Open calls · Research grant · Business, Management and Accounting
Trusted, secure, quality future digital travel credentials
European Commission · Horizon Europe · HORIZON-CL3-2027-01-BM-02
Deadlines
- 4 Nov 2027 Deadline in 358 days
Time of day: 17:00 Brussels time.
Who can apply
- Countries
- Applicants from any country can take part. Funding is usually limited to the EU, associated countries and listed low- and middle-income countries; sanctions apply to some.
- Who applies
- A consortium of organisations
Money
- Per project
- up to €4M per project
- Total budget
- €8M
- Expected awards
- 2
About the call
Expected Outcome:
Project results are expected to contribute to some or all of the following expected outcomes:
• Development, testing and integration of issuance, validation and sharing capabilities for possible future types (beyond Type 1) of Digital Travel Credentials (DTC);
• Integration of innovative, on-the-move, biometrics and remote biometric acquisition modalities to support the use of DTCs;
• Improved secure connectivity and interoperability for future DTCs;
• Improved capability of issuance of emergency travel documents and/or emergency DTCs.
Scope:
Issuance, verification and management of digital travel credentials (DTCs) is relevant for border management, immigration and visa management. Furthermore, it could also be relevant to combat illicit activities such as terrorism, crime or frauds. This topic aims at supporting research and innovation that explore, develop and test enhanced capabilities for securely issuing, verify and manage (including sharing) possible future types of digital travel credentials (DTCs) for travel across the external borders of the EU.
The proposed solutions must be compatible with current, planned or foreseeable EU DTCs formats, and with applicable International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) schemes, but they should also push forward to possible further types of DTCs (“Type 2” and “Type 3”).
Additionally, the funded actions should also work on the integration of current and new biometrics, and/or new biometric acquisition modality, in support of DTCs. This includes but does not limit to biometrics such as fingermark, palmprint, palmmark, rolled fingerprint, contactless fingerphotos, and biometric acquisition modalities such as remote and on-the-move, including those modalities developed by previous projects funded by this Destination of Horizon Europe Cluster 3. The project should develop and/or contribute to reference biometric sample quality assessments standards for these biometric modalities included in the DTCs, compatibly with existing relevant tools such as the Open Source Face Image Quality (OFIQ), or improving forward-looking interoperability, for example between contact and contactless fingerprint data.
The funded research project(s) can also address the use case of verification, issuance or re-issuance of (emergency) DTCs in cases of emergencies (including evacuations of EU citizens).
Funded research can additionally address the security of breeder documents, which risk to be “weak links” when they are used to obtain genuine, secure travel credentials.
Proposals submitted under this topic are expected to address the priorities of the European Border and Coast Guard and of its Agency (Frontex) and of the European Union Agency for the Operational Management of Large-Scale IT Systems in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (eu-LISA). This should start from the definition of requirements and the design phase of their work, including basing on the EBCG Capability Roadmap; and on the engagement with the Agencies during the implementation of the project. At the stage of proposal preparation, Frontex and eu-LISA will not provide any guidance on, or otherwise be involved in the preparation of, project proposals. Proposals should consider and foresee that Frontex and eu-LISA may observe pilots and demonstrations when the project will be implemented, with the aim of facilitating future uptake of innovations for the border and coast guard community.
To ensure the active involvement of and timely feedback from relevant security practitioners, proposals should plan a mid-term deliverable consisting in the assessment of the project’s mid-term outcomes, performed by the practitioners involved in the project.
Technology Readiness Level - Technology readiness level expected from completed projects
Activities are expected to achieve TRL 4-5 by the end of the project – see General Annex B.
Text from the funder (European Commission, CC BY 4.0).
Conditions in full
"> General conditions
1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limit and layout
described in Annex A and Annex E of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes.
Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System.
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2. Eligible Countries
described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes.
A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide .
3. Other Eligible Conditions
Subject to restrictions for the protection of European communication networks.
The following additional eligibility criteria apply:
This topic requires the active involvement, as beneficiaries, of at least 2 Border or Coast Guard Authorities from at least 2 different EU Member States or Associated Countries. For these participants, applicants must fill in the table “Information about security practitioners” in the application form with all the requested information, following the template provided in the submission IT tool.
If projects use satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigation and/or related timing data and services, beneficiaries must make use of Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS (other data and services may additionally be used).
described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes.
4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion
described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes.
5a. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds
are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes.
5b. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes
are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual .
5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement
described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes.
6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants
The granting authority may, up to 4 years after the end of the action, object to a transfer of ownership or to the exclusive licensing of results, as set out in the specific provision of Annex 5.
Eligible costs will take the form of a lump sum as defined in the Decision of 7 July 2021 authorising the use of lump sum contributions under the Horizon Europe Programme – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2021-2027) – and in actions under the Research and Training Programme of the European Atomic Energy Community (2021-2025) [[This decision is available on the Funding and Tenders Portal, in the reference documents section for Horizon Europe, under ‘Simplified costs decisions’ or through this link: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/guidance/ls-decision_he_en.pdf ]].
described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes.
Specific conditions
described in the [specific topic of the Work Programme]
Some activities resulting from this topic may involve using classified background and/or producing of security sensitive results (EUCI and SEN). Please refer to the related provisions in section B Security — EU classified and sensitive information of the General Annexes.
Application and evaluation forms and model grant agreement (MGA):
Application form templates — the application form specific to this call is available in the Submission System
Standard application form (HE RIA, IA)
Standard application form (HE RIA IA Stage 1)
Standard application form (HE RIA IA Stage 1 BLIND)
Standard application form (HE CSA)
Standard application form (HE CSA Stage 1)
Standard application form (HE CSA Stage 1 BLIND)
Standard application form (HE RI)
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