Impact Innovation: The interaction between humans and technology - Swedish Metals & Minerals

This call for proposals is carried out within the framework of the Swedish Metals & Minerals program, part of Impact Innovation – an initiative of the Swedish Energy Agency, Formas and Vinnova. The program's mission is "To ensure a sustainable and resilient supply of metals and minerals for societal transformation".

The call for proposals is open for applications regarding research and development projects that contribute to Swedish Metals & Minerals' mission by investigating and developing the interaction between people and technology or between people, technology and organization.

The call for proposals is aimed at consortia consisting of at least three project partners, of which at least one is a Swedish company. The consortia may consist of companies, public organisations, research institutes, academia, civil society actors and other relevant actors that have the competence and ability to implement the project. The project partners must be legal entities.

The maximum funding is SEK 3,500,000 per project and Vinnova's funding may amount to a maximum of 70 percent of the project's total eligible cost. The project duration may not exceed 36 months and the latest end date for project implementation is August 18, 2028.

Impact Innovation is Sweden's major innovation initiative to tackle the challenges of our time and the future. In collaborations between actors in the private, public and non-profit organizations, Impact Innovation meets real technical and societal needs with groundbreaking solutions. On the way to a sustainable and competitive Sweden, attractive to live in for everyone. Together we show what is possible, and are ahead internationally.

This call for proposals is being implemented within the framework of the Impact Innovation program Swedish Metals & Minerals. The program's mission is "To ensure a sustainable and resilient metal and mineral supply for societal transformation". This means increasing and securing the supply of metals and minerals while reducing the planetary footprint of extraction and production. A description of the program's background and the areas of focus that are central to fulfilling the mission can be found in the program's scope document, see https://impactinnovation.se/projekt/metals-minerals/

Rapid and extensive technological development is underway in most of the operations and processes that take place within the metals, mining and minerals industries. Technological development enables major benefits for a sustainable industry, but changes can also create insecurity for employees and organizations.

This call for proposals aims to fund research and development projects that contribute to Swedish Metals & Minerals' mission by investigating or developing the interaction between people and technology. This may concern how the interaction can and is experienced to support employee engagement, efficiency and well-being when implementing new technology or new processes.

The call for proposals also aims to finance project that investigate or develop the interaction between people, technology and organization. This may involve the organization's ability and capacity to - in a well-thought-out, equal and inclusive way where employees feel support, secure and committed - implement new technology to benefit from the benefits that the new technology can contribute.

The projects funded are expected to result in increased knowledge and understanding of challenges in the interaction between people, technology or organization. The projects will ultimately lead to efficient and inclusive implementation of new technology or new processes, which is expected to lead to increased competitiveness for the Swedish metal, mining and mineral industry, and provide knowledge and experience for future implementation of new technology or new processes.

Contribute to a sustainable system transformation

Impact Innovation will contribute to global competitiveness through transition to sustainable development in line with the UN's global sustainability goals, defined in the 2030 Agenda. For Swedish Metals & Minerals, this is expressed through the program's mission, which reads "To ensure a sustainable and resilient metal and mineral supply for society's transition". This means increasing and securing the supply of metals and minerals while reducing the planetary footprint of extraction and production.

Vinnova has prioritized two perspectives in Agenda 2030: gender equality and climate transition. Initiatives and project that Vinnova funds are assessed based on how they contribute to these perspectives.

In this call for proposals we primarily assess the gender equality perspective through:

• If women and men participate in the project on an equal footing, receive contributions and have influence and power over the project.
• How well the project analyzes and takes a position on whether there are sex or gender aspects that are relevant to the project's problem formulation, solutions and effects.

Gender-equal innovation – what it means for those seeking funding from us

Agenda 2030 as a driver for innovation

Making scientific publications and results available

When results from research and innovation are made freely available, more people can contribute to solving societal challenges. This the call for proposals will help make results available to everyone. Therefore, all scientific publishing should be open access.

The call for proposals is aimed at consortia consisting of at least three participating project parties, of which at least one is a Swedish company. A Swedish company is a limited liability company registered in Sweden. The consortia may consist of companies, public organizations, institutes, academia, civil society actors and other relevant actors that have the competence and ability to implement the project. The project parties must be legal entities.

