Youth-Driven Social Media Design: Safe, Inclusive, and Publicly-Owned Social Media

Only entities that are legal entities established in EU Member States can be beneficiaries under this call for proposals.

Entities that are not beneficiaries and do not receive grant money may participate in other consortium roles, such as:

• Associated partners: Associated Partners may implement action tasks but in contrast to affiliated entities they do not need to have a capital or legal link to a beneficiary and costs incurred by Associated Partners can NOT be declared as eligible cost. In contrast to third parties giving in-kind contributions, the associated partners are fully named in the grant agreement and may implement important tasks by themselves. Entities that do not request funding or are not eligible for funding may participate in an action as Associated Partners, for example out of interest in contributing to the objectives of the action, gaining visibility, or participating due to ongoing (scientific) cooperation with a beneficiary. As with any other participant that does not sign the grant agreement, the beneficiaries need to ensure (e.g. through the consortium agreement) that Associated Partners implement their assigned action tasks in accordance with the grant agreement. The tasks must be set out in Annex 1.
• Subcontractors: Subcontracting must comply with the eligibility conditions, in particular it should fulfil the general conditions for costs to be eligible (i.e. incurred during the action duration, necessary, linked to the action, etc,…), be based either on the best value for money (considering the quality of the service, good or work proposed, i.e. the best price-quality ratio) or on the lowest price, not be subject to conflict of interest and for beneficiaries that are ‘contracting authorities’ or ‘contracting entities’ within the meaning of the EU Public Procurement Directives (Directives 2014/24, 2014/25 and 2009/81) : comply with the applicable national law on public procurement. Subcontracting should normally constitute a limited part and must be performed by third parties (not by one of the beneficiaries/affiliated entities). Subcontracting going beyond 30% of the total eligible costs must be justified in the application.
• Third parties giving in-kind contributions: Third parties giving in-king contributions can contribute to the action, but the corresponding costs of third parties are not eligible under the grant. In-kind contribution refers to , i.e. non-financial resources made available free of charge by third parties to the beneficiary or to the consortium (e.g. providing a meeting room or equipment for free…….). Third parties giving in-kind contributions will not be named in the grant agreement and may not carry out key tasks by themselves. Their contributions should be complementary to the project, rather than covering core activities.

The call text states that universities should not make up more than a quarter of the total applicants of a given consortium, and should not be consortium coordinators. No additional restrictions on the role of universities apply, which means that universities can lead tasks.

Yes, a newly established organisation can be eligible for joining the consortium if it meets the minimum criteria for being a consortium partner and can demonstrate stable and sufficient financial and operational capacity (human resources, know-how, qualifications) to successfully implement the project and contribute their share.

The minimum requirement for the youth participatory processes set out under this call for proposals is to "Involve young citizens from a wide variety of backgrounds and from at least eight Member States, including young persons with disabilities or neurodevelopmental conditions". Beyond this minimum requirement, no restrictions apply to proposal's with regards to determining the composition of their planned youth consultation processes. However, please keep in mind that project activities need to be carried out within the EU (c.f. p.15, "Geographic location (target countries)".

The Commission will not provide active support for matchmaking under this call for proposals, but interested entities are invited to use the "Partner search announcements" functionality of the Funding and Tenders portal. This function provides the possibility to offer or request expertise for consortia that are looking for additional partners. Please find the necessary instructions under the following link: webgate.ec.europa.eu

The 80% co-financing rate refers to the reimbursement that the EU will provide for eligible costs actually incurred for the action. For the 20% of the cost of the actual eligible costs of the action not covered by EU funds, beneficiaries' co-funding share may take the from the beneficiary’s own resources, income generated by the action, financial contribution (donation) from third parties. However, in-kind contributions from third parties, i.e. non-financial resources made available free of charge by third parties to the beneficiary or to the consortium (e.g. providing a meeting room or equipment for free), cannot be accounted for the beneficiary’s co-funding share of 20%. The corresponding costs of third parties are not eligible under the grant.

Applicants do not need to prove a capital base equivalent to 20% of their project budget at the proposal submission stage. However, all applicants must have stable and sufficient resources to successfully implement the projects and contribute their share. Organisations participating in several projects must have sufficient capacity to implement all projects.

For more information regarding the financial capacity checks, please refer to section 7 of the call for proposals.

The fully fledged uptake strategy is a part of the project deliverables and is thus not required in detail at proposal submission stage. However, proposals should nevertheless describe the key elements of their dissemination, outreach and engagement plans to users and key stakeholders, and dedicate sufficient resources to the implementation of their strategy’s initial stage.

The call for proposals does not require a specific age range that should be targeted under the youth consultation and co-creation processes. Rather, consortia should define this target range in accordance with their specific project needs and identified target audiences.

Proposals must propose one or multiple prototypes that offer a social media experience catered to the needs of young users. They are free to take an innovative approach to what the concept of social media entails and the features that such services can offer, as long as relevance to the objectives of the call for proposals can be demonstrated.

Proposals must demonstrate that knowledge they already have or will develop as part of their activities will be relevant and meaningful to the EU context for their proposed project. To this extent, experience gained outside of the EU during previous projects or work engagements can definitely be relevant, as long as the transferability or needed localisation to Europe is credibly argued.

Proposals that propose the upgrading of existing services should cover at least two services that individually qualify as social networks.

The eligibility criteria set out in section 6 of the call for proposals refer to beneficiaries. Because third parties - such as affiliated entities or associated partners - do not sign the grant agreement and do not become beneficiaries, they do not count towards fulfilling the minimum eligibility criteria. Applying consortia can include non-EU based organisations under certain limited conditions (for more information, please see the Q&A item concerning non-EU based partners on this call page), but the consortium partners that will constitute beneficiaries must fulfil the minimum eligibility criteria independently.

The call for proposals does not set numerical targets for the amount of youth participants that should be involved the co-creation processes or that should be engaged via the uptake strategy. Proposals should set their own targets that match and logically flow from their own needs analysis, methodology and dissemination strategy. The award criteria that guide evaluators (see section 9 "Award Criteria", p.19, of the call text) in their assessments include the level of ambition of a proposal's dissemination strategy, but also its appropriateness as well as the quality of the project's overall methodology. Elements such as the internal logic, methodological sophistication and feasibility of the proposed co-creation and uptake activities are therefore important to consider when determining the proposal's target values.