Business Experiments
THE FIRST OPEN CALL FOR BUSINESS EXPERIMENTS IS CLOSED.
The first call for proposals for “business experiments” (identifier FFplus_Call-1-Type-1) for proposals to address the uptake of HPC by SMEs in order to solve specific business challenges of SMEs that have had no prior use of, or experience with, HPC services closed on September 4, 2024.
The second call is expected to be open during the summer 2025.
The announcement below is the first call for proposals to address the uptake of HPC by SMEs in order to solve specific business challenges of SMEs that have had no prior use of, or experience with, HPC services. The resulting sub-projects will perform “business experiments” (also referred to just as experiments) that should demonstrate to the broader European SME ecosystem that HPC uptake solves business challenges and leads to positive business impact through the use and deployment of HPC-based computational methods. Thus, their key outputs are success stories that promote, communicate, and disseminate the business impact of HPC uptake to the SME ecosystem.
Proposals are sought that address business challenges from European SMEs from varied application domains, whereby SMEs whose adoption of advanced HPC services will create the highest business impact will be prioritized. SMEs with an academic focus, or activities with a potential impact only in the long term are not within the scope of the call.
This FFplus call is complementary to the open call for proposals for the Development of Generative AI Models (Identifier FFplus_Call-1-Type-2) that is executed in parallel. It should be noted that SMEs (in the role of main participant) may only participate in one of the two types of sub-projects; i.e. participation is mutually exclusive.
OPEN CALL WEBINAR FOR BUSINESS EXPERIMENTS
If you missed the webinar and want more information, watch the webinars here.
KEY CALL DETAILS
Submission Deadline: September 4th, 2024 at 17:00 Brussels local time
Expected duration of experiments: maximum 15 months with targeted commencement January 1st, 2025
The indicative total funding budget for all sub-projects funded under this call is € 4M.
A number of funding constraints and eligibility conditions apply, detailed in the full announcement text, proposals that do not adhere to these conditions will be rejected without further evaluation.
Expectations for the experiments and for proposals
The expectations for the proposed experiments are detailed in the full announcement text, a summary of which is as follows:
- Be fully aligned with the FFplus call objectives.
- Define the business challenge and the need for HPC to address it.
- Present the positive business impact to be achieved by solving the challenge.
- Define specific objectives that must be achieved.
- Explain the inclusion of all parties required for the effective and efficient execution of the experiment and the demonstration of the impact on SME business challenges through the use of HPC systems or advanced HPC services.
- Define the resources needed to meet objectives and the associated costs.
- Address any data protection issues that might impact the proposed work plan.
- Support the FFplus project in the generation of publishable success stories which discuss how the SME’s real-world problems were addressed and clearly identify the business benefits realised or obtained.
- Be complementary to past Fortissimo experiments.
The complete announcement and proposer’s guide for the current open call can be downloaded as a FFplus Call-1: Type 1 Announcement document.
PROPOSAL SUBMISSION
Submission Deadline
All submissions must be made by 17:00 Brussels local time, September 4th, 2024.
Electronic Submission
Proposal submission is exclusively in electronic form using the proposal submission tool accessed via the link below. Proposers are encouraged to submit draft versions in advance of the deadline, which may be updated (replaced) up to the submission deadline.
Proposals must be submitted in English.
Each proposal must comprise 2 parts: Part A (containing administrative information), Part B (containing the body of the proposal, whose structure is explained below).
The central component of proposal submission is the uploading of two PDF-documents (whose individual size must not exceed 5.0 MB) compliant with the proposal content, structure and formatting instructions detailed in the call announcement and proposer’s guide, downloadable as a FFplus Call-1: Type 1 Announcement document. That document also explains the evaluation criteria to be applied.
Please note that proposals that are not compliant with those instructions (for example, not adhering to page limits or including extraneous information such as letters of support) will be rejected without further evaluation.
It is a requirement that the downloadable proposal exemplars are used.
Available here: Part A and Part B.
(Note: Part B of the proposal exemplar was updated on July, 24th, 2024.)
The proposal exemplar document includes, in particular, an embedded spread-sheet for budget data.
Consortia selected for funding via the proposal evaluation process will be invited to conclude a funding agreement with the FFplus project coordinator, the University of Stuttgart.
