Celtic-Plus Call Frequently Asked Questions

   

Celtic-Plus Call for Proposals
Frequently asked questions:

As Celtic cluster calls are somewhat different from EU FP7 or national calls the following answers of common questions may help you understanding the differences. More details on funding and national applications can be found at the individual national contact pages.

 
Q1: What is the main difference between EU FP7 and Celtic projects?
A: Both FP7 and Celtic projects are partly funded by public money. However, once a FP7 project has been approved the funding will be available for all partners. For Celtic projects each country will decide on public funding at an individual basis. This generally leads to some delays and, sometimes, requires the consortium to be modified in case some partners will not receive funding. Celtic project require a Celtic fee to be paid by (most of) the participants (1500€ per planned person year).
Q2: Why should I go for a Celtic project rather than an FP7 project?
A: There are a number of reasons and advantages to go for a Celtic-Plus project:
1) Celtic allows proposals to be defined bottom-up and close to the market needs; i.e. there is no need to comply to a certain objective. Research items should, however, be listed in the Celtic-Plus Purple Book.
2) The success rate that a proposal becomes a project is generally much higher (around 70%), provided there are close contacts with the involved Public Authorities at an early stage.
3) Celtic project require significantly less administrative effort; changes and adjustments can be done in a very flexible way at any stage of a project.
4) Most Celtic projects have a high success rate and a high impact on business, products and standards.
Q3: Is there a fixed budget for each call?
A: No. The finally available budget per call depends on the composition of countries and companies per project. Limitations exist only on the national budget for each country. Generally the total budget per year is around 100 million euro.
Q4: How much funding will be provided by the national agencies?
A: The amount of funding depends exclusively on the national funding rules and on the national research priorities. The percentage for funding, generally is between 25% and 60%.
Q5: Is there a minimum or maximum budget for a single proposal?
A: No, however, proposals with a high deviation from average values may have a higher risk to fail. Average project budgets are in the range of 1 million to >20 million euro with a possible duration between 18 and 36 months.
Q6: Are there special requirements for the composition of a project consortium?
A: Yes. For Celtic project the general EUREKA rule applies of at least 2 partners from 2 different countries. There are several national requirements (e.g. the inclusion of SME, etc) which should be observed. Details should be checked for each participating country at the  national contact pages
Q7: Is there a maximum number of proposals a partner can participate?
A: Not from Celtic side. However at country level funding agencies may impose some limitations for a partner. This should be checked with the concerned Public Authorities.
Q8: What kind of organizations can  participate in Celtic-Plus projects?
A: Any kind of partner, from industry, SME, university or research institutes. There is no need that an organization is involved in Celtic (e.g. core group).
Q9: Can partners from countries outside EUREKA participate in a project?
A: Generally yes, provided the consortium agrees to this. However, such partners should not play a leading role and should not have a major project share. Funding depends on the budget available in that country.
Q10: How can I find possible partners or interesting projects to join?
A: At our Celtic-Plus proposer's days we had received a number of interesting proposals. Several of them are still search for new partners. Please have also a look to our Find-a-partner page.
Q11: Why do I need to apply for public funding already when submitting a proposal?
A: This procedure has been agreed with the public authorities as only then they may speed up the approval for funding. At least a provisional application should be done as, otherwise a Celtic label cannot be assigned.
Follow or join Call discussions about possible project ideas at: