We are excited to announce that the Second Call for Cascade Funding is officially open! The Second Call for Cascade Funding is open for applications from 21 February to 23 April 2025, closing at 17h CEST. The Second Call for Cascade Funding will fund +20 projects facilitating knowledge exchange, piloting new initiatives within institutions, and enabling lasting institutional change.
As the second and final call within the CoARA Boost Project, this call invites a diverse portfolio of applications from a wide range of organisations at various stages of their reform journeys.
Dates: 21 February 2025 to 23 April 2025 (call to close at 17h CEST)
Funding for the Second Call: €1.22m to be released in the second round
Three project types available:
- Institutional Pilot Projects: Experiment with and evaluate new assessment approaches, frameworks, and tools.
- Teaming Projects: Transfer expertise and lessons learned from experienced organisations to less experienced ones.
- Institutional Change Projects: Accelerate organisational change in processes and procedures on an institutional level.
As a facilitator of institutional changes in research assessment, the Second Call invites applications that address practical solutions for implementing the reform of research assessment practices within a given organisation. The Cascade Funding programme aims to support a variety of projects focused on developing innovative pilot projects, knowledge transfer and exchange, and lasting institutional reform.
Pilot projects offer an opportunity for institutions to experiment with and evaluate new assessment approaches by exploring new modes of operation that address issues relevant for an institution’s assessment mechanisms and pave the way towards lasting change
Teaming projects facilitate the transfer and adaptation of experience and practices from a more advanced organisation to organisations with less experience, involving projects such as capacity-building or enhancing open infrastructure relevant for responsible research assessment. These projects involve multiple organisations for co-piloting innovations between institutions of the same type or between organisations of different types, such as universities and national academies.
Institutional Change projects aim to establish sustainable changes within an organisation’s institutional policies for lasting change. These projects serve as scaled-up versions of Pilot projects aimed at organisations that already have a reform policy in place, but require additional resources for implementing reforms through documentation or knowledge-sharing systems
In the First Call, a maximum of 25 projects were selected and are currently underway. The selected projects from the First Call included 13 Pilot Projects, 3 Teaming Projects, and 9 Institutional Change Projects.
The Second Call is expected to add to the diverse portfolio of projects, taking into account geographical diversity among other evaluation criteria outlined in the Evaluation Criteria document. The overall portfolio of selected projects will aim to transform the shared vision outlined in the Agreement into concrete, lasting institutional changes in research assessment practices.
As the call is meant to support institutions from across the European Research Area (ERA), eligible applications are limited to legal entities based in the EU Member States and countries associated to the Horizon Europe Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. The types of organisations eligible for funding are detailed in the Second Call Text.
Find out more about the Second Call here: https://coara.eu/coara-boost-cascade-funding/second-call-for-cascade-funding/
For any inquiries, please consult the updated FAQs on Cascade Funding.
For best practices and lesson learned, please find the presentation slides from the latest Cascade Funding information hosted on 30 January 2025 here.
Applications open from 21 February to 23 April 2025, 17h CEST.