Last Horizon 2020 SwafS call highly competitive, with 407 projects requesting a total of €700 million

The last Horizon 2020 ‘Science with and for Society’ call, which closed on Thursday, 23 April, received 407 project proposals. Its deadline was extended by one week due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The applicants requested almost €700 million in funds, 11 times the total available budget: €55.7 million for the single-stage calls, and €7.5 million for the two-stage calls.

The single-stage calls, with 12 different topics, received 262 project proposals requesting a total of €484 million. While the two-stage calls, with two topics, received 145 project proposals, requesting a total of €214 million.

Topics covered by the call range from Responsible Open Science to Gender-based violence in research organisations and universities.

The most successful topics have been Open schooling and collaboration on science education (101 project proposals), Hands-on citizen science and frugal innovation (70) and Science education outside the classroom (44).

The remote evaluations are expected to start in the coming weeks. The results should be announced by the end of July this year. The grant agreements with the successful applicants of the single-stage calls are expected to be signed by January 2021.

In the case of the two-stage calls, the retained projects will be invited to submit a final project proposal by 17 November. Applicants should know if their projects have been funded by early 2021.
Science with and for Society (SwafS) intends to build effective cooperation between science and society, to recruit new talent for science and to pair scientific excellence with social awareness and responsibility. The programme is managed by the Research Executive Agency (REA).