Charles University announces the first call for mini‑projects aimed at supporting industry‑specific and interdisciplinary activities related to the implementation of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) initiative in the Czech Republic.
Objective of the call
The objective of the call is to support domain-specific and interdisciplinary activities as part of the implementation of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) initiative in the Czech Republic in accordance with the conceptual document "Architecture of EOSC Implementation in the Czech Republic".
The objective of the call is to involve a broader target group in the activities of the Open Science II project – and in particular in ensuring the FAIRification of research data, metadata and repositories and ensuring standardization/compatibility and the interconnection of systems and other activities necessary for the functioning of the NDI through "mini-projects" that can be utilised both by the applicant's and project partners' entities, as well as by other entities outside the partnership (known collectively as "participating institutions").
Eligible applicants
Eligible applicants must belong to the following category:
Entities that meet the definition of an organization engaged in the dissemination of research and knowledge under the Framework for State Aid for Research, Development and Innovation (2022/C 414/01) with the legal form:
- public research institutions;
- public universities;
- other legal entities.
Beneficiaries or partners that receive a financial contribution from the Open Science II project are also eligible applicants for this call.
Partnership
Partnerships are not permitted in this call.
Eligible activities
Creation of outputs that follow the planned outputs and/or supported activities of the Open Science II project and significantly expand the planned outputs and/or supported activities of the project. These are outputs with a high level of preparedness, discussed by the EOSC Ini-tiative community in the Czech Republic (see Annex 7 of the call).
The output(s) of the mini‑project must meet the following criteria:
- Mini-projects must be created for one or more of the following domain/thematic clusters:
- Bio/health/food;
- Material sciences and technology;
- Data management for artificial intelligence and machine learning;
- Social sciences;
- Physical sciences;
- Humanities and arts;
- Environmental sciences;
- Sensitive data.
- Every output must correspond to exactly one output type (output specification column) from the Catalogue of Outputs (see Annex 2 of the call)
- Every output:
- develops or responds to the needs of discipline‑specific EOSC communities, and
- builds on the results of previous projects and activities of the EOSC CZ initiative, thereby fulfilling the requirements of the NDI.
Basic Parameters of the Call
- Announcement of the call: 02/2026
- Application submission deadline: until 03/2026
- Minimum duration of a mini‑project: 6 weeks
- Maximum duration: 18 months
- Latest completion date: 29 February 2028
- Maximum amount of eligible costs: 4,500,000 CZK
- Co‑funding rate: minimum 10%
- Funding method: ex post
Specific information, deadlines, and documents will be released by the end of January 2026, when the Call will be announced.