACTIVAGE enlargement and sustainability.

•   In what use cases your contribution/idea can be developed and deployed?

•   Outline your planned activities and your time-plan, aligned with the project period.

Ensure you allow enough contingency time in your plan.

o Activity will be from September 2019 to June 2020

o Please explicitly list what you consider to be the key milestones and outcomes within this plan, considering also the alignment with the internal evaluation periods.

 What are the planned results of the project?

Sustainability and Business model:

•   How do you intend to use the results of the project after the funding period?

•   The ways the entity plan to achieve impact at any level e.g. sustainability of the AHA services, impact to use cases, and so on.

Compliance check:

 Assuring that you will follow the technical and Ethics & Privacy guidelines, including GDPR.

 Consent to the processing of your personal data as specified in our open call privacy policy.

Budget plan (budget excel file):

•   What is the total budget requested?

•   Upload your budget for the project using the template provided by the ACTIVAGE

Consortium (available in the “Application toolkit”).

2.7 Timeline and key steps for application

The funded projects will start in September 2019, and they will have a total duration of 9months.

This timetable could be amended as required at the ACTIVAGE team discretion. The most updated version will be available on ACTIVAGE website.

The main steps of the submissions are the next:

 

1. Registration at the ACTIVAGE web page.

Register your interest and download all the required information and Open Call templates:

www.activageproject.eu/open-call

2. Submit application by 17:00 h (CET) on 21st JUNE 2019

Prepare your applications material and submit them to the Open Call web portal.

activage.submittable.com/submit

3. Sign legal documents.

All applicants will receive a notification by July 2019.

Successful applicants will receive final notification and a request for signing the Third Parties Agreement.

In the Appendix B, there is a guide about how to submit the proposal in the Open Call portal web.

 

 

3 Evaluation process

3.1 Who will evaluate my proposal?

Every proposal will be checked to ensure that it meets requirements before it is sent for evaluation to the Open Call Review Board (OCRB). This board consists of an external and independent group of experts, who will be monitoring the whole process to ensure tracking of every action.

The experts will be individuals with experience in the fields of innovation linked to this Open Call and also with the highest level of knowledge. They will sign a declaration of confidentiality concerning the evaluation process and the content of the proposals they evaluate. They will also declare their absence of any conflict of interest for the assigned tasks.

Each proposal will be evaluated anonymously by 2-3 reviewers. Each evaluator will record his/her individual opinion on each proposal using the web portal. A ranking list will be assembled with all proposals that score above the thresholds.

The final list of the funded projects will be created according the ranking list of the proposals.

Notifications on funding or rejections will together with any feedback be sent out by the beginning of July 2019.

3.2 What does evaluation measure?

These are the aspects the evaluators will consider under each of these criteria:
1. EXCELLENCE: relevant to the topics addressed by ACTIVAGE project (Max. 50 points):

• o Does your service fulfil the technical and functional requirements of the project?
• o Does your idea provide an improvement/service to ACTIVAGE reference use cases?
• o What is the value of your service for ACTIVAGE?

2. IMPLEMENTATION: quality and efficiency of the implementation and the management (Max. 50 points):

• o Qualifications of the institutions performing the work. o Quality of the implementation plan.
• o Feasibility with the proposed budget.
• o Inclusion of ethical and data protection standards.

3. IMPACT: potential impact through the development, dissemination and use of projects results. (Max. 50 points)

 

• o Who will benefit from the implementation of your idea or development of your service, technology, solution, and how?
• o Do you plan to implement your idea in more than one reference use cases? o What is the size of your pilot?

4. SUSTAINABILITY: commitment to long term vision and sustainability of the project supported by ACTIVAGE. (Max. 50 points):

• o In which ways can your solution contribute to further maturing ACTIVAGE? o What will be the expected market for your solutions?

The overall maximum score is 200. For a proposal to be considered for being selected for funding, the score has to pass a threshold of 30 out of 50 in each individual evaluation criteria.

 

 

4 Funding conditions

4.1 Budget available

The first open call will give 600.000 € in funding, with a maximum of 200.000€ for each project. ACTIVAGE project may fund a maximum of 2-3 third party projects.

Each project will include an implementation plan including milestones and deliverables, and a cost estimate justifying the costs and resources in relation to the implementation plan. The estimated costs of the third party should be reasonable and comply with the principle of sound financial management regarding economy and efficiency.

Other important information that you need to know:

•   The project funding follows the rules of funding Horizon 2020 project.

•   The industrial third parties will be funded 70% of their respective total cost. NPF, academia and research organization are funded 100% of their respective total cost.

•   The distribution of funding over time will be: up to 20% of pre-financing at the start; an interim payment of 50% and a final payment up to 100% of the total funding. Each funding stage will be paid upon approval of the Project Agreement (which includes the project plan), and the approval of interim and final reports respectively. Each payment is released 30 days after the approval of each report.

