Apply AI: Challenge-Driven AI Innovation Booster in Apply AI prioritised sectors (RIA) (Partnership in AI, Data and Robotics)

General conditions 1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limit and layout described in Annex A and Annex E of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes. Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System. 2. Eligible Countries described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes. A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide. 3. Other Eligible Conditions In order to achieve the expected outcomes, and safeguard the Union’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy, and security, it is important to avoid a situation of technological dependency on a non-EU source, in a global context that requires the EU to take action to build on its strengths, and to carefully assess and address any strategic weaknesses, vulnerabilities and high-risk dependencies which put at risk the attainment of its ambitions. For this reason, participation is limited to legal entities established in Member States, Iceland and Norway and the following additional associated countries: Canada, Israel, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. In addition, entities established in third countries which may become associated to Horizon Europe during 2026 and 2027 may be eligible to participate in this topic if the third country is identified for this topic as an eligible country in the List of Participating Countries in Horizon Europe at the time of submission of the application[[See the List of Participating Countries in Horizon Europe available at https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/common/guidance/list-3rd-country-participation_horizon-euratom_en.pdf.]]. In any case, the association agreement to the Programme must apply by the time of the signature of the grant agreement. For the duly justified and exceptional reasons listed in the paragraph above, in order to guarantee the protection of the strategic interests of the Union and its Member States, entities established in an eligible country listed above, but which are directly or indirectly controlled by a non-eligible country or by a non-eligible country entity, may not participate in the action unless it can be demonstrated, by means of guarantees positively assessed by their eligible country of establishment, that their participation to the action would not negatively impact the Union’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy, or security. Entities established in an eligible country, but which are directly or indirectly controlled by China or by a legal entity established in China cannot submit guarantees. [[ The guarantees shall in particular substantiate that, for the purpose of the action, measures are in place to ensure that: a) control over the applicant legal entity is not exercised in a manner that retrains or restricts its ability to carry out the action and to deliver results, that imposes restrictions concerning its infrastructure, facilities, assets, resources, intellectual property or know-how needed for the purpose of the action, or that undermines its capabilities and standards necessary to carry out the action; b) access by a non-eligible country or by a non-eligible country entity to sensitive information relating to the action is prevented; and the employees or other persons involved in the action have a national security clearance issued by an eligible country, where appropriate; c) ownership of the intellectual property arising from, and the results of, the action remain within the recipient during and after completion of the action, are not subject to control or restrictions by non-eligible countries or non-eligible country entity, and are not exported outside the eligible countries, nor is access to them from outside the eligible countries granted, without the approval of the eligible country in which the legal entity is established.]] Described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes. 4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes. 5a. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds To ensure a balanced portfolio covering different sectors, grants will be awarded to applications not only in order of ranking, but also to at least one proposal that is the highest ranked, within the healthcare, advanced manufacturing and in-vehicle autonomous driving sectors respectively, provided that the proposals attain all thresholds. Described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes. 5b. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual. 5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes. 6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants Beneficiaries must provide financial support to third parties. The support to third parties can only be provided in the form of grants. FSTP grants may be provided to either a single SME or to a small team of legal entities. Where provided to a small team, the coordinator (lead applicant) must be an SME and other recipients of financial support must be either an SME, a research organisation, and/or public body secondary or higher education establishment. FSTP amounts: The maximum amount to be granted per FSTP grant (whether provided to one legal entity or a team of legal entities) is EUR 300,000 in stage 2 and EUR 2,250,000 in stage 3. The amount of EUR 300,000 in stage 2 is justified as the challenge and corresponding tasks defined for this stage must be complex enough in order to take the best and most informed decision in the selection for the next stage based on a convincing technical prototype/proof of concept that reaches sufficient level of performance in terms of scale and maturity. The amount of EUR 2,250,000 in stage 3 is justified by the ambition of reaching significant technology progress and innovation, defined in the expected outcome of the call, including the need for the selected projects to scale their solutions to the maturity expected. The maximum amount to be granted to each third party is EUR 2,550,000. In accordance with Annex 5 of the grant agreement “SPECIFIC RULES FOR CARRYING OUT THE ACTION (— ARTICLE 18) Implementation in case of restrictions due to strategic assets, interests, autonomy or security of the EU and its Member States ”, by default beneficiaries must ensure that, inter alia, no recipient of FSTP is (i) established in a country which is not an eligible country (as identified in the specific conditions for eligibility) or (ii) controlled by such countries or entities from such countries (directly or indirectly as per the specific conditions for eligibility). In line with the possibility for the granting authority to agree otherwise, as concerns control of SMEs or private research organisations that participate as recipients of FSTP, beneficiaries must only ensure that such entities are not directly majority-owned (i.e., more than 50% of the capital) by entities established in non-eligible countries. Described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes. Specific conditions described in the topic conditions