Call for Europe Adoption Grants
03 December 2018 - 10:00 to 04 March 2019 - 17:00
RDA Europe has launched a Call for projects in European organisations that adopt existing RDA Recommendations and Outputs.
The intent of the call is to support and encourage examples of adoption which can benefit others, to promote these examples and to learn lessons about benefits and challenges that arise from making use of RDA recommendations. Since its inception in 2013, 17 Recommendations and 11 Outputs have been produced by RDA Working Groups and Interest Groups (see the following link for a complete list).
These are very wide ranging, addressing registries for persistent identifiers and data types, policy templates, repository audit methodologies, standards directories, curricula, wheat data interoperability, data/literature cross-linking and many other topics. Opportunities for implementation are equally wide-ranging and address a diverse set of stakeholder groups. A number of recommendations have also been endorsed as ICT technical specifications by the European Multi-Stakeholder Platform on ICT specifications (see them here). The RDA Europe Adoption Grants Call will support 8 projects up to a maximum of €15,000 each. Projects should be short and focused activities that run for up to 12 months that result in the use of one or more RDA Recommendations and Outputs in a context capable of providing lessons to other potential adopters. A number of conditions must be met as outlined below. The deadline for submitting applications is 04 March 2019.
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Projects must adopt one or more existing RDA recommendation(s) and/or Output(s) (focus on the RDA ICT Technical Specifications is a plus) and have sufficient knowledge to implement without significant assistance from the originating WG/IG members.
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The project must add value to the RDA output by providing a practical use case, a description of benefits of adoption, guidelines that can assist others in adoption, and/or constructive criticism and recommendations for improvement if the planned adoption was challenging for any reason.
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Projects can focus on particular research domains or cross-discipline use cases, but cross-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary projects will be favoured where this is appropriate to the recommendation being adopted.
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The project partners must demonstrate that there is appropriate co-funding (e.g. person effort, in-kind contributions, match funding etc)
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All projects are expected to present their adoption case in a webinar and/or plenary and provide written case studies and final reports to assist others to make decisions on output adoption and to carry out that adoption. The RDA has the right to publish outcomes and written summaries non-exclusively on RDA media.
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Outcomes / Adoption grant results must be available for at least 4 years after the end of the project.
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There is no constraint on the context in which adoption can take place. It can be within a research group, an organisation, a discipline, a tool, a data service or any other context in which adoption can provide lessons for others. Applications from industry, charity, research organisations, public bodies and learned societies are all welcome provided that they come from groups eligible for European funding.
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Organizations from EU member states and associated countries are eligible for application.
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People working on the RDA Europe 4.0 project (i.e. funded as a core partner, as a node or seconded personnel) are not eligible for the Adoption grant scheme.
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Successful applicants will be contracted with the University of Goettingen, on behalf of the RDA 4.0 Europe consortium. The contract will be with the lead applicant’s organisation only. The successful applicants will be expected to adhere to good project management practices, follow the obligations of Horizon2020 funding schemes, submit regular reports and participate in meetings as appropriate.
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All results will be presented to and reviewed by the RDA Europe grants committee using the criteria detailed below.
Your proposal should take account of the RDA Guiding Principles and demonstrate commitment to this ethos. Specifically, proposals should promote the principles of openness, consensus, balance, harmonization, community-driven and non-profit approaches. There are four main criteria against which your proposal will be evaluated, weighted as follows:
Use case (20%)
The proposed use case for adoption must be strong and well thought through in terms of implementation and the value that it will derive for end users. Proposers should be awareness of the existing output(s) to be adopted and how it can be applied to improve the situation and generate benefits. A clear workplan with well-defined activities and a realistic timeline for implementation and testing is required.Suggested outputs and KPIs:
- A clear workplan and timeline;
- Documented plans for user testing and evaluation.
Community connections (20%)
The proposal should provide a clear explanation of the community of use to ensure the adoption case addresses a genuine need and is usable. Applicants should have links with relevant stakeholders to define requirements, implement and test adoption. Outcomes should be evaluated and reflected on honestly with pointers to barriers and challenges encountered to help improve future adoption.Suggested outputs and KPIs:
- At least one user group session, programme of usability testing or open consultation to gather stakeholder views and feedback on the implementation and how it addresses the needs identified;
- List of organisations, disciplines and communities engaged.
Potential impact (30%)
The proposal should describe the size of the community and what the proposers imagine will change as a result of the adoption (e.g. greater efficiencies, feasibility to do new research / analysis that wasn’t possible before etc). Cross-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary projects are favoured, and proposals indicate how relevant their specific adoption case will be to others, and demonstrate how their work impacts a wider group, for example by engaging with multiple RDA WG/IG, collaborating with ECRs, ambassadors, universities, research infrastructures and other key projects.
Some Recommendations and Outputs lend themselves more to application by others. The depth of adoption and potential impact will form part of the evaluation, so working with multiple complementary Recommendations and Outputs, or exploring one in depth may be beneficial.
Suggested outputs and KPIs:
- Produce a paper for the CODATA Data Science journal which outlines your adoption case and reports on the impact achieved.
Communication and sustainability (30%)
Projects must document their work clearly and provide short guides to assist others in doing similar or related work. These could include short case studies of the adoption case, longer technical specifications to assist in implementation, presentation materials, videos and training materials. Every project is required to give at least one webinar as part of the RDA Europe series to explain their adoption case and report on outcomes. Projects should also be willing to attend relevant RDA events and plenaries to present posters and papers on their work. Projects are required to sustain the outputs they produce for a minimum of 4 years. They should be openly licensed, and details of the licence(s) to be used should be in your proposal if relevant.Suggested outputs & KPIs:
- Adopters should produce relevant documentation to help others learn about their adoption case e.g. case studies, specifications, videos and presentations;
- outputs should be openly licensed and maintained in a FAIR form for a minimum of 4 years;
- a final report and budget according to the template provided by RDA Europe is due no later than 2 months after the end of the project.
Important dates
Application period opens - 03 December 2018
Application period closes - 04 March 2019, 17:00 CET
Notification of results - 04 April 2019
Latest update 10th January 2019