Science and Innovation

The application must be formalised through the electronic headquarters of the City Council.

In this 2023 call, only projects promoted by a group of legal entities may be submitted. The groupings will have to be formed by a minimum of three legal entities legally constituted and active, working in cooperation to promote synergies and optimise the design, implementation and dissemination of the projects, to encourage partnerships between various actors.

The legal entities members of the clusters must fall into one of the following categories

• Public universities, their research institutes and private universities, in accordance with the provisions of the LO 6/2001, and must be registered in the register created by RD 1509/2008, of 12 September, which regulates the Register of universities, centres and degrees.
• Public research bodies, identified in accordance with the provisions of Article 47 of Law 14/2011, of 1 June, on science, technology and innovation.
• Other R&D centres with their own legal personality linked to public administrations, or majority-owned by the public sector, regardless of their legal form.
• Public and private non-profit health entities and institutions, linked to or in agreement with the National Health System or the ICS, which carry out research work.
• Public and private non-profit organisations that can contribute positively to the design, execution, application and social impact of the project.
• Companies and business organisations linked, according to their corporate purpose, to the content of the project. These companies must have less than 50 employees and have innovation as a priority objective.
• Other organisations that contribute to the dissemination and popularisation of science or that carry out tasks to support scientific and technological transfer.

Among the groupings of legal entities, there must be at least two institutions having research as one of their main activities.

Research projects must meet the following conditions:

• They must have a maximum duration of 18 months from the day after the publication of the final decision.
• The sphere of action of the subsidised projects must be the city of Barcelona and/or its metropolitan area.
• Projects or continuations of projects and/or lines of research already initiated, which have obtained grants in the following calls, may not be presented in this call:
  • Call 2021 for the award of extraordinary subsidies for research and innovation projects of the Barcelona City Council, in collaboration with the "la Caixa" Foundation.
  • Call 2022 for the award of extraordinary subsidies for research and innovation projects of the Barcelona City Council, in collaboration with the "la Caixa" Foundation.
  • Call for subsidies for young and emerging research projects 2022 of the Barcelona City Council.

In addition, projects must, among other things, be original, aim to provide scientific evidence to inspire policy decisions in the city of Barcelona and plausibly justify the expected results.

The deadline is 40 days from the day after the publication of the call for applications in the BOPB (Official Gazette of the Province of Barcelona). That is, from 8 March to 17 April 2023, both included.

Projects should be based on the search for challenges that fall within one of these two thematic areas:

• A. Community health
• B. Sustainability and climate change

Each project can be funded up to a maximum of €150,000.

The application to take part in the 2023 call consists of the following documentation to be submitted:

• Basic Document 1: Application form (annex 1).
• Basic Document 2: Scientific and technical report of the project (annex 2). With a maximum length of 15 pages (a page is understood to be each side of a sheet of paper). Times Roman font must be used, 11 point size, single spacing. The environmental and social implications and the gender perspective must be taken into account in the drafting of this report. The use of non-discriminatory and non-sexist language should also be taken into account. Basic Document 2 should only include the following sections:
  • Summary of the project (abstract), 300 words maximum, written in Catalan or Spanish.
  • Objectives of the project (general and specific) and research questions.
  • Planned methodology.
  • Members of the research group.
  • Expected results of the research and details of how these can contribute value to the city of Barcelona, both in terms of political decision-making and for the life of citizens and scientific knowledge.
  • Work plan and timetable for carrying out the project.
• Basic Document 3: Economic viability plan for the project (annex 3). The plan must indicate the general budget of the project, the partial budget that each entity assumes, and include all the foreseen expenses and income. It must also include the adequacy of the resources requested for the size of the project.
• Basic Document 4: curriculum vitae of the principal investigator (PI) of the project (annex 4), with a maximum length of four pages (a page is understood to be each side of a sheet of paper).
•  Basic Document 5: Agreement between the legal entities comprising the grouping (annex 5). Form specifying the terms of the agreement between the grouped legal entities promoting the project within the framework of the grants for research and innovation projects.
• Documentation accrediting the legal personality of the members of the grouping, as well as their registration in the corresponding register.
• Tax ID number of the legal entities making up the group.
• National identity card of the legal representatives.

Failure to submit any of the basic documents 1, 2, 3, 3, 4 or 5 within the deadline for submission of applications is a reason for non-admission.

The respective Annexes will be made available to applicants once the call for applications is opened, at the electronic headquarters of the City Council. The documentation must be provided, as a general rule, in Catalan or Spanish. English is also accepted for the scientific-technical report, the viability plan and the curriculum vitae (with the exception of the abstract, which must be in Catalan or Spanish).

The Department of Science and Universities, through external national and international experts in the thematic areas provided for in this call, will evaluate the projects in accordance with the assessment criteria, distributed as follows: 40% for scientific-technical quality, 30% for implementation capacity, and 30% for social impact.

These evaluations are submitted to the Evaluation Commission, which issues the award proposal. The composition of the Evaluation Commission can be found in point 11 of the call for proposals.

• Declaration of transparency. Each of the legal entities that make up the applicant groups shall submit a responsible declaration of transparency in accordance with the model provided, in accordance with article 15.2 of Law 19/2014, of 29 December, on transparency, access to public information and good governance, for subsidies of 10,000 euros or more.
• Bank account. The legal entity leading the grouping will have to carry out the bank account designation procedure from the procedures' portal on the Barcelona City Council website. The link to make the designation is here.

All data resulting from the research will be made public, preferably using open science channels and/or via the Barcelona City Council website.

The results of the project must be disseminated by means of a dissemination article to be published and made openly accessible through the municipal website, together with a summary of the dissemination actions derived from the project.

In order for knowledge transfer to materialise, projects must also submit to Barcelona City Council summaries of the research results and their implications in the form of knowledge transfer sheets.

Both documents described in points 14.1 and 14.2 must be submitted within 3 months after the end of the project, and in addition to the final scientific-technical report.

The subsidised projects must be disseminated through the usual channels in the scientific field, as well as participating in conferences, meetings or activities for public dissemination and knowledge transfer, on their own initiative or at the proposal of Barcelona City Council in the events it organises, such as the City and Science Biennial. Attendance at these events is compulsory for at least one member of the project, and forms part of the social return for obtaining the municipal grant.

The phrase "the project has been financed by Barcelona City Council and  "la Caixa" Foundation" must be included in any dissemination and publicity material carried out as part of the project, as well as in the participation in any dissemination activity where the project is mentioned. The graphic material derived from the project must follow the corporate image regulations of Barcelona City Council and the "la Caixa" Foundation.

Approved subsidies will be published in the BOPB and on the Barcelona City Council website, Virtual Office and Subsidies.

In order to check your application, you will need the registration number and the procedure reference number.