Writing in Horizon 2020 proposal is a Herculean task. Before you dive into the process and apply for Horizon 2020 funding you first need to make sure that you’re going to follow certain specific steps that will help you write a winning Horizon 2020 proposal. It is not easy and it could take a very long time so it is a good idea for you to start preparing long before you decide to submit the proposal.
Together in this article, we will see the most important steps you will need to follow for you to write the best Horizon 2020 proposal and submit it for funding.
Step one
Starting, you will need to make sure that Horizon 2020 is the right program for you. Yes, Horizon 2020 has a massive base of calls and it does provide huge sums of funding, however, there is a pretty good chance that Horizon 2020 might not be the best program for you. Perhaps, the proposal you have in mind or the general idea is a better fit for a different programme.
Before you decide that you want to start writing a proposal for Horizon 2020 does your research regarding the rest of the European programs as well. Ask yourselves the following question. It is the researcher you are suggesting innovative? You need to understand that when it comes to Horizon 2020 proposals, the commission will not just hand out funding to anyone. You need to have a state-of-the-art idea and research that will bring innovation in more than one way.
Step two
Understand the research agenda. In other words, make sure that you are going to completely understand the call you are interested in. Let's assume that you have established that Horizon 2020 is the right program for you. The next thing you will want to do will be to choose the call. It is quite a common mistake for a lot of applicants to choose the wrong call to submit their proposals.
You need to take your time to check out a lot of different calls to try to find the one that suits your idea of the most. Always remember that you need to know how your proposal is going to address the question of the European Commission is asking through the call. An easy way to do that is to simply highlight the important keywords of every call and then compare them to your own idea. Do they match? And if yes at what ratio?
You also need to make sure that you will check the eligibility criteria of every call before you start developing a proposal for it. Those criteria will show you what the commission wants to achieve via that particular topic. You need to address every possible impact within the call topic.
After you have found and understood what the court needs try creating an outline of your proposal. A single page outline that will be able to provide you with a high-level overview of your project. You can start by writing the opening summary, stating your objectives, and of course, providing your solution. If what you have written down is appropriate for the call, it should accompany you throughout the entire process of the proposal writing.
Step three
Make sure that you will follow some of the commission's most important requirements. Some of them include understanding the commission's expectations for the call you are interested in, making sure that your suggested project is going to be on an international level, not a national level. Now the partnership requirements like for example the minimum amount of partners required for a proposal and last but not least try to understand the evaluation process and criteria before you start writing the proposal.
Step four
Creating the consortium. A lot of people make the mistake of not paying enough attention to the consortium from the very beginning. That is a very, very wrong result in your proposal writing process. You know what you want to achieve and you know that you have found a specific call in Horizon 2020 that can host your proposal.
The group of partners that will implement the proposal play the most important role in the entire process. You want to put together a consortium that will be able to reflect the people in your field to have even higher chances of success. In other words, if you don't have an expert consortium focused on your project proposal then, the evaluation process is simply going to cut your proposal from the very beginning.
Each part of the research within the proposal will need to be assigned to a specific partner. That partner will need to have the experience as well as expertise to complete their obligation. Apart from making that clear within the proposal, make sure that you show off exactly why each partner is appropriate to take on that role and how their expertise can add to the proposal and take the research to the next level.
Step five
Try to think as the evaluator. Chances are that you have been part of the Horizon 2020 proposal before. Whether they were approved or not you do have a certain idea when it comes to the evaluation process of the proposal. The process does not change at all. Whether you are submitting an Erasmus plus or in Horizon 2020 proposal there are a few things that remain the same.
The evaluators will want to see a well-written proposal with excellent English, a suggestion that will be to the point and will address the subject matter of the call, a clear impact, in the case of Horizon 2020 a proper excellence part and most importantly, a long-term solution. If you were the evaluator and you had to allocate massive sums of money to countless proposals which ones would you choose?
Luckily for you, the European Commission can provide you with a self-evaluation form. That form will make it easier for you to know exactly what the evaluators are looking for. These will be the criteria that they were used to mark your proposal. The excellence part, the impact, and of course the implementation.
It has been proven that the majority of Horizon 2020 proposals fail mostly when it comes to the impact part of the proposal. You need to remember that each part of the proposal is equally important and will need the same amount of time to be developed.
Step six
Take the time to write a proposal. You need to do some research long before the deadline of the call you are interested in. If you try to write and submit Horizon 2020 proposal within just a few weeks you are most likely going to end up with a very bad result in your hands. Going through the project call, going through the excellence, impact, and implementation part, finding the consortium and all the rest take a long time.
Imagine that you will need the same amount of time to write down the proposal. Remember that, Horizon 2020 is a massive financial framework and it requires a lot of expertise and a lot of attention. After writing it you will need to go over it again and again. You will need to review your proposal as much as possible and perhaps even find external reviewers that will be able to do the same for you. At the end of the day, all that extra effort will be worth it.
Step seven
Don't be afraid to ask for external help. If you know for a fact that you have already chosen an excellent consortium and that, your idea is so good it will receive funding why waste time or risk writing a proposal that will not get funded at the end? If you are not a professional in the field of proposal writing especially for Horizon 2020 you might want to consider outsourcing the process.
Some multiple freelance writers and organisations can provide you with proposal writing services for Horizon 2020, Erasmus plus, and pretty much any kind of European programme you are interested in. By doing some research and by knowing a few names that could help you, you could speed up the entire process. Whether you are going to outsource the entire proposal or just a few parts of it, the result is still going to be a lot better than trying to write a proposal on your own if you do not have the expertise for it.
Bullet-proof your points make sure that you are going to keep your proposal within the scope of the call. Your objectives, your activities, of the outputs and indicators, need to be presentable. The impact will need clear and the implementation process will have to be explained step-by-step.
Don't forget to show off the excellence part as much as possible. Everything from the objectives to the concept, methodology, and ambition of your proposal will form the excellence part of the proposal and we can guarantee, it is one of the most important parts that the evaluator will be looking for.
Be patient while writing a Horizon 2020 proposal. If you follow these steps properly and you devote enough time to the process we can guarantee that the results are going to amaze you.
