Who can apply?

The ICT-AGRI Partnerships is open for public and private enterprises from any country.

Funding

ICT-AGRI does not provide funding to partnerships. The mebers of the partnerships are required to use existing grants or to apply for grants from national or regional funding bodies. A further option is to use own funding.

Proposal development

Proposals are created and developed in the ICT-AGRI website. Follow the guidelines in "Getting started" and "Guidelines for Proposers". The proposal handling system is designed to secure confidentiality.

The partners in an ICT-AGRI Partnership are projects, which are funded or intended to be funded by a regional, national or international funding agency, or is funded by the organisation it belongs to. Each project must be identified and described in the proposal.

The partnership has its own objectives and work plan, which are also to be described in the proposal. 

Proposal submission

The partnership coordinator submits the proposal in the website. Submissions are received until the end of 2016.

Proposal reviews

ICT-AGRI request reviews from two independent experts within a time limit of two weeks. The reviews are accessible in the ICT-AGRI website for partnership members and funding agencies. The partnership is allowed to modify the proposal according to recommendations from the reviewers. ICT-AGRI is entitled to refuse further progress of a proposal as recommended by the reviewers.

Proposal approval

The implicated funding agencies are requested to approve the participation of the projects they are funding. In case of projects not already funded, this approval is made conditional on funding by the funding agency's internal procedures. Projects with own funding do not need any approvals. Approvals are expected to be done within a week.

The partnership may start when all partners are approved finally or conditionally. In the latter case it is up to the partnership to decide when to start. 

Partnerships in action

The partnerships in action are responsible for carrying out the work as described in the proposal. Details about active partnerships are published in the ICT-AGRI website. The partnership members are responsible for keeping the information updated as well as for responding to inquiries from the R&D community.

Partnerships members will be invited to ICT-AGRI summits to bring together funded projects and partnerships with industry and other stakeholders.

Contributions to increased compatibility

Partnerships are expected to contribute actively to increased compatibility within ICT and robotics in agriculture by using open standards as far as possible. Partnerships are also expected to publish details concerning custom models for data exchange whenever this is not in conflict with legitimate IP rights. Publishing is to be done in the ICT-AGRI website (tools for this are under development).