Annex for Franco-Chinese Projects Non-Lead Agency Procedure Generic Call for Proposals 2016 IMPORTANT Evaluation of Franco-Chinese projects will be carried out solely based on the procedures of the Generic Call for Proposals available at the following address: http://www.agence-nationalerecherche.fr/aapg2016, plus the provisions of this document. In case of any difference of interpretation, the French version of the present annex shall prevail ANR Contact Information: aap.generique@agencerecherche.fr NSFC Agency Contact Information: Jin XU xujin@nsfc.gov.cn Tel. : (+8610) 6232 5351 Bureau of International Cooperation, 83, Shuangqing Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100085 NSFC website : http://www.nsfc.gov.cn French National Research Agency Annex for Franco-Chinese projects 1
1. BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES OF COOPERATION WITH CHINA By developing bilateral agreements with foreign funding agencies, ANR enables researchers to initiate or intensify their collaborations as part of its plans to give rise to and foster outstanding teams in Europe and throughout the world. The objective is to support innovative bi-national projects which break away from existing national projects and show seamless synergy between both countries teams and genuinely integrated joint research. In order to simplify and streamline working arrangements, create research funding without borders, ANR and NSFC have decided to forge a new partnership. An agreement was signed between ANR (National Research Agency) and the NSFC (Natural Science Foundation of China) making it easier to set up and implement high-quality scientific projects jointly proposed by French and Chinese research teams. As a part of this agreement, each country s agencies evaluate the proposals of their respective national teams 1 on projects selected according to their own priorities. The purpose of a partnership between ANR and NSFC is to support projects for which there is genuine Franco-Chinese collaboration. Partners will ensure that each country provides equitable contributions and scientific inputs. French and foreign partners should strive to align projects start and end dates. Please note that NSFC has a maximum project length of 36 or 48 months. 2. RESEARCH THEMES The bilateral accord signed with China is open to the following : Water security in watershed (1) Water cycling in watershed and its response to global change (2) Impacts of human activities on water security in watershed, remediation and water management Green chemistry (recycling, reuse, remediation, chemistry bioresources, CO2 transformation) Materials (physical metallurgy) Energy and resource-efficient ICT 3. SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS The French partners and Chinese shall prepare a joint scientific project. Teams from each country must designate a national scientific coordinator. Projects should be submitted in parallel with respective funding agencies. French partners: Projects will be submitted to ANR s PRCI or International Collaborative Research Projects call for proposals under Generic Call for Proposals 2016 Foreign partners: 1 A French team is a partner with an institution or a branch in France. French National Research Agency Annex for Franco-Chinese projects 2
must absolutely comply with the foreign agency s procedures for submission, format, and eligibility, as well as their opening and closing dates. 3.1. EARLY REGISTRATION OF PROPOSALS The French scientific coordinator must give notification via the ANR submission site of their intent to submit a PRCI project by the 15 October 2015 deadline at 1 p.m. (Paris time). Registration is mandatory (see B. 3.3) for participation in the selection process, but no pre-proposal is required at this stage. International project proposals must respect the rules regarding content and format set out in the Generic Call for Proposals text (see B. 3.3 and G. 1.1). Foreign partners must be clearly listed in the online form. The estimated amount of funding requested indicated in the online form should be that of the French partners only. Please note: Applicants having registered an International Collaborative Research Project (PRCI) cannot change funding instruments when submitting their full proposal in the event of their foreign partner s abandonment of participation under a bilateral agreement with the foreign funding agency (other funding instruments being subject to a two-stage selection procedure). The acronym and project title provided to each agency must be the same The choice of acronym and name of the French coordinator are final and cannot be changed in step 2. 3.2 SUBMISSION OF FULL PROPOSALS French PRCI project applicants registered by the deadline will be invited to submit a full proposal to ANR, drafted in English, together with submitters under the PRC, PRCE or JCJC instruments selected after the first stage. The French coordinator should be listed as scientific coordinator on the ANR submission site. Said coordinator shall be subject to the rules (incl. eligibility) applicable to all national scientific coordinators under the Generic Call for Proposals (see sections B. 3.4 and B. 4.2 of the Generic Call). The full proposals for international projects must comply with the rules on format and content set out in the the Generic Call for Proposals text (see B. 4 and G. 2). Administrative information relating to foreign partners must be filled in on the website at the time of submission, but not funding information (indicate budget = 0). The following is the minimum information required concerning foreign partners: the name and address of the institution 2, its category (public/private), the address where research is carried out, and information concerning the foreign coordinator (filled in using the online form). The amount of funding requested should be that of French partners only. Additionally, applicants must absolutely provide the following information in the scientific document: - foreign teams scientific contribution; - funding data, a breakdown of each item of expenditure for foreign partners. 2 Partner as a legal person French National Research Agency Annex for Franco-Chinese projects 3
Finally, applicants are requested to provide a summary table for each French and foreign partner (with the amount indicated in each national currency and its equivalent in euro, if necessary): - The total amount of expenditures; - The amount of funding requested from each funding agency (ANR, NSFC). The summary table of persons involved in the project in annex G. 2.3 of the Generic Call for Proposals will be replaced by the following table: Country University or Institution Last Name First Name Current position Role in the project Involvement (person.months)* Professor? Coordinator? (* to be indicated with respect to the total project duration) Technician? PostDoc to be hired in the frame of the project? 4. ELIGIBILITY OF FULL PROPOSALS Each agency decides on projects eligibility according to its own rules. For foreign agencies with separate eligibility criteria, partners are strongly recommended to read the text for the call published by NSFC agency. ANR verifies the eligibility of the full proposals taking both into account: - The criteria specified in Generic Call for Proposals 2016 (see section B.4.2), - Specific criteria for Franco-Chinese projects described below: The consortium must have at least one partner in France and at least one foreign partner concerned by the bilateral agreement. The same scientific proposal must be submitted to each agency in accordance with their submission rules and deadlines. Proposals which are submitted to a single agency will not be eligible. The project s planned duration must be the same for both countries partners. These eligibility criteria apply in addition to those of the foreign agency. French National Research Agency Annex for Franco-Chinese projects 4
5. EVALUATION Projects are evaluated in parallel by ANR and the foreign agency according to their own evaluation procedures. Each project is thus assessed on both sides. As regards ANR, projects are evaluated according to the same criteria as other projects under Generic Call for Proposals 2016. The criteria specific to the PRCI instrument mentioned in section B. 4.3.1 are also taken into account. With regard to the Balanced scientific and financial contributions from respective countries partners criterion, the economic context of the partners countries is taken into account. Additionally, ANR and the foreign agency shall jointly decide on the projects to be funded, on the basis of those selected under both selection processes, specific to each agency. 6. FUNDING PROVISIONS Each agency will cover expenditures of their respective country s teams according to its own rules. ANR s funding regulations are available at: http://www.agence-nationale-recherche.fr/rf 7. CALENDAR ANR website proposal registration closure date: 15 October 2015 at 1 p.m. (Paris time) Joint decision and publication of results: September (indicative date) Tentative project launch time: year-end 2016/adjustable depending on foreign partners constraints. French National Research Agency Annex for Franco-Chinese projects 5