Hop-on facility

The selection of the most suitable partner is left to the discretion of the consortium. For the sake of a successful evaluation, we advise to base this solely on the expected R&I added value for the host projects and not on country preferences.

The proposal must be submitted by the coordinator of a consortium funded under Pillar 2 or the EIC Pathfinder of Horizon Europe with a valid grant agreement that does not have any participant from a country eligible to host the coordinator under the Widening component (Widening country). The proposal must include the accession of one additional partner from a widening country.

Only one proposal. The eligibility conditions set in the Horizon Europe -Work Programme 2021-2022 (Widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area) clearly state that: “The proposal must be submitted by the co-ordinator of a consortium funded under Pillar 2 or a EIC Pathfinder call of Horizon Europe with a valid grant agreement that does not have any participant from a country eligible to host the coordinator under the Widening component (Widening country). The proposal must include the accession of one additional partner from a widening country. Consequently, as the Coordinator of only the ongoing eligible grant, funded under Horizon Europe, is entitled to apply just for having only one additional partner from a widening country. Therefore, multiple submissions might be interpreted as a lack of focus and prioritisation compromising the objectives of the call.

The Work Programme outlines the eligibility conditions that, inter alia, the first reporting period must be “ongoing at the submission deadline” and that the ongoing grant agreement must be “between 1 to 12 months from its starting date by the submission deadline.” In practical terms, this means that a project with a start date between 5 September 2024 and 4 September 2025 would be eligible to submit a proposal to this Call, subject to the fulfilment of the other eligibility conditions.

Yes, this is correct. Only the hosting coordinator and the widening partner are relevant for this part.

No, the hop on action should be rather regarded as a possibility for the original consortium to start additional activities not planned from the beginning and to widen the scope and impact of the project.

In the context of Hop on, “Work Package” should be understood as all the activities/tasks to which the new partner will contribute. New partners can contribute to a new or existing work packages. Applicants are expected to provide details on the new work package and/or the changes to existing work packages as a result of the widening partner addition.

In accordance with the proposal template for the Hop-On Facility, proposals should include a detailed description of the profile of the new partner and its role in the existing project. This presentation should detail all activities which will be impacted due to the addition of the new Widening partner (e.g. new/updated work packages, deliverables, milestones). Applications must demonstrate the R&I added value of the new partner and describe the concrete tasks to be carried out either as a separate new work package or contributions to existing work packages.

The Hop-On proposals will not be bound by any page limit of the original calls under Pillar 2. Nevertheless, applicants should provide a concise and accurate description of the widening partner and of the proposed new activities assigned to it by filling in the template part B available in the call submission page. The page limit for the Hop-On Facility part B application is 8 pages maximum.

No. The Hop-On Facility is limited to the addition of a single partner to consortia with no participants from widening countries.

Proposals must be submitted to the Hop-On facility call from the coordinator of a consortium funded under Pillar 2 or EIC Pathfinder of Horizon Europe with a valid grant agreement that does not have any participant from a country eligible to host the coordinator under the Widening component (Widening country).

To benefit from the Hop-On Facility, the new Hop-On partner must be a Member state, Associated country or outermost region legal entity established in a “Widening country”. The member states which are Widening countries are: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. The Associated countries which are Widening countries are: Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, North Macedonia, Serbia, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine.

The Outermost Regions are: Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, Réunion, Mayotte Saint-Martin, The Azores, Madeira, Canary Islands.

Applicants should always include all relevant partners when submitting proposals. Leaving a partner at the sideline can impair the quality of the consortium and result in lower evaluation scores. Proposals might also lack adequate geographical scope or diversity. Furthermore, even if a proposal without a Widening partner is funded, there are no guarantees at all that an extra partner will be funded through the Hop On facility, as this is a competitive call based on the excellence principle.

Yes. This is possible because the partner from an Outermost Region will be considered a widening partner, provided it has a legal address over there.

No. Only ongoing Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Action (RIA) projects are eligible to apply to the Hop On Facility call. The Commission has published a link to the list of eligible running projects, on the Hop-On Facility call page, already funded under Pillar 2. There is also a reference to the EIC Pathfinder which is designed in a filtered way, so it shows only those projects that are suitable matches for the Hop-On Facility call.

No. In cases where a potential partner from a widening country is already known, it should already be integrated into the consortium from the very beginning in the first proposal. We discourage ‘stand-by’ solutions because there is no guarantee for the success of a second proposal via hop-on.

In fact, the objective of the call is to mobilise the ‘hidden’ excellence of the hop-on partner that has not yet been invited to the consortium due to lack of visibility. Therefore, we expect excellence with the hop on partner but not necessarily world class. The excellence of the host consortium will not be examined because it has already been evaluated and approved previously.

Only partner organisations from Associated Counties eligible for the Widening part of the Horizon Europe Work Programme can benefit from the Hop-On Facility. The costs of such partner organisations will be considered as eligible in the same way as for an EU partner organisation. However, partner organisations from Third Countries are not eligible for the Hop-On Facility action.

The range 0.2 to 0.5 million EUR for the requested EU contribution in Hop- On proposals is indicative and not an eligibility condition. Therefore, proposals requesting lower or higher amounts are possible but, in all instances, requests need to be justified and will be assessed during the evaluation of proposals.

The Coordinator must submit an additional mandatory annex titled “Project Grant Agreement”. This mandatory annex should be the PDF document (max. 50 MB) of the running GA, Part A & Part B and the Budget table.

The success rate is dependent on the ratio between the requested cumulative budget of the submitted proposals and the available call budget. Accurate predictions are therefore difficult but for 2025, we may expect sufficient budget for the majority of proposals if we extrapolate from the experience of the 2022 call.

The matchmaking is primarily left to the initiative of both co-ordinators interested in extending their consortia and hop-on candidates seeking for suitable host projects. For the latter case, candidates are encouraged to screen the list of eligible projects published on the call web site on the funding and tenders portal, while also using information published under CORDIS. Co-ordinators may use the partner search tool and also contact NCP organisations, notably the project NCP WIDERANet.

Participants are entitled to claim direct eligible costs in full (reimbursement rate of 100%) and this amount is topped up by an additional flat rate of 25% of direct costs to cover for the indirect costs (overheads).

The duration of the “new” Hop On activities will depend on the duration of the ongoing Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Action (RIA) projects which the new partner will join. The time elapsed between the start date of the project and the signature of the amendment allowing the new partner to participate in the consortium will also impact the duration of the proposed “new” activities that cannot be extended after the end of the original grant agreement.

The co-ordination fee should cover any additional administrative and managerial efforts to be taken on board by the co-ordinator. This would be as a consequence of the extension of the consortium e.g. increased reporting and monitoring work load, increased number of meeting, visits etc….

As indicated in the WP, the main selection criteria will be the excellence and added value of the new partner and of the work package or task(s) assigned to this institution in the context of the ongoing project. The ongoing project as such is not subject to evaluation.

Indeed, the Executive Agencies (EAs) in charge of the evaluation aim at using the same evaluators who evaluated the host project in order to ensure consistency and to best recognise the added value of the new partner and its tasks. Standard evaluation criteria for RIA will apply.