FET Open – Novel ideas for radically new technologies
(From ec.europa.eu)
Call summary and aims
FET Open aims to establish European leadership in the early exploration of future technologies. It looks for opportunities of long-term benefit for citizens, the economy and society. It aims to mobilise Europe's most creative and forward thinking researchers from all disciplines to work together and explore what may become the leading technology paradigms of the future.
FET Open supports early stage science and technology research exploring new foundations for radically new future technologies by challenging current paradigms and venturing into unknown areas. A bottom-up selection process widely open to any research idea builds up a diverse portfolio of new research directions. Early detection of promising new areas, developments and trends, along with attracting new and high-potential research and innovation players, are key factors.
FET Open combines high scientific ambition with concrete technological implications. It aims to attract interdisciplinary consortia that do not shy away from exploring connections between remote disciplines in order to open-up new and potentially game changing technological directions that FET as a whole aims to develop into the leading technology paradigms of the future, including through FET-Proactive projects and FET-Flagship initiatives. In spite of the high initial risk, the long-term impact can be enormous: these new technologies can become the core for new high-growth companies, for new industries or for radically new ways of tackling societal challenges.
The FET-Open call is a part of the European Innovation Council (EIC) pilot. It provides the EIC with a bold exploratory engine that shatters the frontiers of current thinking. All FET-Open projects, even if far from today's markets, are full of great ideas to inspire the entrepreneurial minds that the EIC attracts. While keeping its own identity of excellence in science and technology research, the exposure of FET Open within the EIC allows new and sometimes unexpected opportunities to be detected and picked up early on. For those cases, the FET Innovation Launchpad is designed to assist in the first steps to accelerate the real-world impact of a result from FET research – a win-win for both research and innovation. Other parts of the EIC provide further tools for achieving high impact on society and/or the economy. Furthermore, by being part of the EIC pilot, FET-Open participants have access to the assistance, networking and financing possibilities offered by the EIC thus further increasing the leverage and increased impact from the initial high-risk investment in FET projects.
The call opens at 17.00.00 Brussels local time on the opening date.
The total indicative budget for the FET-Open topic FETOPEN-01-2018-2019-2020 is EUR 647,50 million. The indicative funding budgets available per cut-off date for this topic are as follows:
- Cut-off date 16/05/2018: EUR 123,70 M€.
- Cut-off date 24/01/2019: EUR 160,40 M€.
- Cut-off date 18/09/2019: EUR 160,40 M€.
- Cut-off date 13/05/2020: EUR 203,00 M€.
EUR 57,50 million from the 2018 budget will be used to fund in part the last cut-off of the Horizon 2020 FETOPEN-2016-2017 call under the FET workprogramme 2016-2017.
It is expected that this call will continue in 2020.
The indicative budget available for the FET-Open topic FETOPEN-02-2018 is EUR 2,00 million with the cut-off date 11/04/2018.
The total indicative budget for the FET-Open topic FETOPEN-03-2018-2019-2020 is EUR 8,20 million. The indicative funding budgets available per cut-off date for this topic are as follows:
- Cut-off date 16/10/2018: EUR 2,50 M€.
- Cut-off date 08/10/2019: EUR 2,70 M€.
- Cut-off date 14/10/2020: EUR 3,00 M€.