Building a sustainable and innovative Blue Economy: mastering digital opportunities and fostering resilience

Submission procedures :
A two-stage procedure will apply to this Joint Transnational Call; at stage 1 the submission of pre-proposals is mandatory, and at stage 2, applicants must submit full proposals upon invitation. (Pre-)proposals must be submitted electronically using the Electronic Proposal Submission System (EPSS): https://proposals.etag.ee/sustainable-blue/2026 .
The online system may experience high traffic volumes in the last hours before the submission deadline and it is therefore highly recommended to submit the final version of the pre / full proposal well in advance of the deadline to avoid any last-minute technical problems.
Requests for extensions of the deadline due to last-minute technical problems will not be considered. Any proposals not correctly submitted at this moment will be declared ineligible.
Evaluation procedures :
Detailed procedures are available in the call text.
A two-step evaluation procedure will apply: pre-proposal stage (Step 1) and full proposal stage (Step 2).
Pre-proposal stage (Step 1)
The eligible pre-proposals will be evaluated by a minimum of two independent evaluators of the IEC, and as far as possible, by three independent evaluators of the IEC who will be assigned by matching expert profiles with the need for pre-proposals evaluation, on two criteria:
-Excellence (Threshold: 3/5)
-Impact (Threshold: 3/5)
This Step 1 aims to identify the best proposals to proceed to step 2 and to ensure a balance between requested and available funds at the national level.
The ranked eligible pre-proposals will be sent to the CSC and be divided into 3 groups, according to their scores: Group A (highest evaluation scores), Group B (medium evaluation scores), and Group C (under the threshold scores). All pre-proposals in Group A will be invited to Step 2. Among the pre-proposals in Group B, proposals will be selected for step 2, considering the ranking list, the representativeness of all PFOs, and the funding ratio limits. Group C will be dismissed for their low ranking and unavailability of funding.
Full proposal stage (Step 2)
All eligible full proposals will be subject to a scientific evaluation by at least three independent reviewers of the IEC who will be assigned by matching expert’s profiles with the need for full proposals evaluation. One of the IEC members will be nominated as a rapporteur.
The evaluation of each full proposal will be based on the following criteria:
-Excellence (Threshold: 3/5)
-Impact (Threshold: 3/5)
-Quality and efficiency of implementation (Threshold: 3/5)
During the IEC meeting, the evaluators will present the evaluation results of each proposal. The IEC will discuss full proposals and agree on the final scores for each criterion.
The final ranking lists (one ranking list per priority area, four in total) will be forwarded to the CSC, which will meet to decide on the projects to be recommended for funding by PFOs.