Funding

EMIL has executed two open calls for funding which closed in January and August 2023 respectively. However, the EMIL network is an open network that is always looking for new members and growth.

These two funding periods were aimed at European-based XR technology developers and content creators. The EMIL consortium partners are in the process of and will continue to support and guide the funded Financial Support for Third Parties (FSTP) projects towards their goals. EMIL’s funded projects are provided with 250,000-500,000€ funding per selected project, with a duration of 15 months. The funding is targeted at media innovators, outstanding technology developers, SMEs, academia, and others that enable new ways of creative storytelling and interaction through immersive media technologies. The funding covers 100% of the applied for costs of the project and certain resources of EMIL nodes are available to the projects on top of the funded sum.

The first call, EMIL-1, was opened on 1 Dec 2022 and ended 31 Jan 2023.

The second call, EMIL-2, was opened on 12 June and ended 14 August 2023.

The external submission page for EMIL call 2 was: https://emil-xr.aalto.fi/ 

For any questions about the calls contact us at call@emil-xr.eu!

Thematic areas

EMIL project invites proposals, especially for areas related to the core competencies of the consortium partners and the four Lighthouse projects that reflect the expertise and supporting infrastructure of EMIL. However, XR-project proposals that are not directly related to these four areas will also be considered. We provide brief descriptions of the core competencies and the thematic tracks of EMIL.

Wearable Haptic Interfaces for XR

Adding tactile sensations to XR has proved to enhance the immersive experience and has attracted tremendous attention from both academia and industry. EMIL develops smart garments (e.g., gloves and shirts) that combine vibrotactile, electrotactile and potentially also chemical stimulations to implement various tactile sensations and integrate stimulations into textiles. We will open source the designs of our smart garments and will provide open APIs for (re)configuring and (re)activating tactile sensations. FSTP projects in this area are expected to focus on XR experience design utilizing the smart garments developed by EMIL or new designs of smart garments that provide different types of tactile sensations. In either case, the proposed designs are expected to be prototyped and evaluated through user tests. Each FSTP project is free to choose any type of XR applications for demonstration and is encouraged to demonstrate the interplay between tactile sensation and other sensory modalities.

Affective Exergaming in Virtual Environments

Virtual environments hold great promise in supporting users to be physically active. EMIL is developing technologies to enable gamified exercise (“exergames”) in an effective and motivating manner; e.g. allowing users to interact naturally in virtual environments by cycling on an exercycle or running and jumping on the spot. Besides physical activity, our technologies make it possible to measure how users feel (“affect”) and to adjust and optimise virtual environments accordingly. We demonstrate the value of these technologies in VR exergames for sports training and rehabilitation, optimising the user experience to be both physically engaging and emotionally motivating. Possible FSTP projects include VR experiences that engage users through physical activity; e.g. for sport, rehabilitation and entertainment, and affective VR experiences such as interactive narratives.

Group-oriented Spatial AR

The common and cost-effective type of AR experience, based on smartphones or tablets, is often difficult to adopt by users and is isolating, which breaks the group dynamics user experience (UX) of visitors in public spaces such as museums, culture centres, heritage sites, schools, etc. Headset-based AR is also considered to be isolating as well as high cost, lacks robustness, and presents hygiene issues that have become obvious during the pandemic. Moreover, both types of technologies force every participant to use/wear a device, which is often not possible (e.g. motor or cognitive disabilities) or not desirable (e.g. invasiveness), hence leading to non-inclusive and non-accessible experiences. We expect novel approaches to group-based AR experiences for public spaces that: keep the sense of group UX; do not force all users in a group to use a device; and allow a situated, shared, co-located experience. Proposals of such AR experiences for public spaces may take advantage of UPF’s novel World-as-Support paradigm and the device that makes it feasible, the AR Magic Lantern. The SDK will support the rapid prototyping of experiences for this platform and will allow the proposal of novel augmentation of content and meaning for contexts such as learning, digital tourism, heritage transfer to younger generations, storytelling, an increase of interest in historical knowledge, etc. Other proposals of AR technologies that foster group-oriented, co-located, and situated experiences will also be considered, as well as other application areas.

