Space Weather

Type of action: Research and Innovation action (RIA) Scope:  Specific challenge: Space weather services exist already today in Europe and in several countries outside the EU. New services are also being developed (e.g. in ESA’s SSA programme and in EU Seventh Framework Programme projects). Their goal is to observe and to predict a range of solar events that may impact the near Earth environment including orbiting satellites and ground based systems. Today, the services partly rely on ageing solar observational infrastructure, which may need to be upgraded or replaced by new space based observatories in the coming years. Data from existing and upcoming missions, as well as available GNSS  data,  will open the door for Europe to push ahead in its impressive track record in space weather in general and heliophysics research in particular. The challenge is to harness the expected much richer and larger volumes of data to enable new and more sophisticated modelling of complex physical phenomena and their impact. This will necessitate new approaches to data processing and international cooperation in this domain. Scope: Exploratory work studying new ideas for data analysis and modelling of space weather with a view to enhancing the performance of space weather prediction. Proposals can cover the full range of space weather phenomena from the solar cycle, flares and coronal mass ejections to the effects of the solar wind in the near-earth environment and the evolution in between. Research into further improvement of existing models, their validation and the associated simulation tools in the context of international cooperation with leading space weather service providers and/or related to emerging European space weather services. There is scope for cooperation with international partners with relevant expertise (also third States’ entities with or without EU funding). The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 2 and 4 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts. Expected impact: Proposals are expected to deliver new insights into the detailed processes that generate space weather. This should contribute to new services able to predict, with a significantly higher precision than today, space weather events affecting the Earth and the near Earth space environment. Type of action: Research and innovation actions Please read carefully all provisions below before the preparation of your application. List of countries and applicable rules for funding: described in part A of the General Annexes of the General Work Programme.   Eligibility and admissibility conditions: described in part B and C of the General Annexes of the General Work Programme with the following exception: the European Space Agency will not participate in corsortia of proposals submitted under this call for proposals.   Evaluation 3.1  Evaluation criteria and procedure, scoring and threshold: described in part H of the General Annexes of the General Work Programme. 3.2 Guide to the submission and evaluation process   Proposal page limits and layout: Please refer to Part B of the standard proposal template.   Indicative timetable for evaluation and grant agreement: Maximum 5 months from the final date for submission. Signature of grant agreements: maximum 3 months from the date of informing successful applicants.   Provisions, proposal templates and evaluation forms for the type(s) of action(s) under this topic: Research and Innovation Action: Specific provisions and funding rates Standard proposal template (administrative forms and structure of technical annex) Standard evaluation form Annotated Model Grant Agreement   Additional provisions: Horizon 2020 budget flexibility Classified information Financial support to Third Parties    Open access must be granted to all scientific publications resulting from Horizon 2020 actions, and proposals must refer to measures envisaged. Where relevant, proposals should also provide information on how the participants will manage the research data generated and/or collected during the project, such as details on what types of data the project will generate, whether and how this data will be exploited or made accessible for verification and re-use, and how it will be curated and preserved.