FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS...Applicants can be Natural (researchers, developers, hackers, internet...

Grant Agreement No.: No 871528 Call: H2020-ICT-2019-2 Topic: ICT-24-2018-2019 Type of action: RIA

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Open Call

Submission starts on Wednesday, 1st of April 2020

1st deadline on Tuesday, 1st of June 2020 at 13:00 (Brussels time)

Revision: v.1.1

NGI POINTER | NGI POINTER Open Call FAQ

© 2020-2022 NGI POINTER of 10

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 3 2 GENERAL QUESTIONS ABOUT THE PROJECT .................................................... 4 2.1 What is NGI-POINTER? ............................................................................................. 4 2.2 How does the project work? ....................................................................................... 4 2.3 How much funding will BE distributeD? ..................................................................... 4 2.4 WHO are “NGI Architects”? ........................................................................................ 4 2.5 What “Open Internet Architecture renovation” refers to exactly? ............................... 4 3 GENERAL QUESTIONS ABOUT THE OPEN CALL ................................................ 5 3.1 Who can apply to this open call? ............................................................................... 5 3.2 Which requirements must be fulfilled? ....................................................................... 5 3.3 What types of projects is the call looking for? ............................................................ 5 3.4 Are there any features that will be regarded specially? ............................................. 6 3.5 Can we submit more than one application? ............................................................... 6 3.6 How can I apply to this open call? .............................................................................. 6 3.7 Which is the deadline for proposals’ submission? ..................................................... 6 3.8 How Long does it take to complete the application? .. Error! Bookmark not defined. 3.9 There will be more open calls? .................................................................................. 7 3.10 Will I be able to modify my proposal after Submission? ............................................. 7 4 QUESTIONS RELATED TO EVALUATION .............................................................. 8 4.1 What happens after proposals are submitted? .......................................................... 8 4.2 Which are the criteria for evaluating proposals? ........................................................ 8 4.3 How much time does it take the evaluation process? ................................................ 8 4.4 Will we get a communication when then evaluation process ends? .......................... 8 5 QUESTIONS RELATED TO FUNDING ..................................................................... 9 5.1 Do selected teams get any money in advance? ........................................................ 9 5.2 How much funding might get each proposal? ............................................................ 9 5.3 when do selected teams receive the funding? ........................................................... 9 5.4 Will selected teams get any additional support on top of funding? ............................ 9 5.5 Will NGI-POINTER monitor the progress of the projects? ......................................... 9 6 TECHNICAL QUESTIONS ...................................................................................... 10 6.1 Which features do solutions need to have? ............................................................. 10 6.2 Do we need to use open licenses for our solutions? ................................................ 10 6.3 DOES NGI-POINTER offer any other technical facilities or services? ..................... 10



1 INTRODUCTION

NGI-POINTER is funded by the European Commission and aims to find ambitious “NGI architects” to change the underlying fabric of the internet and the web, by supporting promising bottom up projects that are able to build on top of state-of-the-art research, scalable protocols and tools to assist in the practical transition or migration to new or updated technologies, whilst keeping European values at the core. NGI-POINTER aims to find ambitious “NGI architects”, to fund and support them, both from a technical as well as business perspective through bottom up projects in an open and agile environment. NGI-POINTER will distribute up to 5.6 M€ among projects that will be selected through open calls targeting NGI Architects, including both individual and legal persons applicants. This Guide for Applicants contains relevant information to understand how to successfully take part in the Open Call of NGI POINTER.

The NGI-POINTER consortium is comprised of: Aarhus University (Denmark) is the project coordinator and has a wide experience in supporting researchers to transfer the results of research into innovative solutions. AU will be responsible for the Business Development Support. FundingBox Accelerator (Poland) manages the open calls and cascade funding. FundingBox is the European leader in managing Financial Support to Third Parties (cascade funding) and provides tools for community creation, to help innovators meet, interact and collaborate to build growth connections. LINKNOVATE SCIENCE (Spain) will empower the capacity of the consortium to proactively find and discover those "publicly hidden" outstanding researchers that are out of the traditional channels related with public funding schemas for Research and Innovation. DIGITAL WORX GMBH (Germany) will be responsible for the Technology Development Support. The main role will be to provide technical mentorship for technology development to the beneficiaries of the program.



2 GENERAL QUESTIONS ABOUT THE PROJECT

2.1 WHAT IS NGI-POINTER? NGI-POINTER is an European project funded by the European Union and aims to find ambitious “NGI architects” to change the underlying fabric of the internet and the web, by supporting promising bottom up projects that are able to build scalable protocols and tools to assist in the practical transition or migration to new or updated technologies, whilst keeping EU Values at the core.

