§ 1
Idea
1. The idea of EU TalentOn Katowice 2024 – European Union Contest for early-career
researchers (EU TalentOn) is to challenge young bright minds to shape the future, by giving
them a chance to participate in an open competition for creative scientific solutions to major global challenges.
2. The EU TalentON is an event for young researchers from all across Europe, aged 21 to 35
years, representing all disciplines of academia, including science and technology, art and humanities. In this competition, they are invited to come up with solutions to major challenges in the world of today and tomorrow.
The EU TalentON aims to bridge the gap between young research talent, science and industry, promoting thinking that is creative, while remaining scientific and realistic.
3. The participants take on challenges linked to the 5 EU Missions of Horizon Europe – 5 Mission Arenas of EU TalentON :
1.) Adaptation to Climate Change
2.) Cancer Prevention and Care
3.) Restore our Ocean and Water
4.) 100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities
5.) A Soil Deal for Europe
4. The competition is financed by the Horizon Europe Program as a project titled: “EU TalentOn Katowice 2024 – European Union Contest for early-career researchers”, hereinafter referred to as the Project.
§ 2
Timeline
April 15 – May 20, 2024 – I Open call for applicants
May 21- June 12, 2024 – I Application evaluation process
June 17- July 7, 2024 – II Open call for applicants
July 8 – 26, 2024 – II Application evaluation process and selection of participants
August 2024 – Teaming of participants and within-team online meeting
September 9-14, 2024 – The contest finale in Katowice
§ 3
Application process
1. In order to be eligible to apply for the EU TalentOn, the criteria are:
- age of 21-35 years, i.e. year of birth 1989-2003;
- affiliation with a university or research institution in one of the following countries:
EU Countries: 1. Austria 2. Belgium 3. Bulgaria 4. Croatia 5. Republic of Cyprus 6. Czech
Republic 7. Denmark 8. Estonia 9. Finland 10. France 11. Germany, 12. Greece 13.
Hungary 14. Ireland 15.Italy 16. Latvia 17 Lithuania 18. Luxembourg 19. Malta 20.
Netherlands 21. Poland 22. Portugal 23. Romania 24. Slovakia 25. Slovenia 26. Spain
27. Sweden.
Non-EU countries associated to Horizon Europe: 1. Albania, 2. Armenia, 3. Bosnia and
Herzegovina, 4. Faroe Islands, 5. Georgia, 6. Iceland, 7. Israel, 8. Kosovo, 9. Moldova,
10. Montenegro, 11. New Zealand, 12. North Macedonia, 13. Norway, 14. Serbia, 15.
Türkiye, 16. Tunisia, 17. United Kingdom, 18. Ukraine.
Applicants will confirm adherence to both criteria during the application process. They will be asked to provide proof of age and affiliation only by individual request by the organizer
(identity card/passport; a certificate from a university/research institution).
2. Application forms will be collected only through online form at https://eutalenton2024.eu/
3. The form will include:
- basic information such as name, date of birth, contact data and affiliation;
- education and area of scientific expertise, including selected relevant scientific achievements;
- the selection of preferred 1 of the 5 Mission Arenas;
- 4 questions:
- What is your motivation to participate in EU TalentOn?
- What is your perspective on the most important open issues related to the
Mission Arena that you have selected? - Please describe how you deal with teamwork and working under time
pressure? - Explain how your scientific background makes you a perfect person to
participate in EU TalentON within the Mission Arena that you have selected?
- statements & consents.
4. All applications will go through 3 stages of evaluation:
- Internal evaluation
- This will be performed by the EU TalentOn team to check eligibility and other
basic formal criteria.
- This will be performed by the EU TalentOn team to check eligibility and other
- Peer evaluation
- This will be performed by other EU TalentOn applicants (called for this purpose
“peer reviewers”). Each peer reviewer will receive at least 5 application forms
submitted by other applicants. The forms will be anonymized and will come from applicants to other Mission Arenas, so that there is no incentive to unfairly
judge potential competitors. Each application will be scored through an online
grading system according to a standardized form. - Each application will receive a total (peer review) score which will be an
unweighted arithmetic mean of the total scores from individual peer reviews.
- This will be performed by other EU TalentOn applicants (called for this purpose
- Expert evaluation
- The best-graded applications – whose number will be selected based on the
total number of applications – will be sent for expert evaluation. The application
forms will be anonymized. Each expert will grade pool of applications through
an online grading system according to a standardized form. - Each application will receive a total (expert) score which will be an unweighted
arithmetic mean of the total scores from individual experts.
- The best-graded applications – whose number will be selected based on the
5. The list of maximum 125 participants will consist of applications with the highest total expert scores. The final number of participants will be selected based on the number of applications within each Mission Arena. Care will be taken to ensure a similar number of teams for each Mission Arena.
It is not possible to appeal against the results of the recruitment process for the competition.
6. Each team will consist of 3-5 participants and 1 buddy. Participants will be teamed, based on the result of an online meeting, organized shortly after the participants are selected. During the meeting, the participants will have the chance to introduce themselves to other people in their own Mission Arenas, and provide the organizers with an (unpublished) list of preferred team members. The composition of the teams will be decided based on their preference and, if necessary, randomization.