•   Indirect cost (e.g. overheads) will be covered if they are declared as flat-rate of 25% of the eligible costs.

•   The third party cannot request any funding for activities that are already funded by other grants (the principle of no double funding).

•   The reports require the candidates to provide ACTIVAGE with honest feedback on their project and their experience of the technical environment.

  4.2 Which costs are you allowed to include in your budget?

  You are eligible for funding for all activities mentioned below, under the condition that these activities take place after the approval of the Third Parties Agreement and contribute to maturing, sustaining, and further developing ACTIVAGE and follow the guidelines below:

•   Technological development for integration in the AIOTES framework and use of tools. For example, but not limited to development of the bridge and AHA application interface with AIOTES API

•   New sensors and devices integration in the smart home or user environment, i.e. gateways and networks

•   Adaptations for privacy and data security compliance.

•   Procurement and provisioning of sensors and devices installed in user’s premises

•   Pilot preparation: planning, user’s recruiting from the existing user cohort, informed consent, baseline information (following guidelines from ACTIVAGE).

•   Pilot execution, data gathering and KPI assessment

•   Generation of reports and publications related to the projects, including preparation of a showcase about the project that can be used for dissemination purposes.

•   Supporting the rest of technical activities in the project, by providing feedback about the use of the technical framework and identifying gaps of the development of appropriate standards.

•   Report the necessary effort and costs according to H2020 rules and management practices requested by the ACTIVAGE open call lead partner.

For a cost within your project to be eligible for funding it must:

•   Be incurred and paid between start and end dates, as specified in our legal agreement.

•   Be directly related to the activities listed previously.

•   Be indicated in the estimated budget.

•   Be incurred in connection with the action as described in your project application and necessary for its implementation.

•   Be identifiable and verifiable, in particular recorded in your accounts and in accordance with the accounting standards applicable in your country and according to your organization’s usual cost accounting practices.

•   Comply with the applicable national law on taxes, labour and social security. You are allowed to include:

•   Staff costs

•   Subcontracting costs

•   Material costs

•   Travel costs

•   Other costs.

“Ineligible costs” are:

•   Costs that do not comply with the conditions set out above and

•   Costs reimbursed under another EU or Euratom grant (including grants awarded by a Member State and financed by the EU or Euratom budget and grants awarded by bodies other than the European Commission for the purpose of implementing the EU and Euratom budget).

•   The form of financial support to be used will be a pre-defined lump sum. Funds will be provided to the third parties following the accomplishment of different milestones verified on the basis on the presentation of technical and financial reports.

Regarding staff costs, the eligible labour costs will be salary amounts actually incurred a paid (monthly/hourly). Note that the number of working days per year for the organisation is based on full time working days per year, less standard holiday allowance. Sick days, waiting time, training days and non-produce time are not eligible as part of the salary calculation.

 

For more information about personnel costs, see H2020 – AGA, Article 15 – Financial support to third parties.

Regarding subcontracting costs: if necessary to execute the project, you may subcontract part of the activities in the project. Subcontracting may cover only a limited part of the project. For more details about subcontracting costs, see H2020-AGA, Article 13.

The total amount of time and cost will be reviewed before approval for funding. The reviewers can decide to fund your proposal with a reduced amount.

 

 

5 Who keeps the IPR?

Successful consortium members will become Third Party of the project. You and your project will be sole owner of the AHA solutions enabled through AIOTES. The IPR of AOITES and all artefact created in ACTIVAGE keep in ACTIVAGE’s partners.

All IPR issues will follow the provisions of the Grant Agreement and the Consortium Agreement of ACTIVAGE.

5.1 Data Management Plan.

It will be the responsibility of applicants to propose a data management plan and procedures compliant with the current GDPR.

The type of data available for ACTIVAGE Open Call projects is manifold, representing the contextual diversity of smart environments which mirrors the complex reality of the active and healthy ageing market. The type of data that you may make use of could be open data and close data, with either open access or restricted access. Each NDS must define its own data policy and preferences on how data should be treated in their framework.

If your proposal is selected as one of the winning applicants, you will be required to sign a Data Sharing Agreement with ACTIVAGE, to use your data in the context of the global evaluation. A template of the Data Sharing Agreement will be provided for winning applicants.

 

 

6 Support options

The ACTIVAGE consortium maintain a frequently asked questions (FAQ) section available in www.activageproject.eu/open-call. It will be updated continuously. For especially technical details check first the available documentation in the website.

The answers that you cannot find in the FAQ section can be submitted by contacting opencall@activageproject.eu. Here you can get support regarding technical matters or the proposal.

There will be different events in which the open call will be presented, and support will be provided in preparing the applications. Follow the web site and the social networks accounts of the project to get information about the open call.

 

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