Narrative Immersive Media Productions including Location Based
Experiences (LBX)

A solid narrative structure builds the foundation for any successful media production. In this context, we are expecting FSTP proposals with a strong emphasis on Animation, Digital Actors, and Visual Effects including Virtual Production, Interactive Installations, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, and Game formats utilizing the latest technological advancements to tell compelling stories. Running such productions is supported by an ecosystem of hard- and software tools to optimize workflows while preserving maximum creative freedom. The scalable LBX created within the EMIL project tells a compelling story by means of visual and physical immersion. LBX by nature is restricted to dedicated hardware and spatial constraints, therefore the experience is planned in different scales: individually seated, individually in a room-scale environment, and as a group experience in a large room-scale environment. LBX and existing toolsets are expected to foster and blossom FSTP projects with strong narrative elements in XR.

Open track

The open track is for the proposals for VR, AR or MR productions or development projects that do not fall into any of the four thematic areas mentioned above. We expect to see radically different approaches with innovative and surprising content productions, applications, and/or services of extended reality such as Virtual Productions utilizing the latest achievements in real-time graphics for VFX, character-centric applications including animated assistive services where believable facial animation of humanoids are essential, etc.

General Requirements for FSTP Projects

The EMIL funding calls will be open to all legal entities located within an EU member state or in a Horizon Europe (HE) associated country and possessing a validated Participant Identification Code (PIC) granted by the European Commission (EC) will be required at the time of signature. The proposals should include a plan on how they can benefit from the expertise and/or infrastructure of EMIL lab nodes.

Requirements for eligibility of applicants

The proposal must be submitted by a legal entity located within an EU member state or in a Horizon Europe (HE) associated country. The applicant must be eligible to receive HE funding.

The legal entity must register in the Participant Register before submitting their application, in order to get a participant identification code (PIC) and be validated by the Central Validation Service (REA Validation) before signing the FSTP agreement. For the validation, they will be asked to upload the necessary documents showing their legal status and origin during the grant preparation stage. A validated PIC is not a prerequisite for applying, however, it must be validated before the funding can be admitted.

Applicants cannot be affiliated with the EMIL consortium partners nor can they be employees of the EMIL partners. All potential conflicts of interest will be assessed carefully. Please see more info here.

Individuals will not be permitted to act as project coordinators in more than one application.

The applicants submitting the proposal have not had a proposal funded in a previous EMIL application window.

Eligibility of UK-based entities

Due to the complexities of the UK-EU research relationship, UK companies, and other UK entities, unfortunately, are not eligible for funding.

Financial eligibility requirements for applicants

Financial and viability checks will be made to ensure Horizon Europe funding eligibility. It will be verified that:

1. The applicant is entitled to carry on the business; the applicant is registered in the trade register or in an equivalent register.
2. The applicant’s financial resources are sufficient regarding the volume and quality of the procurement.
3. The applicant has paid 1) taxes, 2) pension contributions, and 3) social security contributions and is able to effect the payments of any similar social liabilities.
4. All the above-mentioned requirements apply both to the principal applicant and to possible subcontractors.
5. If subcontractors are being used the funding rules of Horizon Europe must be followed (the best value for money and no conflict of interest).

Financial viability

The applicant’s financial viability must be on a sufficient level prior to the signing of the grant agreement.

• Applicant’s turnover or average magnitude of the business in years 2018 – 2021 (where available) plus a forecast for the project timeframe (2022-2025) was on average at least the value of the proposed FSTP project grant. Financial reports that would include P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow will be asked prior to the grant agreement. The profit and loss calculation tool can be used for evaluating the applicant’s financial situation.

OR

• if the applicant concerned is a new company or entrepreneur, the applicant’s financial information (the latest balance sheet, a business plan, and a statement from the bank) on the basis of which the financial resources can be verified plus a forecast for the project time frame (2023-2025) will be required prior to the signing of the grant agreement.

AND

• Statement of outstanding taxes and certificates of pension and social security contributions.

The reports are not required in the application phase, but they may be asked later.

Additional Eligibility Criteria

• The submissions must propose future-oriented eXtended Reality (XR) projects; i.e. using Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR), or similar immersive and interactive technologies. These should propose a clear innovation in the field, whether at a technological level (bringing the technology up from TRL4 to TRL8) or at a content level (providing a novel type of experience with these technologies and media).
• The proposal is submitted before the specific cut-off date deadline as defined in the call;
• The proposal is submitted online through our exclusive application platform as defined in the call;
• The proposal uses the mandatory application template provided by EMIL;
• The proposal is written and submitted in English only;
• Applications must be readable, accessible, and printable.
• Applications should not contain sensitive personal data or trade secrets
• Applicant must be able to validate the content of the proposal if required at a later stage.
• Applicants are discouraged from using subcontractors. They can only be used in special situations. Subcontractors are subject to the same eligibility and certification obligations as FSTP applicants themselves.