2.2 HOW DOES THE PROJECT WORK? NGI-POINTER will scout and support European-based ‘internet talents’ in developing and providing new marketable solutions, backed in state-of-the-art technology and research, that provide alternative and/or auxiliary tools and protocols with specific value propositions for society and/or self-sustainable Business Models for specific use case areas related with Internet Architecture Renovation.

2.3 HOW MUCH FUNDING WILL BE DISTRIBUTED? NGI-POINTER will distribute up to 5.6 M€ among promising bottom-up projects.

2.4 WHO ARE “NGI ARCHITECTS”? NGI Architects are researchers from outstanding research groups as well as organisation and individuals with outstanding track records and with links to internet governance bodies and/or open source communities1 that are owners of the internet renovation problems of today.

2.5 WHAT “OPEN INTERNET ARCHITECTURE RENOVATION” REFERS TO EXACTLY?

Open Internet Architecture Renovation refers to supporting communities of developers in ensuring Internet architecture evolution towards better efficiency, scalability, security and resilience. Auditing, testing and improving protocols and open source software and hardware that are used to manage the Internet, with renewed design goals such as isolation of contingencies, redundancy and self-repair, disruption tolerance, transparency, better real-time behaviour and energy efficiency. Ability to roll-out at Internet scale should be assessed as part of the proposed solutions.

1 i.e. (non-exhaustive list): IETF/W3C; Computer science (network research), IFIP, AoIR, ACM, G.ANT, RIPE (+ other RIRs), CENTR, DNS operators, Kernel teams, ISOC, EDRi, FSF, FSFE, APRIL, EuroISPA, DPHA, Eurocloud, EURO-IX



3 GENERAL QUESTIONS ABOUT THE OPEN CALL

3.1 WHO CAN APPLY TO THIS OPEN CALL? Applicants can be Natural (researchers, developers, hackers, internet activists) or Legal persons (SMEs, startups) with proven experience in internet architecture (protocols and open source software and hardware that are used to manage the Internet). Natural persons must have required nationality or permits and visas to reside in one of the eligible countries. Legal persons must have a registered office in one of the eligible countries. Eligible countries are:

• The Member States of the European Union.

• The Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) linked to the Member States.

• Associated Countries to H2020.

3.2 WHICH REQUIREMENTS MUST BE FULFILLED? Proposed components must meet the "NGI” and “Open Internet Architecture Renovation” concept as described in the NGI POINTER Work Programme. In addition, proposals must be submitted in English online through the FundingBox and before the deadline for this call. They also must not have any conflict of interest nor be included in any of exclusion cases to be eligible for funding. Check section 3 (Eligibility criteria) of the Guide for Applicants for this open call for the complete list of requirements.

3.3 WHAT TYPES OF PROJECTS IS THE CALL LOOKING FOR?

Proposals should be focused on the Open Internet Architecture Renovation, and related to new tools and protocols that will bring critical value for a more efficient, scalable, secure and resilient evolution of the internet architecture. Furthermore, these proposals should address specific technology challenges related with one or more of the following 9 (+1) application domains. For more details, you can check the Work Programme available in the project website at https://pointer.ngi.eu/: • Privacy-by-design;

• Internet at the Edge;

• Network optimization;

• Virtualization and isolation;

• Limitations in the TCP/IP protocol suite;

• Autonomous Network operations and control;



• Energy Efficiency

• Industrial Internet Security

• Trust for New Internet/Web Users

• Open Disruption of the Internet Architecture

3.4 ARE THERE ANY FEATURES THAT WILL BE REGARDED SPECIALLY?

Proposals with a social impact and those who have into account other transversal criteria, such as Environment and low carbon economy contribution or equal opportunities, are also encouraged.

3.5 CAN WE SUBMIT MORE THAN ONE APPLICATION?

No, you can’t. In case that more than one application from the same applicant is submitted, only the one submitted first will be considered and any other will be rejected.

3.6 HOW CAN I APPLY TO THIS OPEN CALL? Online through the NGI-POINTER microsite for this open call at FundingBox Platform: https://ngi-pointer-open-call.fundingbox.com/

3.7 WHICH IS THE DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS’ SUBMISSION?

This call will have a deadline on 1st of June 2020 at 13:00 (Brussels time).