An example (template) of the funding agreement can be downloaded here.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Consortium and Participants
Successful proposals will be included in the FFplus Project as clearly defined activities within the project and new participants will be included as Third Parties contracted by the FFplus Coordinator, the University of Stuttgart. All organisations that are eligible to participate within the Digital Europe framework programme* would be expected to be accepted for participation as Third Parties in FFplus.
The SME (main participant) should have had no prior use of, or experience with, HPC services and may only participate in one experiment.
Please note, that all seven FFplus beneficiaries are ineligible to participate as either main or supporting participants. Please check the answer to the next question for a complete list of the seven excluded organisations.
SMEs with an academic focus, for example with business models around R&D services based on HPC software, or activities with a potential impact only in the long term, such as fundamental research, are not within the scope of the call.
*https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/activities/digital-programme
All seven FFplus beneficiaries are not allowed to take part in the open call:
- Universität Stuttgart
- scapos AG
- Arctur
- CINECA
- CESGA
- Teratec
- Cyfronet
The SME definition of the European Commission will be used: in particular, this means that an SME is an independent enterprise with less than 250 employees and a €50 M annual turnover.
Before the conclusion of the funding agreements, the SME will be required to document their status as an SME in line with European Commission definitions.
Yes, assuming that they also qualify as SME using the EC SME definition and are able to explain the expected business impact, whereby it is understood that they would not be in a position to report on an established history of business operation and an extensive customer base.
The FFplus Type-1 open calls are open to proposals that address business challenges from European SMEs from varied application domains, whereby SMEs whose adoption of advanced HPC services will create the highest business impact will be prioritized.
The expectation is that the consortium for the new experiment includes all necessary partners for the execution of the experiment. The coordinator of the experiment should be chosen to best meet the needs of the coordination of the activities to be performed within the experiment.
With respect to the objective to promote a widening of the HPC user base amongst European SMEs, FFplus seeks to achieve a broad geographical distribution of participants. In particular, SMEs based in countries with previous HPC adoption at a low level are encouraged to submit a proposal and may expect to be assisted by their national HPC Competence Centre.
While single-member consortia are eligible in principle, the proposal would need to demonstrate that the sole partner is both an SME new to HPC and possesses all necessary skills to experiment.
The total number of consortium partners (main participant and supporting participants) is limited to five (5).
Please note, that participation as main participant in the FFplus innovation studies (covered by the open call for proposals for the Development of Generative AI Models) and in the business experiments is mutually exclusive.
A company that already participated in a Fortissimo experiment cannot be the main participant in an FFplus business experiment because they do have prior HPC experience.
However, they can take part as supporting participants (e.g. as HPC expert).
Main participants may participate in only one experiment. While an SME could be main participant of several proposals, we strongly recommend to concentrate on a single proposal. Supporting participants may receive a maximum of € 150,000 over all experiments in which they participate.
There are no formal restrictions on the number of proposals in which a supporting participant participates. However, the funding restriction for supporting participants (a maximum aggregated funding of € 150,000 for all experiments in which they take part in) must of course be considered.
Supporting participants can participate in both Type-1 experiments and Type-2 innovation studies if their roles are well justified. Of course, they need to adhere to the funding restrictions for both types: 150,000 € for Type-1 business experiments in this open call and 150,000 € for Type-2 innovation studies in this open call. In addition, it should be noted that for Type-2 innovation studies there is a global limit of 300,000 € for supporting participants over all Type-2 calls.
For proposals in which the need for a consortium of participants is justified, the key criteria for the construction of the consortium is the competence to carry out the tasks of the work plan. Since the international collaborative aspect within FFplus is achieved at the level of the project and all its sub-projects, there is no added value assigned to a proposal with international participants compared with a participants from a single country.
For supporting partners only engineering activities are eligible for funding. This means that coordination activities are not eligible for funding for supporting partners.
No, at the moment Switzerland and the UK are not associated to the Digital Europe programme.
The main participant cannot be a public entity or administration because it has to be an SME or start-up. However, public entities (e.g. hospitals) or organisations belonging to public administrations can be supporting participants if their role in the proposed sub-project is well justified. But note that for supporting participants, only technical/engineering activities are eligible for funding.
