NWO intends to increase budget of ERA-Net RegSys

The NWO domains Science and Social Sciences and Humanities, and the TKI Urban Energy fund Dutch participate in the call ERA-Net RegSys. It was indicated that the budget for Dutch research is between € 1,5 and € 2 million. In the official call, a budget of € 1,6 million was announced. NWO can now confirm that it intends to increase the available budget to € 2 million. However, for administrative reasons, this can only be confirmed after the deadline for project outlines of September 11, 2018.

The actual total funding awarded to Dutch project partners can actually exceed the committed Dutch budget, because ERA-Net has established a separate fund from which the national funding can be supplemented, might the national funds not be sufficient to fund a project. Projects that are ranked high on the ranking have priority with respect to such supplementary funding.

The exact size of this separate fund is not yet known. It will consist of at least 40% of the “cofund” awarded to the ERA-Net by the European Committee (EC). The size of the EC cofund is 33% of the cost of the projects that can be funded based on the ranking and the available national funding.

The call of ERA-Net RegSys is a follow-up of earlier calls of ERA-Net Smart Grids. Researchers of Dutch research institutes may apply together with research institutes of at least one other participating country/region on the subject of regional energy systems. Proposals need to be multidisciplinary: research into technical and social innovations must be combined. Without social innovations (e.g. related to participation of energy users, optimal institutional embedding, rules and regulations, business models) the technical innovations cannot succeed in practice.