Research Support Framework for Situational Awareness on information integrity

Expected Outcome

At a general level, the project should achieve a strong, visible and recognised impact in scaling, facilitating and accelerating research and analytical efforts focussing on the information environment and information integrity.

The main outcomes of the awarded project will be:

• The technical solutions created or supported
• The insights generated from supported research and monitoring projects
• The proof of concept and lessons learnt for the support of shared infrastructures to support research on the information environment
• Building the prototype of a sustainable technological backbone for information integrity research that can be further scaled up in the future

Project applications will formulate their own deliverables in accordance with their needs analyses and proposed means to address them. At the minimum, deliverables should include:

• A suite or network of solutions capable of addressing Specific Objectives 1 and 2 (c.f. section 2 ‘Scope - Specific Objectives 1 and 2’)
• A methodology and dissemination plan for creating access to the created resources (c.f. section 2 ‘Scope - Specific Objective 3)
• A sub-granting methodology in line with the scope set forth in the section above (c.f. section 2 ‘Scope - Specific Objective 5’)
• A final report detailing lessons learnt and identifying clear paths for future actions

Objective

The overarching objective of this action is as follows:

Creating a common research framework with the necessary infrastructure to enable advanced research and analysis on information integrity in the EU.

In order to achieve this overall objective, the awarded consortium will implement the following specific objectives:

1. Securing or setting up necessary technological infrastructure, comprising both hardware and software capacities, needed for advanced research on information integrity
2. Supporting, acquiring, or creating a set of dedicated tools to facilitate research on information integrity and the analysis of information manipulation
3. Making the infrastructure, dedicated tools and computational capacity accessible to researchers and civil society, where needed through a transparent and effective access mechanism, and promoting its solutions to the relevant communities
4. Leveraging the tools and mechanisms for research that are provided by legislation, such as Article 40 of the Digital Services Act; by increasing the capacity of the research community and civil society to carry out high impact research on the basis of online platforms’ data
5. Set up and implement a grant structure to distribute funds to third parties from the research and civil society communities, with the aim of implementing two sets of eligible activities under the call:
6. Third party tools or capabilities that support the delivery of Specific Objectives 1 and 2
7. Research projects that utilise the outputs established under Specific Objectives 1, 2 and 4

Scope

Applying consortia must convincingly detail how they will achieve the objectives and deliverables set forth in this call for proposals. Proposals must cover all objectives listed in this call. They must be clear and well-defined, researched and fully developed taking all time-schedule and budget considerations into account.

This action is a grant for financial support, which foresees both the delivery of a set of actions by the awarded consortium (co-funded at 100%) as well as the distribution of a majority of the funds to third parties based on fair and transparent selection criteria (c.f. section 6 ‘Eligibility - Eligible Activities’). Proposals must allocate at least 60% of their proposed budget to the financial support to third parties. Proposals can suggest a budget with a share higher than 60% allocated to funding to third parties, but not below 60%.

This section details the scope for the activities of the consortium, as well as for the provision of grants to third parties. Three important, cross-cutting considerations apply to these descriptions on scope.

Firstly, all provided lists of examples for concrete means of implementation should be considered as indicative illustrations only, and thus not mandatory elements for grant applications. Rather, applying consortia will need to base their proposals on a clear, evidence informed needs analysis that is centred on the demands from the relevant research and civil society communities. The sophistication of the logical links between needs analysis and the proposed activities will form a key part of the evaluation process.

Secondly, proposals should focus on quality over quantity: The proposal of a more limited, but highly impactful set of actions is preferable over spreading resources on an overly wide set of actions that could undermine practical feasibility.

Thirdly, an emphasis on sustainability and longevity of the project and its results is essential. Activities should be planned in a manner that caters to the long-term interests and needs of the relevant communities. A focus on elements such as transferability of outputs and preserving results beyond the lifecycle of the project will be an important part of the selection process.