BLOCKCHERS is a Coordinated and Support Action (CSA) project co-funded by the European Union. The project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No 828840.

The objective of BLOCKCHERS is to facilitate the revolution of Distributed Ledge Technologies (DLT) across SMEs in Europe thanks to the promotion and support of DLT sub-granted use cases in multiple sectors by SMEs, support on the creation of a “smart” regulatory framework for the EU and the development of policy recommendations.

The selected SMEs will have access to different types of support and management services to implement the use cases. The concrete selection and scheduling will be individually adapted to each use-case and its prerequisites and challenges: Funding, Free access to DLT infrastructure, coaching, match-making with investors, Online certificate programme.

Check them out at the Guidelines for applicants. BLOCKCHERS 1st open call for proposals (www.blockchers.eu).

No. Only the selected beneficiaries will be benefiting from BLOCKCHERS services.

We will offer different services at each stage. Check section 8. Technical services and infrastructure by BLOCKCHERS of the Guidelines for Applicants.

Your project idea could be financed if you are selected in any of the calls. Conditions are found in the official documentation at the website. A selected project could be funded from €3,000 up to €50,000, depending the stage of the Programme they reach.

The accepted applicants for BLOCKCHERS open call are technological SME developing a use-case for an end-user SME based on DLT. The technological SME should be the one submitting a proposal through our online application at F6S. The existence of an end user SME is a compulsory requirement for the technological SME to be considered for the evaluation.

The end user SME commitment is proved by a supporting letter (template here) included in the online application. The proposals that upload a not filled or not signed Commitment letter among SMEs, will be automatically discarded.

Legally speaking a SME will be considered as such if accomplishing with the Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC and the SME user guide. As a summary, the criteria which define a SME are:

• Headcount in Annual Work Unit (AWU) less than 250.
• Annual turnover less or equal to €50 million or annual balance sheet total, less or equal to €43 million.

Only applicants legally established in any of the following countries will be eligible:

• The Member States (MS) of the European Union (EU), including their outermost regions;
• The Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) linked to the Member States;
• H2020 Associated countries: Iceland, Norway, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic ofMacedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey, Israel, Moldova, Switzerland, Faroe Islands, Ukraine, Tunisia, Georgia, and Armenia.
  Applications where the technological or the End-user SME are legally stablished in other countries are directly discarded.

BLOCKCHERS has been conceived as a 4-stage process: open call – immersion – implementation – recognition, that allows the adaptation of the technology to the use case, its implementation and validation in real use case scenarios, while facilitating the elaboration lessons learned across several verticals to extract recommendations and best practices.

• OPENCALL:opentoeveryoneeligible.
• IMMERSION up to 18 projects will enter this phase.
• IMPLEMENTATION the best 12 projects from IMMERSION will participate in this phase.
• RECOGNITION. Two prizes will be given to 6 start-ups/SMEs will access this last step.

The F6S platform will be the entry point for all proposals in the First Open call is accessible at https://www.f6s.com/blockchers2020/apply. Submissions received by any other channel will be automatically discarded.
In this phase, the only additional required Document is the Commitment Letter between the Technological SME and the End-user SME. A not filled or not signed Commitment letter, involve to automatically discard the proposal. Any document requested in any of the phases must be submitted electronically in PDF format without restrictions for printing.

Yes. The implementation of the DLT by the beneficiary in any of the Domain specific challenges, must be assured and represented by an end-user SME from these domains. The end user SME does not receive funding, but their participation with the Technological SME needs to be assured. In order to demonstrate this relationship, a Commitment Letter must be signed by both SMEs and presented with the application form.

We are looking for the development of a new solution based on DLT to solve a current challenge or needs identified in an End-user SME from different domains. For the development of the Uses Cases, a relationship between the Technological SME and the End user SME from the indicated domains is needed.
In addition, think about your business model as well as the technical stuff involved. As important as the technology is the financial sustainability of what you propose.

Yes. All proposals must link to any of the selected domains indicated in the Domain specific challenges Catalogue available in the website.
The preselected domains are: Industry 4.0, Mobility & Transport, Food & Retail, Media, Legal & Compliance, Health, Energy.

Use cases directed to others domains will be also considered based on the needs detected by the End users SMEs.

