Eligibility criteria?
01 / Geographical focus
For the 2025 RPD-TPS call, ARES decided to focus on 18 countries. Partner institutions which do not play a coordination role may however be located in one of the partner countries eligible in the framework of the thematic HES4SD JSF. The list of these 18 countries and of the “JSF partner countries” is available below under “Reference documents”.
02 / Common strategic frameworks
The projects must be built in accordance with the strategic goals of the Thematic Common Strategic Framework (JSF) “Higher Education and Science for Sustainable Development” (HES4SD) which has been developed for the 2022-2027 programme. The HES4SD JSF is available below under “Reference documents”.
03 / Partnership - Stakeholders
The project must be carried out as a partnership: it must include at least one Coordinating HEI in the Wallonia Brussels Federation as WBF coordinator, one Coordinating HEI in the partner country and at least one Partner HEI in the Wallonia Brussels Federation, Belgium.
The teaching and/or research partner institutions in the partner country must meet the following requirements:
- The institution services a public service function (public institution or functional public service);
- The institution must be not-for-profit;
- The degrees that the institution awards are recognized by the public administration authorities of the countries involved.
Detailed information about the status of the participants (WBF and local coordinators and partners) is available in the strategic directions and guidelines.
We draw the attention of applicants to the fact that a WBF coordinator can only submit one project proposal as coordinator under this call.
Which financial support?
- The duration of RDP and TPS is 3 or 5 years;
- The budget of the project proposals must comply with the RPD and TPS financial standards included in the RPD-TPS vademecum
- 3-year projects have a maximum budget of 350,000 €, 5-year projects have a maximum budget of 500,000 €;
- 5-year RPD project proposals must include at least one PhD thesis;
- 5-year TPS project proposals may – but are not obliged to – include PhD theses;
- The budgets of the projects will be divided in academic years (from September until the end of August).
How to submit a proposal?
01/ Procedures for submitting proposals
- Pre-project proposals may be written in French or English. Annexes in Spanish will be accepted;
- They must be submitted via the GIRAF platform by 15 April 2024 at midday;
- They must be accompanied by coordinators and partners’ CVs (maximum 5 pages);
- They must be officially validated by the WBF Coordinating HEI by 22 April 2024 at midday;
- Not respecting these deadlines will lead to the proposal rejection.
The practical steps to submit a proposal are detailed through GIRAF. The WBF coordinator will be invited to:
- Create his personal account or activate his existing GIRAF account (people already involved in a project funded by ARES are already included in GIRAF database);
- Contact the development cooperation unit of their institution to get the link to create a GIRAF form;
- Nominate co-writers among the activated accounts in GIRAF. Co-writers must activate or create their own accounts before being able to be designated as such.
Calendar
| DATE | ACTION |
| 15 January 2024 | Launch of the call for preproject proposals |
| 29 March 2024 at midday | Deadline to create a new form in GIRAF |
| 15 April 2024 at midday | Closing of the call for preproject proposals |
| 2-20 September 2024 | Preproject proposals evaluation meetings |
| End of September 2024 | Selection of preprojects |
| 17 October 2024 | Information meeting on full projects formulation |
| 18 October 2024 - 2 February 2025 | Formulation of the full projects |
| 3 February 2025 at midday | Deadline to submit full projects proposals |
| April 2025 | Validation of the 2025 RPD-TPS selection by ARES Board |
| September 2025 | Start of the 2025 PRD-PFS |
02/ Reference documents
- RDP-TPS Strategic directions and guidelines and annexes
- Document “Submitting pre-project proposals”
- Word preproject form
- Budget estimate template
- RPD-TPS vade-mecum
- RPD-TPS Pre-project evaluation grid
- Calendar of the RPD-TPS call
- List of eligible countries
- List of on-going activities (available in French only)
- Joint Strategic Frameworks of the 2022-2027 programme (thematic and geographic, when they exist) prepared by the Belgian Cooperation Non-Governmental Actors
- All these documents are available under reference documents of the 2025 RPD-TPS call
How are the projects selected?
01/ Selection process
- The administrative admissibility of the pre-project proposals is examined by contact persons from the HEIs and by ARES Direction for Development Cooperation.
- The admissible pre-project proposals are then analysed by two transversal external experts and two scientific experts.
- The DGD and diplomatic missions review the proposals, focusing on relevance, coherence and synergies criteria as well as on the links with strategic priorities of the Belgian Development Cooperation, and provide an opinion.
- On the basis of the opinions given by the experts and the DGD, the Bureau of ARES Development Cooperation Committee selects the pre-projects, taking into account the number of projects planned in the framework of the call and possible political and strategic criteria.
- The selected pre-project will participate in the two next phases of the selection process: the formulation and the validation phases (for more information, please read the strategic directions and guidelines).
02/ Selection criteria
Pre-project proposals are analysed by the experts on the basis of an evaluation grid including the following criteria:
Scientific and educational quality
The scientific and educational quality of a project will be a key factor during the selection of RPDs and TPSs. In more concrete terms, these projects must satisfy the following requirements:
- For RPDs, describe the scientific matters addressed and explain the scientific contribution of the project;
- For TSPs, describe the topics covered by the training through the curriculum and explain how they cover the various aspects of the identified issue;
- The pluridisciplinary nature of the project is important: the various disciplines or sub-disciplines involved must be highlighted and it must be clear how their integration will make it possible for the project to address the complexity of the identified issue;
- Provide a “state of the art” of the scientific issues addressed;
- Partners’ CVs (attached according to the required standards: maximum 5 pages including, when applicable, the five most important publications in the scientific area targeted by the project) must demonstrate that the qualifications of the participants match the needs arising from the addressed issue.
Relevance to development
The relevance to development (local, regional or national) of the project proposal is an essential criterion. In this regard proposals must provide satisfactory answers to the following questions:
- Is the project correctly structured for the context in which it must be carried out?
- Does the RPD project address a development issue which has arisen in the country/countries involved? Will the contribution to this problem have an effect, either direct or indirect, on the development of the country/countries involved and will it allow meeting the needs of the target groups and final beneficiaries?
- Does the TPS address a leading training field for the development of the partner institution or for the local, national or regional society?
Response strategy - Links with local strategies and other development cooperation activities
The general and specific objectives of the project must be specified, as well as all the axes of the response strategy. In addition, answers to the following questions must be given:
Response strategy
- Does the proposed strategy take into account the context in which the project will be carried out?
- Does the proposed strategy properly address the identified issues?
- For RPDs, does the proposed strategy adequately include the addressed scientific matters?
- For TSPs, are the organisation of the training and the proposed educational methods adapted to the target audience and to the training objectives?
- Does the proposed strategy contribute to strengthen the capacities of the local project partner?
Links with local strategies and other development cooperation activities
In its activities, ARES ensures that synergies and complementary activities are identified, with Belgian ANGCs as well as other local and international donors.
For pre-project proposals, it is required to describe how the proposal will link with national strategies and other development activities carried out in the country by different donors, including ARES. Possible concrete synergy or complementary activities will be detailed during the formulation phase.
Suitability of the budgetary allocation to the proposed response strategy
At the pre-project level, it is required to give a breakdown for general budget items (investment, functioning, staff, grants, travel expenses…). The experts will evaluate whether or not this budgetary allocation is adapted to the proposed strategy.
MORE INFORMATION: contact our team in charge of RPD-TPS : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