How to write the application

1. 1. Please replace the text in [square brackets] with the appropriate text.
   2. In the footer of the document, replace the text “[Name of the project]” with the name of your project (or if it is very long, use a shorter version instead).
   3. Please use the given structure and headlines.
   4. Please describe your project so that you do not reveal potential trade secrets. In addition, please do not include any personal data that is not available publicly.
   5. Please be aware that an eligibility and compliance check will be conducted prior to the final selection.
   6. Please note that the top-ranked projects which could potentially be funded will undergo an ethics screening to assess whether there are any ethics or security issues.
   7. When the document is ready, please update the Table of Content and save the document as PDF
   8. The template document is made in MS Word and may not work as smoothly in other applications. We understand that, and it will not make your application worse.
   9. In this document you should give
      • i) Admin information; name and contacts, financial information of the applicant,
      • ii) The cover page and abstract of the proposal and
      • iii) Application form
        IMPORTANT: Page limit is 15 pages excluding these information pages, Organisation information and Cover pages. Exceeding the 15 pages can cause the application will not be evaluated!
      • iv) Application form: Header 1.2 cm, Footer 1.29cm, Margins: Top 1.96cm, Bottom 2.5cm, Left and Right 2cm
      • v) Use the following styles and fonts: Normal: Arial 10pt, 1.5 lines, space before 6pt; Heading 1: Arial Bold 14, 1.5 lines, numbering; Heading 2: Arial Bold 12, 1.5 lines, space after 6pt, numbering; Heading 3: Arial 12, 1.5 lines Space after 6pt, numbering. Lists can be used without space after.

Submission

• The application phase for the first call has ended. The second call, EMIL-2, is expected to open June 2023 and its deadline to be early August 2023.
• On the application website please fill in the information asked: name and contacts, and abstract.
• Upload your application and click ‘Send’. You should get an email receipt of the successfully submitted application.

Evaluation steps

The present guide defines the evaluation criteria for FSTP proposals presented to the calls for projects of EMIL. This guide is both addressed to FSTP proposal writers as well as to the expert panels that will evaluate the proposals. In this manner, the criteria are unified and proposal writers will understand how their proposals will be evaluated.

1. The eligibility of the proposals will be checked by the
   Programme Committee (PC). These checks will continue to take place
   alongside the following steps.
2. The international Independent Experts Panel (IEP) will be formed for each proposal to match their focus. The proposals will be evaluated by two international independent experts in the field that will seek a balance between academia and industry, as well as gender parity whenever possible.
3. The evaluation reports are created according to the evaluation criteria (below).
4. The PC will then integrate the individual reports of the IEP members for each FSTP proposal.
5. The technological experts at EMIL Nodes will assess their technological feasibility and the adequacy of resources that the proposals ask to use from the Nodes during their execution.
6. If specific evaluation is found necessary, an expert from EMIL’s Scientific Advisory Group will be asked to also review the proposal and further modulate the final score.
7. The PC will then generate a final ranked list of proposals according to their global grades as per the previous steps and will propose this list for funding to EMIL’s General Assembly.
8. Once the aforementioned list is ratified by the EGA, it will be published in EMIL’s website (https://emil-xr.eu)

This evaluation process will take about 10 weeks to complete, after which the negotiation period will start with each FSTP proposal grantee.

Evaluation criteria

The proposal review will be based on the principles of relevance, transparency, equity, efficiency, quality, and independence as well as the best practices laid out in the European Science Foundation Peer Review Guide. To support this, guidelines on integrity will be developed and promoted to all parties involved in the review process, including applicants, reviewers, committee members, and staff.

Proposals will be ranked by the Programme Committee (PC) (according to the grades provided by the IEP members for each proposal and the modulation of these grades by the EMIL Node experts and an expert from EMIL’s Scientific Advisory Board) based on the categories of Excellence & Relevance, Quality, Efficiency, Impact, Sustainability, and Implementation as described below. Each category will receive a score between 0 and 5 with the following meanings:
5: Excellent: The proposal successfully addresses all relevant aspects of the criterion in question. Any shortcomings are minor.
4: Good: The proposal addresses the criterion well, although certain improvements are possible.
3: Fair: While the proposal broadly addresses the criterion, there are significant weaknesses that would need correcting.
2: Poor: There are serious inherent weaknesses in relation to the criterion in question.
1: Very poor: The criterion is addressed in a cursory and unsatisfactory manner.
0: Not addressed at all: The criterion is not addressed at all in the proposal.
A minimum threshold of 3 out of 5 is needed for every category. However, the proposal must score at least 17 out of 25 (17/25) to be ranked. Additionally, the categories are weighted as indicated below.

