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The eTen is a programme providing funds to make e-services available throughout the European Union. It works by giving financial assistance to consortia consisting of public and private organisations, enabling them to make e-services available across the European Union. eTEN supports trans-European services in the common interest which might not otherwise be set up, and it aims to enable people to participate fully in the Information Society, encouraging organisations to extend their services to groups of users who might otherwise be marginalised. It can provide:
•Up to 50 per cent of the costs of market validation for a project, showing its technical and economic feasibility and benefit to end-users
•Up to 10 per cent of the costs of initial deployment in starting up a service
Currently the main focuses of eTen are applications and generic services in the areas of eGovernment, eHealth, eInclusion, eLearning and Trust and Confidence.
Call for proposals
The eTEN Call for Proposals 2004/1 is currently open. The call opened on March 10, 2004. It will close on June 9, 2004, at 16:00. The Community budget for this call is 42 million Euro.
Participation in eTEN is open to all legal persons, public and private. Success in a Call for Proposals depends only on the quality of the proposal and its conformity with the objectives of the programme.
Who qualifies?
•Proposals must be presented by a consortium comprising a minimum number of two mutually-independent legal entities, each established in a different EU Member State
•The ideal consortium for an eTEN proejct includes all the players in the value chain necessary for implementing the services, its set-up, deployment and operation
•The proposed service must be based on a proven technology platform
•The project must be innovative, and there must be clear obstacles preventing it from being financed from private sources
•The service must be trans-European
•The service must be in the common interest, i.e. it should serve existing or recently identified needs in the user population and its emphasis should be on service provision.
How to apply
The eTen programme works through calls for proposals that are issued generally once or twice a year. In oder to help consortia to prepare a proposal, a call for proposals will normally be open for approximately 3 months. A consortium may submit a proposal for the market validation of a new service, or a request for assistance in its initial deployment.
With a proposal for market validation, it should be clear what needs to be validated and what the criteria will be when coming to a decision about the deployment of the service. During the validation process, the Commission monitors performance of the prject, periodically reviewing the results. On completition of the validation, a business plan or equivalent must be produced. This then forms the basis for the consortium to decide whether or not to go ahead with the serivce.
The starting point for an initial deployment project is a clear business plan (or equivalent in the public sector) and accompanying investment plan. The Community contribution is paid out in parallel with the consortium’s own investment. Because deployment projects are directly entering the market, it must be clear that competition is not at risk of being distorted.
Proposal preparation
The eTEN Guide for Proposers 2004 contains full details on how to make a proposal. It can be found on the following address: http://europa.eu.int/information_society/programmes/eten/participate/index_en.htm
In brief, the project proposals should be structured in two sections:
Part A is a set of forms which collect basic information about the proposal and the proposers, e.g. proposal name, proposers’ names and addresses, brief description of the work, total funding requested etc.
Part B: The first part contains a description of the long-term project in which the proposers intend or have decided to invest, together with the estimated implementation and financial projection plans. This section must include an estimate of the total investment required to complete the project as a whole. Since the maximum funding available is determined by the overall investment, this estimate must be fully justified. The proposer must explain the calculation in sufficient detail to enable it to be verified during the evaluation process.
The second part identifies the project phase for which a Community contribution is requested. This can be either the market validation phase or the project initial deployment phase. This section of the proposal shall include all the information required for the assessment of applications for financial aid.
Call for experts for the evaluation of proposals
The commision is now receiving applications for the compilation of a list of experts providing assistance with the technical, financial, socio-economic and business evaluation of proposals, the review of projects, and the overall evaluation of the eTEN action. Persons wishing to apply for inclusion on the list can view the conditions for considering applications stipulated on the eTen website on http://europa.eu.int/information_society/programmes/eten/calls/cfe2003/index_en.htm
Applications relating to the current call can be sent until 30 June 2004.
Further information
The Ministry for Information Technology and Investment is also assisting organisations to establish contacts which can result in profitable business opportunities. This is done through the National Contact Point (NCP) network, a system to inform and assist potential participants and contractors in ongoing projects. All one has to do is to send short e-mail to eten@gov.mt with the following information:
- Name of company, name of contact person, main activity of the company and web site where to find more information
- Type of project/what kind of partnership is required
- The main expertise that can be proposed to the consortia, and in what field of expertise (for example, healthcare, environment, etc)
The e-mail will then be sent to the National Contact Points in the other Member States, who will in turn circulate it amongst their contacts. Maltese organisations that have put forward their proposal will be eventually contacted directly by the interested foreign parties.
For further information related to this programme, please visit the eTen web site on www.europa.eu.int/eten or send an e-mail to Ms. Gabriella Briffa Darmanin, National Contact Point for the eTEN programme at the Ministry for IT & Investment on: eten@gov.mt.
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