Participant seeking funding must be Swedish legal entities. A Swedish legal entity is here equated with a foreign organization that has a branch or establishment in Sweden. The costs in the project must then be attributable to activities of the branch or establishment. Foreign actors without a branch or establishment in Sweden can participate in project without funding from Vinnova.

Through this call for proposals Vinnova intends to finance research and development projects through Impact Innovation-programmet Swedish Metals & Minerals that contribute to the program's mission by investigating or developing the interaction between people-technology-organization from a socio-technical perspective.

The projects must have the character of industrial research or experimental development as defined in Article 25 of the EU Commission's General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER). This applies to the focus and content of the projects regardless of whether the Regulation applies to the participation of individual project parties. Within the framework of the call for proposals we therefore do not finance, for example:

• development and implementation of training initiatives,
• scaled-up implementation of established solutions and methods,
• regular operation of support structures.

For brief descriptions of industrial research and experimental development, see section 5.

For a complete definition, see funding bases and levels of support.

What costs can we finance?

Vinnova's funding is covered by state aid rules. The rules govern what types of costs can be financed. These are called eligible costs.

In this the call for proposals these types of costs are eligible:

• Personnel costs: Salaries, social security contributions and other personnel costs.
• Equipment, land and buildings: Instruments, equipment and rent for premises other than regular business premises.
• Consulting and licensing costs: Consulting services, knowledge and patents purchased or used under license from an external party. Costs for consulting services from external parties may constitute a maximum of 20 percent of a project party's budget. Exceptionally, we may accept a higher proportion than 20 percent in the event of special needs. You must then describe the consulting efforts in detail in proposal and clearly justify the need for them. The description and justification are taken into account in the assessment of proposal.
• Other direct costs: For example, materials, supplies and travel necessary to carry out the project.
• Indirect costs (overhead): Costs that are not incurred as an immediate consequence of but can be related to the project, such as regular premises and cleaning.
  A project party's indirect costs may constitute a maximum of 30 percent of the project party's personnel costs. Universities, university colleges, and certain research organizations and government agencies have higher maximum limits depending on the type of activities.

For more detailed information about which costs we can finance, see Instructions for eligible costs

What eligibility requirements apply to costs in project financed by Vinnova?

For a cost to be eligible, it must be:

• necessary for the activities in the project
• recorded correctly and separately from the organization's other costs.

An organization may not claim someone else's costs as its own.

For more detailed information on which eligibility requirements, limitations and exceptions apply, see Instructions for eligible costs

The state aid rules govern how much of the costs we can finance. This is determined individually for each organization. We therefore differentiate between how much funding the project can receive, and how much each participant can receive.

How much funding can the project receive?

Maximum funding is SEK 3,500,000 per project and Vinnova's funding may amount to a maximum of 70 percent of the project's total eligible cost.

How much funding can a participant receive?

How much funding each participant can receive depends mainly on:

• which activities the project partner will carry out in the project
• project party size and activities

In this the call for proposals we use the following forms of support:

• Support for industrial research and experimental development in accordance with Article 25 of the EU Commission's General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER).
• Not state aid

Which form of support may be applicable is determined by whether the organization receiving the support conducts economic activities or not.

How do you determine whether an organization is engaged in economic activities?

An organization that offers some kind of service or product on a market is considered to be engaged in economic activities. It does not matter how the organization is financed, whether it is public or private, or whether it has a profit motive. It also does not matter what legal form the business has. For example, whether it is a limited liability company, a trading company, an economic association, a non-profit association or a foundation.

If you are unsure whether an organization in your project is conducting economic activities, contact call manager. However, the organization is responsible for assessing whether it is conducting economic activities.

Support for industrial research and experimental development

This form of support applies to funding to organizations that conduct economic activities.

What is industrial research and experimental development?

Industrial research can be simply described as seeking new knowledge through planned research or critical analysis to develop or significantly improve products, processes or services.

Experimental development can be simply described as combining, shaping and using existing knowledge to develop new or improved products, processes or services.

For a full definition, see funding bases and levels

How much of the costs can we finance?

The size of the organization and type of activity determines how large a proportion of the costs we can finance, i.e. the maximum level of support.

