Call announcement: first transnational call for research projects

The ERA-MarineBiotech is pleased to announce the first transnational joint call for research projects related to “The development of biorefinery processes for marine biomaterials”. The main purpose of the call is to stimulate joint European research and development activities in marine biotechnology.

Together, the 13 funding organisations involved in this call expect to support around 8 Mill. € for marine biotechnology research. Transnational research consortia from academia, research institutes and industry are invited to submit proposals that develop new and/or improved biotechnological knowledge, tools and methods for the sustainable processing of marine biomass into a variety of bio-based products and/or services. This is best achieved through integrated biorefinery processes ideally utilising all molecular fractions present in the relevant biomass. Funding will be granted for a maximum of three years according to national regulations.

Each proposal must involve partners from at least three different countries but no more than eight partners overall. Submissions of proposals will be in a two step procedure: a pre-proposal step with submission deadline by December 10, 2014, and a full proposal step for invited consortia with submission deadline by April 30, 2015. Projects are expected to start at the end of 2015 / beginning of 2016.

The call text and guidelines for applicants with full details can be found on the project website at: /projects/marinebiotech/first-transnational-call.

Proposals can be submitted through the ERA-MBT online submission system: www.submission-marinebiotech.eu.
Project partners can use the partnering platform within the submission system to enter offers and requests for project ideas and build up a project consortium.

For any queries, please contact the ERA-MBT Joint Call Secretariat, led by Project Management Jülich (PtJ), Germany or your national/regional funding organisations, which are listed in the call text.