Demand-Driven Partnerships for Consortia

Within Demand-Driven Partnerships for Consortia NWO provides an opportunity for new or existing consortia to organise, develop and grow to a size from which societal (including economic) impact may be expected.  The development of a coherent project proposal requires close cooperation within the consortium and the central knowledge and development question fits within one or more Knowledge and Innovation Agendas (KIAs). This funding instrument equally provides an opportunity for consortia that in the future want to grow into strategic, long-term programmes.

Pre-proposals and full proposals are submitted by a main applicant and one or more co-applicants. A proposal is developed up by a consortium in which other participants, including co-funders, are involved in addition to the applicants. A consortium always consists of researchers from two or more different knowledge institutions, supplemented by one or more co-funders and possibly supplemented by one or more collaboration partners.

Funding can be requested for research proposals with a total project budget (in cash) of at least 3 and at most 10 million euros. NWO funds at most 50% of the total cash part of the project budget; the rest of the funding is contributed by the compulsory co-funding.

The following budget modules are available:

• Personnel costs;
• Material costs;
• Investments;
• Knowledge utilisation;
• Internationalisation;
• Money follows Cooperation;
• Project management.

The maximum duration of a project is six years.

This call for proposals describes a funding instrument with two rounds. The dates for applying for round 2 will also be postponed until a later date, more news about these new dates follows on 31 August 2021 at the latest.

Round 1:

• The deadline for applying for a suitability statement is 8 April 2021 at 23:59:00 CE(S)T.
• The deadline for submitting pre-proposals is 20 May 2021 at 14:00:00 CE(S)T.
• The deadline for submitting full proposals is 9 September 2021 at 14:00:00 CE(S)T.

Criteria

Both pre-proposals as well as full proposals are assessed by the selection committee using the following assessment criteria and relevant sub-criteria:

1. Problem posed and problem analysis, contribution to solution
2. Expected impact and route to impact
3. Quality of the consortium
4. Quality of the research

Procedure

The selection committee gives a non-binding positive or negative advice about the elaboration of each pre-proposal into a full proposal.
Full proposals are assessed by external referees. Applicants are then given the opportunity to write a rebuttal.
The members of the selection committee assess the proposals individually based on the assessment criteria with due consideration to the referees’ reports and the rebuttal. The highest-prioritized consortia will receive an invitation for the interview.
This leads to the committee’s final assessment of each full proposal. The selection committee submits its advice to the NWO Executive Board for decision-making.