3.8 HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO COMPLETE THE APPLICATION?

It will probably take around 2 days of writing to produce a good application, but you’ll be able to add contributors, so that work can be split among team members. Take into account that specific character limits have been established in each field of the online application form, so we encourage you to keep your proposal focused on the requested information, keeping in mind the Next Generation Internet and Open Internet Architecture Renovation concepts and the requirements gathered in the Guide for Applicants for this call. We also recommend you start the submission process quite in advance before the deadline in order to avoid last minute circumstances.



3.9 THERE WILL BE MORE OPEN CALLS? Yes, at least one more open call is expected in 2021.

3.10 WILL I BE ABLE TO MODIFY MY PROPOSAL AFTER SUBMISSION?

No. Please, be aware that you will not be able to modify the application once submitted, but you can modify the application at any time before submission (i.e. edit your draft application).



4 QUESTIONS RELATED TO EVALUATION

4.1 WHAT HAPPENS AFTER PROPOSALS ARE SUBMITTED?

Right after the deadline for applications submission, the evaluation procedure will start. Evaluation is composed of the following phases: eligibility check, external evaluation and consensus meeting. See section 5 of the Guide for Applicants for this call for further details.

4.2 WHICH ARE THE CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING PROPOSALS?

There will be 3 main criteria that will be considered by evaluators when assessing the proposals: Excellence (analysing Ambition and Technical Approach), Impact (evaluating Ambition, Internet Architecture renovation, Standardization and roll-out potential) and Implementation (to assess Coherence and effectiveness of the work plan, Appropriateness of the institutional environment). Complete information about this is in Section 5 of the Guide for Applicants for this call.

4.3 HOW MUCH TIME DOES IT TAKE THE EVALUATION PROCESS?

Evaluation process is expected to take up to 2 months and Sub-grant Agreement is expected to take one additional month approximately, both counting from the deadline.

4.4 WILL WE GET A COMMUNICATION WHEN THEN EVALUATION PROCESS ENDS?

Yes, applicants will be informed at the end of each stage of the evaluation process of the status of their proposals.



5 QUESTIONS RELATED TO FUNDING

5.1 DO SELECTED TEAMS GET ANY MONEY IN ADVANCE?

No, the grant is paid as a lump sum or as a voucher against specific Deliverables/Milestones, see Section 6 of the Guide for Applicants for this call for detailed information.

5.2 HOW MUCH FUNDING MIGHT GET EACH PROPOSAL?

Each selected proposal might get up to €200,000 equity-free funding.

5.3 WHEN DO SELECTED TEAMS RECEIVE THE FUNDING?

The grant is paid as a lump sum or as a voucher against specific Deliverables/Milestones, see Section 6 of the Guide for Applicants for this call for detailed information.

5.4 WILL SELECTED TEAMS GET ANY ADDITIONAL SUPPORT ON TOP OF FUNDING?

Yes, technical and business mentoring provided by NGI POINTER partners

5.5 WILL NGI-POINTER MONITOR THE PROGRESS OF THE PROJECTS?

Yes, At the end of each stage (or whenever a payment is due), a deep analysis will be done to evaluate the bottom-up projects performance against specific Deliverables/Milestones. Mentoring Committee will evaluate the performance and quality of deliverables issued by bottom-up projects, proposing their final valuation. Selection Committee will validate it and take the final decisions based on Mentoring Committee inputs. Bottom-up Projects performing as expected in the Individual Mentoring Plan, will receive the EU Funds payments as scheduled. Those not reaching the performance requested, will be invited to leave the program without receiving the corresponding payments.



6 TECHNICAL QUESTIONS

6.1 WHICH FEATURES DO SOLUTIONS NEED TO HAVE?

You can find a detailed description of expected features and examples in the Annex I (“Technology Description”) of the Guide for Applicants for this call. However, NGI Pointer does not offer any technical facilities or services nor does NGI Pointer require you to use specific technologies.

6.2 DO WE NEED TO USE OPEN SOURCE LICENSES FOR OUR SOLUTIONS?

Yes, components proposed for this open call must be provided as open source. However, we are interested to receive your proposals with other suggestions and argumentations.

6.3 DOES NGI-POINTER OFFER ANY OTHER TECHNICAL FACILITIES OR SERVICES?

Based on the specific needs of bottom-up projects, applicants can access other technical facilities offered by 3rd parties via a voucher scheme. NGI Pointer does not offer any technical facilities or services nor does NGI Pointer require you to use specific technologies.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS...Applicants can be Natural (researchers, developers, hackers, internet...

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