Supporting businesses' expansion in the Internal Market by improving Points of Single Contact – Increasing awareness among entrepreneurs about the Points of Single Contact - COS-SPOC-2016-02-03

Date de clôture : 8 sept. 2016  
APPEL À PROJET CLÔTURÉ

The present call for proposals aims at achieving the following general objectives:

• create better conditions for SMEs' expansion in the Internal Market

• raise awareness of the Points of Single Contact (PSC) among the European businesses and entrepreneurs so that they know where to turn for information or assistance, or on how to interact with public administrations in order to get established or to provide services in the EU

• raise awareness among business support organisations on the PSCs’ role and their offer, so that they can provide comprehensive advice to their members or partners

The specific objectives of the present call are to:

• encourage businesses, including those established in a different Member State or wishing to provide services across borders, to make use of PSCs in order to complete administrative procedures online or seek assistance
• foster cooperation between the PSCs established in different Member States, so that they can cross-refer to services provided by them (relevant advice and guidance for businesses from another Member State)
• improve cooperation between PSCs and other business support organisations in a given Member State, or from different Member States, so that they can make maximum use of their comparative advantages and complement each other's services
• increase the number of visits on the PSCs' portals (number of users)
• increase online 'findability' of the PSCs through a higher indexation of PSC portals on search engines 

Eligibility of applicants

Applicants must submit proposals in consortia.

All consortium members must fall under one of the following categories:

a) public authorities responsible for the management of a PSC at national or regional level, in case the responsibility for the PSC is decentralised in a given country;

b) private or semi-private entities which have been entrusted by public authorities (see a) to manage the PSC;

c) public authorities active in the area linked to the activities of the PSCs (i.e., authorities responsible for e-government);

d) private or semi-private entities, other than the ones mentioned in point (b) active in the area linked to the activities of the PSCs, such as chambers of commerce and industry, chambers of handicrafts or similar bodies or their networks or associations;

e) training or educational institutions including universities or research centres active in the field related to the provision of services or of e-government.

Only applications from legal entities established in the following countries are eligible:

• EU Member States;
• third countries participating in the COSME programme, pursuant to Article 6 of the COSME Regulation.

Information regarding third countries participating in the COSME programme is available here.

Consortia shall be composed of at least two of the eligible applicants referred to in points a) or b) above, from at least two different COSME eligible countries.

One of the consortium members must act as the consortium coordinator. Applicants may participate in more than one consortium, but may act as project coordinator in only one submitted proposal. Should an applicant act as project coordinator in more than one proposal, all proposals submitted by the same coordinator will be excluded.

For more details, please consult the text of the call (terms of reference) available below. 

Submission of proposals

The deadline for electronic submission is 8 September 2016, 17.00 hours (Brussels time).

Please click and access the Participant Portal, in order to draft and submit your proposal.

The electronic submission reference for this call is COS-SPOC-2016-02-03

Questions/Answers

Potential applicants should address questions related to the content of this call by e-mail toEASME-COSME-SINGLE-CONTACTS@ec.europa.eu. Only questions sent to this functional mailbox will be answered. 

For reasons of equal treatment we do not answer questions individually. Questions will be answered only in the FAQ document, published periodically and within a reasonable period of time on this page. Before sending queries to the EASME, please read carefully the FAQs document, which you will find below.

Deadline for submitting questions related to the content of this call: 31 August 2016.

For any technical problems encountered with the submission system please contact the EC IT Research helpdesk: DIGIT-EFP7-SEP-SUPPORT@ec.europa.eu, Tel:+32 (2) 29 92222.