First, the SME has to check whether the ownership, or part ownership, of the holding company negatively impacts on their status as an SME (according to the EC definition). Additionally, they need to check whether they are eligible to receive Digital Europe funding, i.e. whether the company head office is within an EU member state or in a country associated to the Digital Europe programme.
Yes, this is no problem.
Yes, since the requirement is that the main participant has no prior experience with HPC, then a supporting participant with such knowledge and expertise might be expected to fulfil a necessary role in executing the experiment.
Yes, the requirement for the SME to have had no prior use of, or experience with, HPC services concerns the organisation and the past activities of that organisation.
Yes, this is possible as long as the business case is defined by the main participant SME. Additionally, in principle, the main part of the funding should be allocated to the main participant. Any deviations from this principle must be duly justified. For Type-1 business experiments, the maximum number of partners in the consortium is five.
Proposal Structure and Template, Administrative Issues, Timeline
We strongly recommend against last minute submissions and recommend that proposers make use of the option to submit and update draft proposals throughout the period in which the call is open. Proposal submission after the deadline will not be possible.
Meetings organized by FFplus which are mandatory for experiment partners or coordinators will in general be held online. Each experiment will hold a kick-off meeting which all participants are expected to attend. Further experiment-internal meetings, whose attendance and frequency depend on the work plan, are anticipated. As a guide, two such experiment-internal meetings are to be expected. If these meetings would lead to substantial travel costs, online meetings should be preferred
Furthermore, a representative of the experiment should participate in a cross-experiment workshop (in the early-phase of the experiment) and the partner(s) able to present the business impact of the experiment are expected to attend one FFplus review meeting.
The target is for the new experiments to commence at the beginning of January 2025. We expect to be able to communicate the results of the evaluation of proposals by early December 2024. However, the exact dates will depend on the number of proposals received and the resulting workload of the evaluation.
Proposals submitted with a Part B whose length (excluding the cover page) exceeds the 10-page limit will be rejected without further evaluation.
Please note, that during past open calls, there have been some issues connected with the export of “google doc” documents to the final pdfs. This sometimes led to blank pages or page breaks being inserted which created a final pdf document with more than 10 pages. If you use an online tool for writing of the proposal, please be careful to check the page count before submitting.
According to our current planning, the deadline for the next tranche of Open Calls for business experiments and innovation studies will be (approximately) in August or September 2025. The calls will be published two months earlier.
The experiments will receive support from the project with a range of actions relating to interactions with the project and also relating to potential collaborations with other sub-projects. Furthermore, direct support for each individual experiment will be provided relating to gaining access to EuroHPC JU-provided computing resources* and technical consultation relating to the effective execution of the experiment work plan.
*https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/eurohpc-ju-call-proposals-regular-access-mode_en
https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/eurohpc-ju-call-proposals-benchmark-access_en
https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/eurohpc-ju-call-proposals-development-access_en
There is a strict page limit for Part B of the proposal (10 pages for Type-1 business experiments). This obviously also poses a limit on the level of information you can provide. It is important, that the external experts evaluating the proposals can understand who is doing which work and with which amount of effort.
No specific amount of effort is expected. However, contributions to the creation of the success stories and promotional material are required.
No, but if available it would be appreciated that the information is included in Part A of the proposal.
Part A only contains standardised administrative information and cannot include a letter of support. In Part B it is okay (however, in most cases not necessary) to include a letter of support if the proposal still meets the page limit (10 pages for business experiments).
Funding and eligible costs
Consortia selected for funding via the proposal evaluation process will be invited to conclude a funding agreement with the FFplus project coordinator, the University of Stuttgart.
An example (template) of the funding agreement can be downloaded here.
The maximum EC funding expected to be allocated to an individual experiment is € 200,000. However, that is a maximum figure and the proposal evaluators will be asked to pay attention to the planned resources (effort & budget) being commensurate with the stated objectives of the experiment.
The FFplus project receives funding based on a Grant Agreement following the regulations of the Digital Europe Programme and the eligibility rules of that Grant Agreement will apply for the direct costs arising in the sub-projects.
In particular, Third Parties will receive 100% funding of incurred eligible direct costs necessary for the completion of experiment activities; no indirect costs or overheads will be funded.