The function of buddies, is to help the participants with issues such as moving around the campus, arranging materials, reminding about important points in the program and other support during the contest.
7. The condition for taking part in the competition is to read the GDPR information clause for
the competition participant. The content of the GDPR information clause can be found in the
application form on the competition website, indicated in section 2.
§ 4
Contest - Finale week
1. The EU TalentOn Finale will be an event held in Katowice on 9-14.09.2024 at SpinPLACE
Centre for Creativity and Coworking (Bankowa 5, Katowice).
The main purpose of the finale is to give the participants time to develop their ideas into a proposal that will be later presented to the jury. During the finale the participants will also be given opportunity to participate in additional lectures/workshops to help them in their work and in a number of network events.
2. The organizer will purchase plane or train tickets related to the competition participant’s
travel to Katowice, and also reserves and covers the cost of accommodation during EU
TalenOn in a hotel in Katowice. Catering service during the competition will be provided by
the organizer.
3. Each team will be responsible to prepare two forms of presenting their proposal:
- Written proposal that answers the following questions:
1. What is the specific problem that you are solving?
2. How does this problem relate to the selected Mission Arena?
3. What is the solution that you propose?
4. Are there other solutions to this problem? Why is your solution better?
5. Is your solution feasible? Can you present a tentative cost analysis? How
would you implement this solution?
The document template will be made available to competition participants.
- Public pitch. It is a public presentation of 3-5 minutes that briefly presents all the key
elements of the proposal in a convincing way. The purpose of the pitch is to „sell” the proposal to an audience of experts.
4. The written proposal and the public pitch will be evaluated by a jury composed of experts in relevant fields of science, representing the European community of scientists. Each Mission Arena will have its own juries and in each case a Head Jury will be selected.
5. The participants will be informed that their proposal must be scientific, creative, feasible and convincing . Therefore, the following criteria will be taken into consideration by the jury:
- Scientific merit. The proposal must be scientifically sound, relate to an actual problem within the given Mission Arena and have real, considerable impact on the issue at hand.
- Creativity. The purpose of EU TalentON is to promote novel, out-of-the-box thinking,
including ideas that are unusual or thought-provoking. - Feasibility. The proposal, while creative, must be feasible. For instance, the proposal cannot be based on highly unrealistic or outright impossible technologies. However, for the contest to promote creative problem-solving, the jury will be invited to
understand this term liberally. - Appeal. The proposal must be presented in a convincing fashion. One of the purposes
of EU TalentON is to invite the participants to be bold and entrepreneurial. The content and quality of the pitch are especially important for that criterion.
6. Each member of the jury will grade each proposal according to a standardized form. Based on their evaluation of 4 criteria, each proposal will receive a total score. Unweighted means
will be calculated from these total scores from individual jury members, to give the final score. Prizes will be awarded based on these final scores.
§ 5
Prizes
1. The following prizes will be awarded:
1) Main prize (EU TalentOn Winner): 12 000 EUR (13333,33 EUR with tax);
2) First prize per each Mission Arena: 7 500 EUR (8333,33 EUR with tax);
3) Second prize per each Mission Arena: 4 500 EUR (5000,00 EUR with tax);
4) Special prize – EU TalentOn Community Award: 3 000 EUR (3333,33 EUR with tax).
Each prize will be divided equally among each person in the winning team and paid to each
person separately.
2. The prizes referred in section 1 points 2) and 3) will be awarded on the basis of the final results obtained based on the jury of each Mission Arena assessments.
3. The prize referred in section 1 point 1) will be awarded based on an open vote by jury members during the final gala of the competition after listening to the pitches of the winner of the 1st prize from each of the 5 arenas.
4. The prize referred in section 1 point 4) will be awarded as a result of voting by: competition participants, organizers and guests.
5. The cash prizes referred to in paragraph 1 will be subject to tax in accordance with Art. 41 section 4 of the Personal Income Tax Act (consolidated text: Journal of Laws of 2024, item 226, as amended) by the amount of flat-rate personal income tax in the amount of 10% of the amount of such a prize, and paid to the entitled persons on the basis indicated by bank accounts in the application form.
§ 6
Intellectual Property Rights
1. Participants guarantee that they are the sole authors and originators of the submitted proposals.
2. Participants retain intellectual property rights to projects developed during the EU TalentOn 2024 competition, particularly the right to dispose of them freely.
3. Participants are obliged to keep confidential all information about the projects they learned about while taking part in the EU TalentOn 2024 competition.
4. Jury members are obliged to keep confidential all information about the projects they
§ 7
Final provisions
1. The Organizer of the competition – the University of Silesia in Katowice reserves the right to disseminate information about the submitted works in the media, the Internet and promotional materials of the Project.
2. The Organizer reserves the right to verify whether the awarded Participant meets the conditions specified in these Regulations. Failure to meet the conditions of the competition or
those resulting from legal provisions results in the exclusion of a given Participant from the
Competition, with the simultaneous expiration of the right to prizes.
3. In all matters not regulated in these Regulations, the provisions of the Civil Code, the provisions on the protection of personal data and the provisions of the Act on copyright and related rights shall apply.
4. The Organizer reserves the right to change the Regulations.
Date of publication: 6 September 2024
