Chemical hazards often lead to severe effects on health. Intentional or accidental, from direct contact to mere exposure, there is an urgent need for effective instrumentation that can enable first responders to detect and guide responses to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense (CBRN) threats in public spaces. In this article, learn how Bee Granted supported a consortium made up of 8 partners in their quest for a grant of €4.7 million under the SU-DRS04-2019 call.
SERSing - Exploiting Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) and Advanced Algorithms for Guiding Responses to Potential Chemical Threats – is a project coordinated by Silmeco ApS (Denmark), consisting of partners from Denmark, Spain, The Netherlands, Sweden and the Czech Republic. It aims to develop and validate a novel class of robust, light-weight, miniaturized, simple to use and cost-effective “plug and play” microfluidic SERS platforms, which upon analysis by an adapted Raman spectrometer are able to provide a timely and comprehensive picture of chemical hazards at an incident scene, to improve situation awareness and decision-making.
SERSing received the maximum grant amount possible under the SU-DRS04-2019 call (part of H2020-SU-SEC-2018-2019-2020) and will kick off the project within a few days. To celebrate this special occasion, we had a chat with Dr. Tomas Rindzevicius, co-founder of Silmeco and coordinator of the project, to look back at how the proposal developed and what was the added value of a specialised consultancy company in the process.
“We had previously applied to Danish and European projects with 1-3 partners, so we knew what to expect from the process. Coordinating seven other partners spread throughout Europe seemed a daunting task. After a previous successful collaboration with Bee Granted, we decided to involve them in this project as well.”
The most important role Bee Granted took in the process was developing the second section of the proposal (‘Impact’), in close collaboration with the coordinator. For it, we implemented several methods we developed in-house to clearly focus the message and communicate the project ideas in a way that emphasized the cutting-edge concept.
“While each Horizon 2020 call has specific expected impacts set out in the programme, it was critical to think beyond what was expected and show how the companies involved in the project would grow, how the society and the environment would benefit from the project and clearly delineate what scientific progress we will make.”
Bee Granted also took on several responsibilities within the proposal development process. To minimise the administrative burden for the coordinator, we sent out templates and processed the partner profile information, filled in the portal and made sure all documents were ready for submission. This freed up significant time for the coordinator to be involved in the brainstorming sessions with the partners and to make sure that all technical objectives were aligned and novel.
“The project partners have expertise in mass fabrication, novel sensor devices, microfluidic platforms and SERS, machine learning, data science, microsystems in chemical engineering, nanoscience, plasmonics, applied research and development focused on the study of CBRN agents and their properties. It was crucial to be able to spend a significant amount of time on aligning the vision and objectives of all partners and ensuring that SERSing belongs to all of us, and does not represent the vision of only one or two people.”
Aligned with our mission of becoming long-term partners to our collaborators, Bee Granted continued to support Silmeco even after the positive funding decision, by coordinating the grant agreement process. Bee Granted is proud to have worked together with such a dedicated consortium and is looking forward to the exciting outcomes of this project.
Get in touch with us to learn more about how we can assist you in your quest for Horizon 2020 / Horizon Europe funding!