The details of funding rules that will be applied can be found in the annotated model grant agreement for the Digital Europe programme:
https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/common/guidance/aga_en.pdf
The maximum funding that can be allocated to any Third Party is € 150,000 – for supporting participants this is aggregated across all FFplus experiments in which that Third Party is involved.
In principle, the major part of the funding applied for should be allocated to the main participants. Any deviations from this principle must be duly justified.
For supporting participants, only engineering activities are eligible for funding. Activities such as business consultancy, marketing initiatives, administrative tasks, and other non-engineering activities are not eligible for funding.
More information about eligibility of costs for equipment, travel, HPC compute capacity and material are available in the call announcement.
For supporting participants, only engineering activities are eligible for funding. Activities such as business consultancy, marketing initiatives, administrative tasks, and other non-engineering activities are not eligible for funding.
Travel must be well justified in terms of the necessity for performance of the proposed experiment work plan.
Yes, the work of SME owners not receiving a salary may be declared as personnel costs, if they fulfil the general eligibility conditions and are calculated as unit costs. For more details please check the rules of the Digital Europe Programme, given in the model grant agreement.
Yes, for all participants if they are well justified and conform with the guidelines specified in the budget modules table included in the call announcement.
HPC Computing Resources
Yes. The provision of access to, and use of, high-performance computing is central to FFplus. The expectation for the experiments is that they demonstrate the impact of solving SME business challenges through the use of HPC systems or advanced HPC services. Proposals should present the actual need for HPC resources by describing in sufficient detail the type of computational methods to be used and the relevant sizes of models or data.
Compute resources need to be clearly described and justified: ideally, EuroHPC systems* will be used for the work. A decision not to apply for access to EuroHPC systems should be duly justified.
*https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/eurohpc-ju-call-proposals-regular-access-mode_en
https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/eurohpc-ju-call-proposals-benchmark-access_en
https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/eurohpc-ju-call-proposals-development-access_en
Yes, there are no special access rules for the FFplus business experiments and they are expected to use the (appropriate) usual access schemes (see for example the Question concerning the target to use HPC systems).
The recommendation is to apply for benchmark and development access. The application process usually takes only one month.
Yes. However, the usage of commercial HPC has to be well justified.
Yes.
No, but the general need for HPC (exceeding usual workstation configurations) is important.
Other
No, the FFplus Type-1 open calls are open to proposals that address business challenges from European SMEs from varied application domains, whereby SMEs whose adoption of advanced HPC services will create the highest business impact will be prioritized.
Proposed experiments should complement those already included in the past Fortissimo, Fortissimo 2 and FF4EuroHPC projects*. In this context, complementarity is understood to mean activities that address new applications, business cases, industrial sectors and market segments and enhance the project’s ability to demonstrate the impact of the Fortissimo approach for a broad set of industrial users. Proposals that just extend past experiments are thus not considered to be complementary.
Yes, the Type-1 business experiments can still be centered on AI, HPDA or Big Data technologies. For Type-1 business experiments it is essential that the main participant has no prior experience with HPC. The technology that is used to solve the SME’s business challenge can come from different areas, most importantly numerical simulation, AI or HPDA.
Type-2 innovation studies focus on SMEs or Start-ups highly competent in generative AI but lacking large computing infrastructures.
Please note, that participation as main participant in the FFplus innovation studies and in the business experiments is mutually exclusive.
IP stays within the experiment consortium. The recommendation is to have a Consortium Agreement. Joint development usually means joint ownership.
PROPOSAL EVALUATION CHECK-LIST
Check-List:
Is the proposal fully aligned with the FFplus call objectives defined in the Call for Proposals for Business Experiments addressing the uptake of HPC by SMEs? In particular:
- Is the proposal driven by the requirements of the main participant SME(s) that has(have) no prior use of, or experience with, HPC services?
- Is the proposed work driven by the business needs of the main participant(s)?
- Would a high business impact for the SME(s) be expected through its(their) adoption of advanced HPC services, for example in terms of the exploitation plans presented?
- Is it clear that the main participant SME does not have a research-focused business model?