Only one proposal will be accepted for funding per technological SME.
Given the fact this call is a competitive one, and the solutions will focus in a specific challenge or project, only one proposal per SME will be evaluated. In the case of a multiple submission by a SME, only the last one received (timestamp of the system) will enter into our evaluation process, the rest being declared as non-eligible.
If the last submitted proposal is declared then non-eligible or fails to reach the thresholds of the evaluation, the other proposals submitted earlier will not be considered for evaluation in any case.
Proposals selected in the First call of Blockchers (2019) are not eligible in this second call (2020).

The 13th March of 2020 at 12.00 pm CEST without exceptions.

Yes. A summary of the proposals and the participants’ information will be shared with the EC. Moreover, we will publish an Open Dataset with the beneficiaries of our open call including their data and funding received in our project website.
All the information that will be made public is clearly indicated in the official documentation of the call. Unless you want to, no technical insights will be published anywhere.

Funding is given by the BLOCKCHERS consortium under a Sub-Grantee Agreement signed by the selected proposers and BLOCKCHERS consortium. The funds are given by the European Commission, which use BLOCKCHERS as intermediary. So these funds are European Funds from the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme.

BLOCKCHERS – FAQs – 2nd Open Call

Being specific, an estimated calendar is: €3k from IMMERSION paid in June 2020; up to €30k from IMPLEMENTATION paid in two steps (October 2020 and December 2020) and €17k or €13k from RECOGNITION is differed till January 2021.

That’s it. All the payments are after the job is done and evaluated.

Not for this project. Payments are a kind of flat rate, based on the approval of different milestones or KPIs on each phase.
If you spend more or less than the disbursed funding is up to you. So administrative speaking, this is easy.

The general rule applicable to BLOCKCHERS project is that beneficiaries must have the appropriate resources to implement the full set of tasks needed within the project. This means it is not allowed to subcontract any part of the project. Examples (not restricted to) of subcontracting are, paying an external developer not in the company or being part of the team to develop certain parts, paying a research centre or foundation to execute technical tasks, etc. Employees of a company are never considered subcontractors but part of the company itself.

The funds of the project come from the H2020 Programme. This means its regulation will apply to the funds. If you get additional public funding from other entities it will be your responsibility to assure the compatibleness of the different sources of funding.

The aid provided is relying on a cascade-funding scheme involving H2020 funds. The scheme is based on a Grant Agreement signed by the European Commission and the BLOCKCHERS Consortium partners. The Consortium partners as such receive the H2020 funds which are then transferred to the winners of our open calls based on the rules and regulations explained in the Guidelines for Applicants available at our website. This means that funds that will be received by the call winners are H2020 funds.

There are not DLT restrictions. In order to well develop the Use cases selected, BLOCKCHERS offers the possibility to free access the DLT network built by ALASTRIA. It is the first ever DLT network counting with a legal support from the authorities, will even sort out the regulatory problems many of these networks have on different Member States. This will allow the growth of a community supported by a legal guarantee.

Anyway, the use of this infrastructure is optional (not compulsory), and participants can decide to apply their use cases under any other available DLT

At a company level, as an SME, you are free to add new employees from the firm to the team.

There is no problem to publish papers with the results providing you give details about your IPR, algorithms or solution. Beware that if you disclose snippets of the use case you might need permission from the End-user SME.

The Blockathon will be an event held in the IMMERSION stage were at least a couple members of the team should be working on the challenge but also competing in a business pitch in front of a jury. You are paid 3,000€ to cover expenses. This is thought as an effective way to physically meet the teams that will enter into the Implementation stage described in our process and that, if selected after the pitch + Blockathon, can get up to €30k.

Physical presence is required if you are selected as beneficiary for the IMMERSION stage. At the end of such stage you should attend to a Blockathon (in a place to be defined) where your idea would be defended. You would get 3,000€ if reaching such stage. During the IMPLEMENTATION stage, it is not foreseen face to face meeting needed, unless it is accorded between coaches and Technical SME at the beginning of this stage. Finally, in case you reach the final RECOGNITION stage, you have to go a final event in Germany where final Winners will be selected.

In all cases you are receiving equity free funding to support your activities, always according to the degree of achievement of previously agreed results expectations with each team.