2025 Call Europe, Latin América and Caribbean

The 5th EU-LAC call aims to maintain sustainable, multilateral co-operation between researchers from Europe and associated countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Transnational collaborative research and innovation (R&I) projects will be funded for a maximum period of 36 months, contributing to the implementation of the R&I roadmaps of the EU-LAC Policy Dialogue (https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/news/all-research-and-innovation-news/european-commission-hosts-bi-regional-meeting-latin-america-and-caribbean-2023-12-01_en) in which Portugal participates through the FCT.

The EU-LAC Interest Group (IG) arose from the end of the EU-LAC ERA-Nets (ERA-NETLAC - 2013-2017), supported by the European Commission and in which FCT participated. This group continued the launch of Joint Transnational Calls (JTCs) with the aim of stimulating cooperation in science, technology and innovation (STI) and is composed of 29 funding agencies from the regions concerned.

TOPICS

Applications to be supported by the FCT should focus on the following topics:

2. Bioeconomy: Bioeconomy and Nature-based Solutions

5. Energy: Co-operation for energy transition

6. Open science: Co-operation in open science

The following are individual or co-promotion beneficiaries:

a) Non-entrepreneurial entities of the R&I system, namely:

    i. Higher education institutions, their institutes and R&D units;

    ii. State, Associated or International Laboratories based in Portugal;

   iii. Private non-profit institutions whose main purpose is R&D activities, including Collaborative Laboratories (CoLab) and Technology and Innovation Centres (TIC);

   iv. Other non-profit public and private institutions developing or participating in scientific research activities.

b) Companies of any nature and in any legal form.

The information contained in this section does not exempt you from consulting Article 3 of the Regulation of projects financed exclusively by national funds, Regulation no. 5/2024, of 3 January, rectified by the Declaration of Rectification no. 366/2024/2, of 23 May 2024 which amend and republish Regulation no. 999/2016, of 31 October (see FCT Regulation in Call Documents).

The call will consist of a single application phase in two parts (submission of Proposal Application Form, and completion of Online Submission Form).

Each Proposing Institution (PI) that is part of a transnational consortium can only apply for funding from the Participating Funding Agencies (PFAs) in its country or region. See the Call Text (in Call Documents) for information on the eligibility rules of each PFA and on the transnational eligibility rules. For a proposal to be eligible, it must comply with the national and transnational eligibility rules.

To submit their application, each Portuguese PI wishing to apply for funding from FCT should:

1. consult the Call Documents area;
2. consult FCT elegibility rules (see the Call Text);
3. submit, by the transnational consortium coordinator, the proposal form on the application submission platform (see Important links) by 16:00 GMT in mainland Portugal on 22/05/2025;
4. send to the FCT, within 10 working days after the deadline for submitting the application, a Statement of Commitment (SoC) completed and signed by the Portuguese Researcher in Charge (RC) identified by the PI and by a qualified representative of the PI. The SoC should be sent to the email address indicated in Contacts.

Please Note:

• Failure to send the SoC to FCT on the date referred to in paragraph 4, or the unjustified delivery of the SoC after that deadline, or the delivery of an incomplete SoC, without one of the two parts – RC and PI – that make it up or without the signatures of the Portuguese RC and/or a qualified representative of the Portuguese PI, will result in the application being declared ineligible.
• If two or more Portuguese applicants from the same transnational consortium apply for funding from FCT, each must send a completed and signed SoC to FCT.
• One SoC must be sent to FCT for each application submitted by the same RC and PI.
• Portuguese partners of transnational consortia that do not apply for funding from FCT do not need to submit the SoC to FCT.  
• The PI stamp or white seal is only required on manually signed SoC.

The information on this page is only a summary of the call, does not exempt the candidates from carefully reading all the call documents available on this page and on the call website (see Important links) and refers only to FCT’s participation in this call, unless expressly indicated.

Elegibility

The eligibility check of applications is carried out in one single stage:

• National/Regional Funding Agencies check national eligibility of applications, ensuring compliance with the formal requirements in the applicable national/regional regulations and other applicable documents (see FCT Regulation, Normas de execução financeira and national annexes in the Call Documents area).
• Transnational eligibility check of applications will be performed by the Call Secretariat, according to the transnational eligibility criteria presented in the Call Text in the Call Documents area.

Please Note:

• For a proposal to be declared eligible it must fulfil both the national and transnational criteria.

Evaluation

There will only be one evaluation phase in this call. The applications will be assessed by an evaluation panel, made up of independent international experts, according to the evaluation criteria described in the Call Text in the Call Documents area.

It is up to the participating national/regional funding agencies to decide jointly which applications to recommend for funding.

• FCT financial commitment for the call: 300 000,00€
• Maximum requested funding for a consortium with Portuguese coordination:  200 000,00€
• Maximum requested funding for a consortium with Portuguese participation:  100 000,00€

Please Note:

• Portuguese institutions funding must follow FCT’s Regulation of projects financed exclusively by national funds, Regulation no. 5/2024, of 3 January, rectified by the Declaration of Rectification no. 366/2024/2, of 23 May 2024 which amend and republish Regulation no. 999/2016, of 31 October (see FCT Regulation and Normas de execução financeira, in the Call Documents area, and the applicable national and European legislation).
• If more than one Portuguese applicant from the same transnational consortium applies for funding from FCT, the combined budget requested from FCT by the Portuguese applicants may not exceed the maximum funding limit for a consortium with Portuguese coordination (200 000,00€) or with Portuguese participation (100 000,00€). The Portuguese applicants of the same transnational consortium will have to share the funding that will be granted by FCT.
• The dedication (FTE) in transnational projects is not considered for the 100% (FTE) dedication to national projects.
• Under the terms of number 2 of Article 7 of the Regulation on projects funded solely by national funds, payments made directly or indirectly to companies through the Proposing Institution cannot exceed 50% of the total cost of the company’s participation.

Call website

Matchmaking platform

Project description template  form

Online submission form

EU-LAC Interest Group website

Pedro Miguel Ferreira

Pedromiguel.ferreira@fct.pt