Call 2025 LEAP-SE: Europe-Africa cooperation in sustainable energy

FCT is a member of the EU-AU Joint Long-Term Research and Innovation Partnership on Sustainable Energy (LEAP-SE), co-funded by the European Commission (EC) under Horizon Europe, aims to develop a long-term partnership between Europe and Africa in terms of research and innovation (R&I) in sustainable energy. This partnership is part of the “Climate Change and Sustainable Energy” (CCSE) partnership of the AU-EU High Level Political Dialogue (HLPD) on Science, Technology and Innovation.

The partnership brings together 20 European and African partners and is based on the previous LEAP-RE partnership in which FCT participates. The members of the LEAP-SE consortium are launching in 2025 the first edition of the joint transnational call for proposals co-financed by national/regional European and African research funding agencies, with an additional contribution from the EC. Sustainable energy (SE) development is essential for the green energy transition in Africa and Europe to address the global challenge of climate change. It is necessary to provide reliable and clean access to energy for millions of people around the world. Systemic changes and transformation are needed, which requires a holistic and integrated approach.

Topics

LEAP-SE call 2025 will focus on the seven identified multi-annual roadmaps:

• Assessment of Renewable Energy Sources and integration of RES in sustainable energy scenarios
• End‐of‐life and second‐life management and environmental impact of RE components –
• Smart stand‐alone systems (SAS)
• Smart grid (different scale) for off-grid application –
• Processes and appliances for productive uses (PRODUSE)
• Innovative solutions for priority domestic uses (clean cooking and cold chain)
• Production and utilization of green hydrogen.

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, which amends and republishes Regulation no. 999/2016, of 31 October (see FCT Regulation, available in the 'Call Documents' area).

The LEAP-SE 2025 call is made up of the pre-proposal submission phase (1st phase) and the full proposal phase (2nd phase). Only pre-proposals submitted by transnational consortia in the 1st phase will be invited to submit full proposals in the 2nd phase.

Each Proposing Institution (PI) that is part of a transnational consortium may request funds from participating funding agencies in its country or region. Participants from other African countries without funding organisations participating in the competition can participate in the consortia and may be eligible for funding, through co-funding from the European Commission. See Call Text (under “Tender Documents”) for information on each funding agency’s eligibility rules and cross-border eligibility rules. For a proposal to be eligible, it must comply with national and international eligibility rules.

To prepare their application, each Portuguese PI wishing to apply for funding from FCT must:

1. consult the Call Documents area;

2. consult the FCT rules (see the Call Text);

3. submit, through the coordinator of the transnational consortium, the completed application form on the application submission platform (see "Useful links") by 15:00 noon in Portugal mainland on 27/03/2025;

4. send to the FCT, no later than 10 working days after the deadline for submitting the application, a Declaration of Commitment (DC) completed and signed by the Principal Investigator (PI) identified by the Proposing Institution and by a qualified representative of the PI. The DC should be sent to the email addresses indicated in the Contacts tab.

Please note:

– Failure to submit the DC to the FCT on the date referred to in no. 4, or unjustified submission of the DC after that date, or submission of an incomplete CD, without one of the two parts - PI and Proposing Institution - that compose it, or without the signatures of the PI and/or the qualified representative of the Proposing Institution, will determine the ineligibility of the application.

– If two or more Proposing Institutions from the same transnational consortium apply for funding from the FCT, each Principal Investigator must send to the FCT a completed and signed DC.

– A DC must be sent to the FCT for each application submitted by the same PI and Proposing Institution.

– National partners of transnational consortia that do not request funding from the FCT do not need to submit the DC to the FCT.

– The Proposing Institution’s stamp or white seal is only required on manually signed DCs.

The information on this page is only a summary of the information on the call, and it does not dispense with the need to carefully read all the documents on the call for tenders available on this page and on the call page (see Useful links) and refers only to FCT's participation in this call, unless expressly stated.

Eligibility

The eligibility of applications is checked at both stages of the competition (pre-proposal submission stage and full proposal stage):

• • The national/regional funding agencies verify the national eligibility of applications, ensuring that the formal requirements set out in the applicable national/regional regulations and other applicable documents are met (see "FCT Regulations", "Financial Execution Rules" and "National Annex" in the Call Documents).
  • LGI will verify the eligibility of African partners participating in the consortia from non-funding agency(ies) countrie(s) participating in the call.
  • The transnational eligibility of applications is checked by the Call Secretariat, ensuring compliance with the formal requirements set out in the Call Text (see "Call Text" in Call Documents).

Note:

• For an application to be declared eligible, it must fulfil both the national and transnational criteria.

Evaluation

The Call includes two phases for evaluating applications:

• Pre-proposal evaluation phase.
• Full proposal evaluation phase

Applications will be judged according to the evaluation criteria described in the "Call Text", available in the Call Documents.

It is up to the participating national/regional funding agencies to decide - depending on the phase the call is in - which 1) applications whose pre-proposals will be invited to submit a full proposal and 2) which applications will be recommended for funding.

• FCT financial commitment to the call: €300,000
• Maximum requested funding for a consortium with Portuguese participation: 150.000,00€
• Maximum requested funding for a consortium with Portuguese coordination: 250.000,00€

NOTES:

• Funding for Portuguese beneficiaries will be awarded under the Regulation for projects financed exclusively by national funds, Regulation no. 5/2024, of 3 January, which amends and republishes Regulation no. 999/2016, of 31 October (see "FCT Regulation" and "Financial Execution Rules", available in the Call Documents area, and the applicable national and EU legislation).
• If more than one Portuguese beneficiary entity from the same transnational consortium requests funding from FCT, the combined funding requested from FCT by the Portuguese beneficiary entities may not exceed the maximum financial limit for a consortium with Portuguese coordination (€250,000) or with Portuguese participation, (150 000€). The Portuguese beneficiaries of the same transnational consortium will have to share the funding that will be granted by the FCT.

• The percentage (maximum and/or minimum) of time dedicated (FTE) to transnational projects is not counted towards the dedication (FTE) of national projects.

• Under the terms of number 2 of Article 7 of the Regulation on projects funded solely by national funds, payments made directly to companies, or indirectly through the Proposing Institution cannot exceed 50% of the total cost of the company’s participation.

Call webpage

Pre-proposal Template

Application submission platform

LEAP-SE webpage

Find a partner for your consortium

Stefano Amaral

stefano.amaral@fct.pt