- Is the proposed experiment sufficiently complementary to past Fortissimo experiments, i.e. avoid duplication of specific activities carried out in the prior Fortissimo, Fortissimo 2 and FF4EuroHPC projects?*
- Does the proposal substantiate the need for HPC resources and do the computational needs clearly exceed those offered by a modern workstation (particularly in terms of time to solution)? Is the business challenge to be addressed clearly defined and the requirement for HPC justified? Does the proposal present a vision of success, i.e. how addressing the business challenge using HPC will lead to positive business impact. If applicable, are the value propositions and the process of value creation defined? Are key indicators defined such as revenue generated over recent years or the existence of a customer base beyond the academic realm. Are the sectors in which the industrial end-user(s) is (are) active clearly defined?
Does the proposal define specific objectives that must be achieved to successfully address the business challenge and the accompanying action plan? Furthermore, would the experiment, if successful, be able to demonstrate the business benefits to be realised by addressing that business challenge?
If the proposed work were successful,
- would it have a significant impact on the market in which the end-user industrial partner/partners is/are active?
- would its outcome be relevant to the sector of the end-user company?
- would it benefit the industrial partners involved in the project and demonstrate a potential benefit for SMEs beyond the Consortium?
Does the proposal include measures to support the FFplus project in the generation of publishable success stories – including in multi-media form – which discuss how the SME’s real-world problems were addressed and clearly identify the business benefits realised or obtained?
*In the context of the Fortissimo Plus calls, complementarity of experiments is understood to mean activities that address new applications, services, business cases, industrial sectors and market segments and the enhancement of the project’s ability to demonstrate the impact of the Fortissimo approach for a broad set of industrial users. Proposals that just extend past experiments are thus not considered to be complementary.
Is the proposed experiment, as described in the proposal, feasible in the technical and management sense? Are risks properly described and addressed? Are tasks related to solving the business problems of the end-users clearly predominant compared with any research on new methods?* Is the work plan sufficiently clear and coherent (e.g. is it clear who is working on which tasks, are deliverables defined?) instilling confidence that the proposed work will be carried out effectively and will be directed towards achieving the objectives of the call? Does the proposal declare any data protection issues that might impact its proposed work plan, or does the proposal involve use of data covered by the EU General Data Protection Regulation or national regulations implementing these? If yes, does the proposal specify adequate protection measures to be used in the framework of European law, and ensure that the operation of the experiment adheres to these?
*The expectation is for there to be only a need for adaptation/extension of existing software and computational methods, not the development from scratch of software or methods.
Check-List:
Is the consortium as a whole well qualified to carry out the proposed work? Is each consortium member as presented in the proposal qualified to carry out the work they are assigned and is the assignment of tasks clear?
Does the consortium contain the necessary partners with all the skills needed to carry out the proposed work? Are the roles of all partners clearly described and does each partner have a significant and well-justified role? Is the role and effort of the main participants balanced with respect to other partners? Are key personnel clearly identified and described? Are the contributions of supporting participants limited to engineering activities (which are the only activities of supporting participants eligible for funding)?
Are any types of partners missing?
Have appropriate resources (effort and budget) been allocated to members of the consortium in such a way that each of them has the required resources needed to carry out their part in the work effectively? Is the effort of each partner required for specific tasks clear? Has the major part of the requested budget been allocated to the main participant(s)? Does the proposal define the resources and the associated costs needed to achieve the experiment objectives? Are the proposed resources (effort, budget, software licences or any sub-contract) clearly justified in the proposal? HPC resources: These may possibly involve computing resources provided (free of charge) directly by the EuroHPC JU, e.g. through their benchmark and development access system, or through national actions. Does the proposal clarify such intended use? Does it otherwise identify, and budget for, alternative resource providers and would such be European HPC centres or providers?
The HPC National Competence Centres may be able to aid with the selection of appropriate resources and the EuroHPC JU application process. (FFplus will not be in a position to provide computing resources itself). Does the application software described have the appropriate level of performance and parallel scalability to execute the most compute-intensive steps in the experiment workflow? Does the proposal consider the performance characteristics of said application(s) and establish that their use is feasible on the proposed computing infrastructure or HPC services? Is the computing infrastructure requested commensurate with the application software to be used in the proposed experiment and is that adequately described in the proposal?