For industrial research and experimental development, these maximum support levels apply:

Hur EU defines small and medium-sized enterprises as stated in the User Guide on the definition of SMEs which you can find here

Bonus basics

If the project is covered by any of these bonus bases, we can finance a higher proportion of the costs according to the table:

• Actual cooperation: Some level of cooperation between small and larger companies, between companies in two different European countries or between research organisations and companies
• Dissemination of results: Extensive dissemination through, for example, conferences or open databases.
• Other bonus basis

For full information on these bonus bases, see funding Bases and Support Levels

We grant funding in accordance with Article 25 of the EU Commission's General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER).

Not state aid

This form of support only applies to funding for organisations that do not engage in economic activities. This usually includes universities and university colleges, research institutes that engage in non-economic activities and other organisations that do not offer a service or product on a market. We can finance up to 100 percent of such an organisation's eligible costs.

In order for us to take a position on and assess your proposal, it must meet certain formal eligibility requirements. If the requirements are not met, proposal will be rejected immediately.

Eligibility requirements for the composition of the actor constellation

• At the time of application, the consortium includes at least three project parties including the coordinator, of which at least one is a Swedish company. A Swedish company is a limited liability company registered in Sweden. Different workplaces or workplaces in an organization, for example different departments at a university, are counted as one and the same participant when they are part of the same legal entity.

Eligibility requirements on organizational form of project parties

• All project partners must be legal entities. Natural persons or individual companies cannot participate as project partners.
• The coordinating project party must be a Swedish legal entity and conduct activities in Sweden.
• The project parties seeking funding from Vinnova are either Swedish legal entities or foreign organizations that have a branch or operating location in Sweden and where the costs in the project are attributable to the branch's or operating location's activities.

Eligibility requirements for the project

• The project must not have begun before proposal is submitted.

Eligibility requirements on proposal

• Proposal must be written in Swedish or English.
• Proposal must follow the instructions given in section 9.
• Proposal must contain all attachments requested in section 9.
• Proposal contains no attachments beyond those requested in section 9.
• The appendices are written on provided templates, meet formatting requirements and do not exceed the maximum permitted number of pages according to Section 9.
• Letters of intent from all project parties are attached, are completely completed and signed by an authorized person. Research organizations must also submit a letter of intent.

What do we assess?

Potential

• How well proposal describes what the project is expected to result in and deliver.
• To what extent can the results of a successfully completed project be applied to develop the interaction between:
  - people and technology. For example, it can be about supporting employee engagement, efficiency and well-being when implementing new technology.
  and/or
  - people, technology and organization. For example, it can be about the organization's ability and capacity to implement new technology in a well-thought-out, equal and otherwise inclusive way.
• proposal shows how the project contributes new knowledge or improved methods compared to previous attempts to address the same or similar issues.
• It is clear from proposal that the project's expected results will clearly contribute to Swedish Metals & Minerals' mission according to the program's scope document.
• How well proposal describes what the next step is after a successful project and how the project plans to adapt the deliveries in relation to the actors who are expected to be able to take this step.

Actors

• The actor constellation's conditions for implementing the project and contributing to the utilization of results.
• The extent to which proposal credibly demonstrates that the competencies required for successful implementation of the project are available, either directly in the project constellation or indirectly accessible via, for example, project parties, specified consultants or a reference group for the project.
• How well balanced the project group is in terms of gender distribution and the distribution of power and influence between women and men.
• How well consulting services are described and the need for consulting services is justified for project parties whose budget contains more than 20 percent consulting costs.

Feasibility

• The extent to which the project description contains clear objective and deliverables that respond to the project's issues, are trackable and can be achieved through the project's implementation.
• To what extent does the project description show that the project's time and activity plan
  - contains activities that comply with the definitions of industrial research or experimental development (see section 5).
  - is appropriate in terms of the project's objective and ambitions.
  - is logical and reasonable in terms of available resources (budget, skills, equipment, etc.) in relation to what is to be done.
• How well proposal identifies the risks involved in the implementation and describes an appropriate plan for managing them.
• How well the project proposal takes into account gender equality aspects and other sustainability perspectives according to Agenda 2030.

How do we assess?

The project selection is managed by Vinnova in a process where applications that meet the formal requirements in section 6 compete with each other for the call's budget.

Applications that meet the formal requirements according to section 6 are assessed in relation to the above assessment criteria by external evaluator. The evaluators are appointed by Vinnova and work under a duty of confidentiality and professional secrecy. The assessment is based on the electronic proposal submitted via Vinnova's e-service. See section 9 for more information.

