Jeppix Pilot Line, a European acceleration program, is hosting an open call for application experiments. The objective of this initiative is to provide support to businesses and catalyse their transition to industrial prototyping and pre-commercial production of high-performance indium phosphide (InP) photonic integrated circuits (PICs).
The types of activities that qualify for receiving technical support must be related to adoption of new products, services and business models enabled by and containing InP photonic integrated circuits.
Specifically, the aim of proposals will be:
The transformation of a PIC prototype up to TRL7 PIC pre-industrial prototype in any market segment.
Please take a note of the following:
- Pure research activity and development of a proof of concept only will not be supported by the JePPIX Pilot Line open call program,
- One product prototype per one applicant can only receive support once.
Who?
The Call is open to:
EU-based companies of any size (please check the list of EU-based countries in appendix 1.[1])
[1] For the UK based companies: The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020. There is now a transition period until the end of 2020 while the UK and EU negotiate additional arrangements. UK participants will continue to receive EU grant funding for the lifetime of individual Horizon 2020 projects, including projects finishing after the transition period ends at the end of 2020. European Commission’s general notice for UK applicants: ‘’In conformity with the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement[1], the UK and persons or entities established in the UK continue to be eligible to receive Union funds under actions carried out in direct, indirect or shared management, which implement Union programmes and activities committed under the MFF 2014-2020 until the closure of those Union programmes and activities. Restrictions may, however, apply for security-related reasons or concerning financial instruments. When such restrictions apply, these will be clearly specified in the call for proposals.” For more information, please check the links below:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/continued-uk-participation-in-eu-programmes/eu-funded-programmes-under-the-withdrawal-agreement; https://www.ukri.org/research/international/ukri-europe/.
The applicants who are currently exploring InP PIC technology and are ready to scale-up their internal programs to perform product development towards TRL7 in any market segment.
Companies who are willing to share information about the use of PICs, applications, etc. to be used as (successful) user demonstrator cases, for further exploitation of the Pilot Line.
When?
The Call will be open from 1st September 2020 to 12 November 2021 and applicants will be able to apply anytime until the second cut-off date. Any submitted proposal will be evaluated in the nearest cut-off (deadline: 17:00 CET).
CUT-OFF | DATES |
1st Cut-off (M23) | 13 November 2020 |
2nd Cut-off (M35) | 12 November 2021 |
Why?
15 selected applicants:
- will get access to industrial prototyping and pre-commercial manufacturing services of InP photonic integrated circuits technology.
- will be provided customized support (based on their needs) to:
- Design their own PICs
- Have their pre-commercial run of PICs delivered
- Testing
- will receive 80k€ (max.) worth of technical services delivered directly by Jeppix Pilot Line – foundry run, design house, testing.
- Please note that a minimum of 50% co-funding is required. It can be the input of labour, and materials.
How?
If you are interested in applying to the Demonstrator Open Call, please follow the steps listed below before submitting your application.
- Check out the Jeppix Pilot Line website for information about the technology & possibilities
- Read information on Open Call
- Text of the Call
- Application Guidelines
- Make sure that you satisfy eligibility criteria
- Register through the registration portal
- Download Application Form on the registration portal
- Complete the Application Form, save it as a PDF file (MAX 5 pages), uploaded it and submit it through the portal.
Applications will be accepted only in English language.
Process (Evaluation criteria & selection & Timing)

Any submitted proposal will be evaluated in the nearest future cut-off by the Evaluation Panel composed of 4 evaluators. All proposals will be evaluated (scores ranging from 0 to 5) according to the following criteria:
- Concept
- Implementation
- Impact
The maximum overall score is 15. The standard threshold for individual criteria is 3, and the standard overall threshold, applying to the sum of the three individual scores, is 9. The average of the 4 scores given by evaluators per section and total will be calculated for each proposal. Proposals failing to achieve the threshold score per individual criteria and the overall threshold will be rejected. Proposals will be ranked according to the overall scores in descending order.
The most successful proposals, having passed the evaluation, will be offered the chance to negotiate and sign the Service Delivery Agreement (SDA) with the Service Delivery Manager assigned by Jeppix Pilot Line. Evaluation will be returned approximately 4 weeks from submission deadline. The entire process from proposal submission until the end of service delivery, i.e., delivering the (tested) PICs, could take from 9 to 11 months, that is of course for proposals that are selected for funding support.
Documents
- Text of the call
- Application Form
- Application Guidelines
- Service Delivery Agreement (SDA).
Communication with applicants
If you need assistance in applying to the Call, or explanations about technology offerings and your possibilities with Jeppix Pilot Line, please send us your enquiries by phone to: +420 226 217 422 or by email to helpdesk@jeppixpilotline.eu. Helpdesk will be active Monday – Friday from 9 a.m. to 17.00 p.m. We will be happy to help you.
Complaints procedure
Upon reception of the feedback, applicants will have the possibility to submit to the Jeppix Pilot Line Evaluation Panel complaints related to decisions of proposal evaluation and selection, if there is an indication that there has been a shortcoming in the way a proposal has been evaluated. The complaint procedure is not meant to call into question the judgement made by the evaluators; rather to improve and correct procedural shortcomings and – in rare cases –factual errors.
Such complaint requests should be raised within 7 working days from the date of the evaluation feedback sent by the Jeppix Pilot Line Helpdesk. If a complaint is submitted after that deadline it will be rejected without further examination.
Complaint requests sent by applicants must be:
- related to the evaluation process;
- sent by email to Jeppix Pilot Line Helpdesk;
- received within the specified time limit.
An initial reply will be sent to complainants no later than two weeks after the deadline for complaint requests. This initial reply will indicate when a definitive reply will be provided. A complaint committee may be convened to examine the peer review evaluation process for the case in question. The committee’s role is to ensure a coherent interpretation of requests and equal treatment of applicants. The complaint committee itself, however, will not re-evaluate the proposal, but it will examine the admissibility of the complaints, the legality of the actions against which the complaints are launched and factual arguments and claims of the complaints. Depending on the nature of the complaint, the committee may review the evaluation report and individual comments. In the light of its review, the committee will recommend a course of action. If there is clear evidence of a shortcoming that could affect the eventual funding decision, it is possible that all or part of the proposal will be re-evaluated. Unless there is clear evidence of a shortcoming there will be no follow-up, or re-evaluation.
Please note:
- This procedure is concerned with the evaluation process.
- The committee will not call into question the judgment of the individual evaluators.
- A re-evaluation will only be carried out if there is evidence of a shortcoming that affects the quality assessment of a proposal. This means, for example, that a problem relating to one evaluation criterion will not lead to a re-evaluation if a proposal has failed anyway on the other criteria.
- The evaluation score following any re-evaluation will be regarded as definitive. It may be lower than the original score.
- Only one complaint request per application experiment will be considered by the committee.
- All complaint requests will be treated