OpenAgri: Call for evaluators
About OpenAgri project
The overall aim of the OpenAgri project is to democratise digital farming by enabling the development and deployment of innovative cost-effective energy-efficient OS software and open hardware-based ADSs that can operate at a high performance even in remote areas with weak connectivity. This will be achieved by a) ensuring the co-creation of ADSs by engaging farmers and farm advisors in participatory prototyping activities inspired by the makerspaces approach; and b) providing access to a number of reusable OS software services designed to support the edge and mixed computing mode, and a “sociotechnical infrastructure”.
Using a multi-actor approach, OpenAgri will involve farmers, ADSs providers, farm advisors and scientists in 14 Sustainable Innovation Pilots (SIPs) in ≥10 countries across Europe, and guide them in co-creating and piloting edge, cloud and mixed-model ADSs addressing important challenges of agricultural production. 5 SIPs have been pre-selected and 9 more will be awarded through an Open Call, enabling a dynamic response to a changing policy and technology landscape. Finally, building on a thorough analysis of EU agriculture and the results from the SIPs, OpenAgri will create a Decision Support Tool that will allow Policy Makers, Farmers and Farm Advisors to select the best possible cloud, edge or mixed ADSs for any given set of conditions.
Open Call
The main aim of the OpenAgri Open Call (OC) is to support the co-creation and testing of new Agricultural Digital Solutions (ADSs) across more countries, crops and farming conditions, by introducing additional open-source software and open hardware outputs that will become available to the community and boost the project’s overall impact.
A major focus of OpenAgri’s Open Call is to support the co-creation of mature and ready to use ADSs that will be based on OS software and open hardware components, with the main focus on improving the sustainability performance of current agricultural practices, increase farmers trust in the use of digital solutions and to avoid vendor lock-in through interoperable-by-design mechanisms. These solutions should be mature cloud solutions that could be adapted to edge or mixed and they should operate in remote areas with limited connectivity. The goal of this Open Call is to deploy high value and impactful pilots, employing OpenAgri’s methodologies and technologies. OpenAgri is providing a set of generic OS software services that will act as reusable building blocks in support of AgriTech providers for developing more complete ADSs.
Open Call Hub platform
Open Call Hub (OCH) is a digital platform for application management for financial support to third parties and accelerator programs, developed and maintained by Foodscale Hub. Open Call Hub will be used for both applications reception and evaluation.
We are looking for evaluators!
Evaluators profile
We are looking for independent evaluators, who are able to assess the quality of applications received within the OpenAgri Open Call, shortly after they have been closed. Evaluators must be:
- European (EU nationals (Member States (MS) of the European Union (EU), including their outermost regions, as well as Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) linked to an EU Member) as well as nationals of Horizon Europe associated countries, full list, as of July 11th 2024, HERE).
- Specialists – scientific (technical, social sciences, etc.) or business experts: university or industry researchers or engineers, staff of other relevant organizations e.g., clusters, accelerators, etc. motivated by innovation topics around the edge, cloud and mixed Advanced Digital Solutions (ADSs) and Open Source solutions (both hardware and software).
- Experienced experts in evaluating EC proposals or similar experience.
An evaluator should not work for an organisation that aims to participate in the OpenAgri Open Call, neither in an organisation participating in the current OpenAgri consortium.
The evaluators will be in charge of providing a neutral yet technical/scientific and/or business review of received applications, usually, but not limited to, on the following aspects:
- Excellence (Design, novelty, and reliability of the solution; potential for wide range of application; value proposition of the proposal; current TRL of the solution and pathways to achieving a higher TRL),
- Impact (Economic viability of the solution; sustainability strategy (including financial projections) and its potential scalability to other countries/regions, especially those with a major potential impact on increasing food security and resilience across Europe; economic, environmental and societal impact of the proposed solution),
- Implementation (Team capability and their key expertise; technical resource plan; the plan to use the OpenAgri Reusable OS Services; the overall delivery plan; allocation of resources and timeline),
- Replicability (The OS components to be offered to the public after the end of the project; the ability of developed ADSs to be reused by other farmers in other conditions and/or for other crops).
The full evaluation criteria per every open call will be specified in respective open call kit documents, alongside with relevant focus areas for a specific open call. In addition, it will be part of the Manual for the evaluators as well. The evaluation process per application as well as specific reimbursement of evaluators’ efforts will be listed for every open call that is upcoming. It is important to note that the number of applications per evaluator depends on several factors: the time availability of the evaluators, the number of submitted applications, and the number of evaluators to be selected throughout every specific open call.
Financial Benefits
In case of OpenAgri project, evaluators will receive a compensation for their work and evaluation, where the rate amounts to 100 EUR per proposal. Payment will be done in Euros by bank transfer on the personal account of the evaluators, up to 60 days after submission of the evaluations and reception of an invoice from the evaluator.