The external assessors' combined assessment results in a recommendation to Vinnova. Based on the assessors' recommendation and Vinnova's assessment of financial status (see below), we make a decision on which applications are granted funding and which are rejected. Our decision cannot be appealed.

We also assess financial status

Before deciding on funding, we make a comprehensive assessment of the organizational and financial status of those receiving funding. We use information we obtain from credit reports, currently from Dun & Bradstreet.

In order for us to grant funding this applies:

• Organizations seeking funding for personnel costs must be registered as employers with the Swedish Tax Agency. This also applies to organizations that budget for personnel costs but do not seek funding from Vinnova.
• Organizations must not be insolvent, undergoing liquidation or corporate restructuring, nor must they have unpaid debts with the Swedish Enforcement Authority.
• Limited liability companies must not have used up half or more of their share capital.
• SMEs must be able to demonstrate, upon request, that they have the financial capacity to implement the project according to their budget in proposal. They cannot use public funding or their own funds intended for other project to cover project costs in this call for proposals.

When the selection process is complete and Vinnova has made a decision to either grant or reject your proposal, Vinnova will notify the coordinating project party of the decision. The Swedish Metals & Minerals Program Office will be informed of the outcome. Our decision cannot be appealed.

In decisions about an approved proposal, we state how much funding each party in the project is granted.

What happens if you are granted funding?

If we grant your proposal, you must follow our general terms and conditions for funding.

The terms and conditions include the following:

• That you will sign a special document in which you approve your participation and commit to carrying out the project.
• That you report how things are going, your costs and achieved results to us regularly during the project period.
• If you are multiple parties, you must agree on your mutual rights and obligations in the project in an agreement. It can take time to get a project agreement in place, so it is a good idea to get this in place before the project starts.

See our general terms and conditions and get help understanding and fulfilling them

You also need to follow the special conditions that apply to this the call for proposals:

• The project must be represented by at least one participant at the conferences and other activities organized within the program, approximately one to two times per year. The costs for such participation are eligible for support.
• The project must, throughout the duration of the project, participate in and maintain a continuous dialogue with its assigned contact person at Swedish Metals & Minerals' program office.
• Instead of paragraph 7.3 of General terms and conditions the following applies:
  When communicating about the project and when publishing project results, it must be stated that the work is/was carried out with financial support from the Impact Innovation program Swedish Metals & Minerals – an initiative of the Swedish Energy Agency, Formas and Vinnova. Publication refers to, for example, publication, regardless of medium, and oral presentations.
• When reporting the project, a summary of the project results must be uploaded as an attachment to the final report to Vinnova. The summary must also be sent to the program office for Swedish Metals & Minerals via email programkontor@swedishmetalsandminerals.se. The summary must follow the template that will be available at www.impactinnovation.se. This summary must be freely distributed and published on the websites of the Swedish Energy Agency, Forma, Vinnova, Impact Innovations and Swedish Metals & Minerals and must therefore not contain confidential or otherwise sensitive information.

We may also decide to add supplementary special conditions for individual project. In such cases, they will be stated in the decision.

Collaboration with the program office for the Impact Innovation program Swedish Metals & Minerals

The project's collaboration with Swedish Metals & Minerals' program office involves the following:

• Separate reporting to the program office during project implementation.
• That the project is assigned a contact person at the program office who assists the project and monitors it on behalf of the program.

Could you need to pay back funding?

If you do not follow our term, you may be required to repay the amount. This also applies if you have been granted funding incorrectly or for an amount that is too high.

When the call for proposals closes, your proposal will be registered as. We will then send an email confirmation to the person responsible for the user account in the e-service as well as to the project manager and the signatory of the coordinating project party. Please contact us if you have not received a confirmation within 24 hours of the call for proposals closing.

Once the call for proposals is closed, you cannot change anything in proposal. You can only make additions if we ask you to.

Who can read your proposal?

Your proposal will be read by Vinnova employees and the external evaluator participating in this the call for proposals. Everyone works under a duty of confidentiality.

Applications submitted to Vinnova become public documents. This means that we must disclose them if requested. However, we classify information that we believe could cause financial harm to the individual if disclosed. This could, for example, include information about business and operational conditions, inventions or research results.

How we handle public documents and confidentiality