ENVRIplus Transnational Access (TNA)

ENVRIplus offers opportunities for free-of-charge transnational access (TNA) for selected research groups and companies to a number of multi-disciplinary test platforms wishing to conduct research or test instruments for cross-disciplinary topics within the environmental domains: atmosphere, biosphere, marine, and solid earth. The access procedure is described below.

 

Available facilities

TNA is offered to the below listed multi-disciplinary platforms. Please click on the platform to read the description of the infrastructure:

PlatformENV research domain / Research InfrastructureCentral contact point / access provider
SMEAR II – HYYTIÄLÄ
(single site-platform)
· Atmosphere, Biosphere (multi-domain)

· ICOS, ACTRIS, ANAEE, eLTER
Tuukka Petäjä (UHEL)
OSUR
(multiple site-platform)
· Atmosphere, Biosphere, Marine, Solid Earth

· ACTRIS
Jean-Pierre Cammas (OSUR-OPAR)
ETNA INGV
(multiple site-platform)
· Atmosphere, Solid Earth

· EPOS
Guiseppe Puglisi (INGV)
SOERE-ACBB
(single site-platform)
· Biosphere (multi-domain)

· ANAEE, ICOS
Abad Chabbi (INRA)

Access opportunities

TNA within ENVRIplus is provided free of charge to selected user groups (single user or user teams). User refers to any scientific researcher, student, engineer, technician, agent from both the public and private sector who needs the support of a multi-disciplinary environmental research platform to perform basic, applied or industrial research, for testing and calibration of instruments, for training of users, for educational purposes, etc.

TNA may be requested to any of the four multi-disciplinary platforms described above. The support of the infrastructure includes:

  • Administrative and logistical support (e.g., customs, transport)
  • Free use of the infrastructure facilities (in agreement with any potential applicable national laws, local safety and health regulations, or other conformity rules)
  • Technical and scientific support
  • Specific training (for use of the infrastructure and/or instrumentation)

Eligibility

To be eligible, the user or user group must satisfy the following conditions:

  • The access must be multi-disciplinary, i.e., it must concern at least two environmental domains from the following: Atmophere, Biosphere, Marine (Hydrosphere), Solid Earth, or multi-domain.
  • The access must be transnational (i.e., the user group leader and the majority of the users must work in a country other than the country(ies) where the research platform is located.
  • Only user groups that are allowed to disseminate the results they have generated under the action may benefit from the access, unless the users are working for SMEs.
  • The call should be carried out during the applicable access period.

Funding

Financial support of up to 10 000€ per project may be granted to facilitate the TNA. It is provided to contribute to the user costs for travel, subsistence, instrumental transport or other, if justified. Financial support is only available upon request.

How to apply

In order to apply you should download and complete the ENVRIplus TNA proposal form. The TNA proposal is accepted for submission any time by any eligible user or user group during the publication of the call and before the call deadline.

Publication date: December 22, 2016

Proposal deadline: February 24, 2017

Evaluation: March – mid-April 2017

Access period: May 1, 2017 – July 31, 2018

The TNA proposal must be submitted by email to envriplus-access@opgc.cnrs.fr.

Evaluation and selection

The proposal undergoes a two-step review procedure:

  • First-stage review: the proposal is pre-screened by the access provider of the research platform for scientific and technical feasibility. Thus, the user group leader is invited to contact the main contact of the research platform to confirm suitability/ feasibility of the TNA project. Only proposals accepted during the first evaluation stage will be considered for mandatory second-stage review.
  • Second-stage review: a multi-disciplinary selection panel consisting of international experts from the different domains atmosphere, biosphere, marine, solid earth, or multi-domain, will assess all proposals received based on agreed selection criteria and recommend a short-list of the user groups that should benefit from access. The evaluation will be based on the following criteria:
    • Originality and scientific quality
    • Quality of the methodology and use of the platform
    • Interest to the scientific community / impact
    • Multi-/ interdisciplinary approach (including multidisciplinary aspect concerning, methodology, expect results, and participating groups)
    • Innovative approach / innovation potential (link to industry)
    • Scientific excellence of the research team
    • Potential training aspects for new or young users

Priority will be given to groups composed of participants who have not previously used the installation (new users). Furthermore, special attention will be paid to female participation according to EU requirements in order to promote equal opportunities in the implementation of the TNA activities.

Post-access

The user group leader of the access project supported under ENVRIplus is requested to provide appropriate documentation to ENVRIplus access management office (envriplus-access@opgc.cnrs.fr), located at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, Laboratory of Physical Meteorology (CNRS-LAMP), France. The documentation will allow justifying the nature and the amount of access provided, including limited user information (e.g., names, nationality, research background), and include a scientific activity report summarizing the scientific objectives and achievements. The reimbursement of the financial support will be carried out according to CNRS accounting practices, and completed after submission of all necessary documentation.

The users are requested to acknowledge the project and the support of the European Community for any results from the work carried out under the ENVRIplus TNA activity (publications, conference contributions, etc.). The results shall include the following statement:

This [acronym of TNA research project] is part of a project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 654182.”

Furthermore, the users are required to provide access to and to allow use of data resulting from the work carried out under the TNA activity (exceptions might apply).