The minimum and maximum number of evaluations per evaluator will depend on the number of applications received, and other factors such availability of the evaluator throughout the process etc.
Evaluation procedure
All the activities will be performed individually on the Open Call Hub (OCH) platform; no physical meetings are planned. The evaluation process will start with a short briefing telco about the evaluation procedure with a special focus on the evaluation criteria. Then each proposal will be assigned to 2 evaluators and therefore for each proposal 2 individual evaluation reports will be written. Some specific cases might require the organization of remote (online) consensus meetings between the evaluators in order to align evaluation reports (i.e., in case of large discrepancies between the marks given by the evaluators, or similar).
In case consensus is not reached after the remote evaluation by external experts, an interview of the applicant by the Advisory Board will be conducted.
Evaluators selection process
Evaluators will be selected by the OpenAgri Advisory Board based on their competences and needs for the open call and number of applications received.
Expression of interest
If you are interested in being an evaluator, create an evaluator profile on the Open Call Hub, fill in all necessary fields and upload your CV (as .pdf) – the application shouldn’t take you more than 5 minutes!
Apply here: LINK
If you know someone else who might be qualified for this task and might be interested, please forward this to him or her. By applying to OpenAgri Call for Evaluators, applicant automatically accepts all the rules and conditions described below.
Tentative timeline of activities for OpenAgri Open Call
Open Call duration: September 2nd – December 2nd, 2024 17.00 CET
Eligibility check of the received applications: December 2024.
Contracting with selected evaluators: December 2024.
Evaluation: January-February 2025.
Evaluators’ liability
All evaluators will be required to sign a declaration of no conflict of interest and non-disclosure agreement with the OpenAgri consortium prior to the evaluation start.
By applying to the OpenAgri Call for evaluators and registration to the Open Call Hub platform, the expert:
- understands that submitting an application (registration) does not guarantee his/her selection as an evaluator for OpenAgri Open Call nor any other published on the Open Call Hub.
- understands that he/she will have to provide a signed Code of Conduct and Declaration of Honor (DoH) along with any other requested documents if he/she is selected to serve as an evaluator for a specific open call published on the OCH platform.
- confirms that team in charge for each Open Call will ask him/her on an open call basis about time availability to accomplish the evaluation within the specified time frame for the given open call, to attend a briefing session (if required) and a debriefing session after the selection (if required). Timing will be provided for every open call.
- confirms the interest to be informed about the future opportunities to act as an evaluator on ongoing and upcoming open calls that will be conducted on OCH.
- assures that he/she will only evaluate the applications of applicants for whom she/he does not have a Conflict of Interest (CoI).
Admissibility
– The applicant must be a European (EU nationals (Member States (MS) of the European Union (EU), including their outermost regions, as well as Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) linked to EU Member) as well as nationals of Horizon Europe associated countries, full list, as of July 11th 2024, HERE) (Note: if you are not a citizen of these countries, but a resident/taxpayer in one of these countries, you are still eligible to become an evaluator).
– Applications can be submitted at any time starting from September 15th, 2024, and they should be submitted before the November 15th, 2024.
– Applications must be submitted electronically via Open Call Hub electronic submission system as indicated in this call, using the form provided inside OCH, and a CV, as .pdf, must be attached as part of the application. Paper or email submissions are NOT possible.
– Applications must be complete for all parts, and CV should be readable, accessible and printable.
If the admissibility criteria are respected, then the evaluation of the expert will be performed by the Advisory Board or expert team of each project whose Open Call is conducted via OCH platform. To formalize the collaboration, if not specified differently, a service contract will be signed between Foodscale Hub and the evaluators.
All selected evaluators will be required to sign a declaration of no conflict of interest and non-disclosure agreement with the representative of each project (coordinator, treasurer, etc.) prior to the evaluation start.
Conflict of interest
Evaluators must not have a conflict of interest at the time of their appointment and must sign a contract with a declaration that no such conflict exists. They also must inform the consortium should such a conflict arise in any of the applications they have been assigned. When a potential conflict of interest is reported by the evaluator or brought to the attention of the consortium by any means, the project consortium will analyze the circumstances and any objective elements of information available. If the consortium concludes that there is conflict of interest, the evaluator will be excluded from the evaluation of that application. All potential conflicts of interest will be assessed carefully. Please see more info HERE.
Confidentiality
Evaluators are bound by confidentiality, as all information relating to the assessment process is strictly confidential. They are not allowed to disclose any information about the applications submitted and results of the assessment and selection to anyone. They are also not allowed to use the ideas of the application for own purposes.
Good luck and thank you for your interest.
We are looking forward to collaborating with you!
OpenAgri Open Call team
Useful links and contact:
OpenAgri project, https://horizon-openagri.eu/
OpenAgri Open Call, https://horizon-openagri.eu/open-call/
Open Call Hub / OpenAgri, https://opencallhub.eu/open-call/openagri
FSH support team: openagri@opencallhub.eu