Excellence & Relevance

(0-5 points, threshold 3) (20% weight)

Extent to which the objectives of the FSTP Project are consistent with the EMIL-HORIZON-CL4-2021-HUMAN-01-06 call objectives. The main aspects are listed below:

• Developing ground-breaking XR experiences, open APIs, and access to substantial production aspects, as EMIL nodes are doing with their lighthouse projects. Proposals must explore the feasibility of a new or improved technology, product, process, service, or solution.
• Effective and timely delivery of FSTP projects, by making a rational and realistic use of EMIL’s nodes resources and relying on a consortium of experienced researchers, project managers, developers, industry representatives and content creators, with constant verification of progress.
• Enter EMIL’s network of support and expertise, initially based on the EMIL nodes and associated industry and education institutions, to exchange know-how and best practice, making effective use of all aspects of XR projects to achieve a mature European expert network which can exist beyond EMIL.
• Promote community building between the FSTPs and create strategic relations with industrial, commercial, and institutional supporters to increase the impact of results and ensure the longevity of the networked laboratory after completion.
• To disseminate and exploit results at key European events and guide project results into commercialization.

Quality

(0-5 points, threshold 3) (20% weight)

Extent to which the FSTP Project’s objectives are expected to be achieved, considering their relative importance.

• How future-oriented the proposal is: proof of the novelty; references of similar XR experiences; how the proposal is different from those; and how it advances in the field of XR; i.e. the extent to which the proposed work is ambitious, and goes beyond the state-of-the-art.
• If technological advances are proposed how they will move from TRL4 to TRL8, making a significant advance in XR technology.
• Relevant experience and capacity to implement the proposed solution (Does the team have the required skills to develop the proposed solution, is there complementary competencies in the team, …).
• Accuracy in the description of objectives and the procedures to achieve them

Implementation

(0-5 points, threshold 3) (20% weight)

The quality, coherence, and structure of the workplan to achieve the proposal in an efficient way (see point 4. Efficiency). Soundness of the proposed methodology, including the underlying concepts, models, assumptions, interdisciplinary approaches, appropriate consideration of the gender dimension, etc.

• The definition of work packages, tasks, milestones, and deliverables is coherent with project objectives and work to be achieved, and will favour successful completion
• Gantt chart showing feasibility of workplan.
• Risk Management Plan to increase the probability of the project success by identifying potential challenging tasks early and envisaging mitigation measures to avoid or reduce the probability of negative occurrence.
• Budget definition in consonance with the proposal’s ambition and needs.
• Description of how the implementation will support the funding plan of the call (40% + 40% + 20% check the text of the Calls) which needs some interim co-funding.

Efficiency

(0-5 points, threshold 3) (20% weight)

Extent to which the outputs and/or desired effects have been planned with an optimised use of resources (funds, expertise, time, administrative costs, etc.).

• Rational analysis and justification of resources needed:
  • related to the budget of the proposal, and
  • related to the resources of EMIL Nodes.
• Capacity and role of each member in the proposal, and extent to which they bring together the necessary expertise.

Impact and Sustainability

(0-5 points, threshold 3) (20% weight)

• Expected impacts with Key Performance Indicators to measure them. Positive and negative, primary and secondary long-term effects produced by the FSTP Project, directly or indirectly, intended or unintended. Extent to which the benefits from the FSTP Project continue after the funding period, or the probability that they continue in the long-term in a way that is resilient to risks.
• Credibility of the pathways to achieve the expected outcomes and impacts specified in the work plan, and the likely scale and significance of the contributions due to the project.
• Quality of the Ethics Self-assessment. All proposals will undergo an ethics screening to detect if there are any potential ethical or security risks.
• Suitability and quality of the measures to maximize expected outcomes and impacts, as set out in the dissemination and exploitation plan, including communication activities.
• Means and measures to provide continuity of the exploitation after the funding and the project are over.
• Description of the IP that is expected to be generated from the proposal and how they will be dealt with.