You are looking at the archived information of the second open call. 
For the info on the latest CREW open call, go here.

[last and final update - October 4, 2012]

The second open call was closed on October 3, 2012 .  It is not longer possible to submit open call proposals.

The initial information was distributed at the Future Network and MobileSummit in Berlin, July 4 2012.  This information and the overview presentation is now also available from this website.

External experimenters are able to use the CREW infrastructure for their experiments in the field of cognitive radio and/or cognitive networking. For these experiments, funding is available. Note that to use the CREW facilities, applying for funding is not necessarily a requirement: (unfunded) use of the infrastructure, for smaller projects or exploratory use, may also be possible if the testbed owner is able to support your request (in function of availability and type of experiment).

If you are interested in receiving funding, please find the information for the first open call below. A (growing) list of frequently asked questions is available on this page as well.
 

Budget available in the second open call

EUR 440k Commission funding is available. For those proposals that get selected, a maximum funding (EU contribution) of EUR 120k applies. The minimum budget per (accepted) proposal is EUR 50k.
 

Number of experiments

The CREW project will offer funding to 4 to 8 experiments.
 

Number of partners per proposal

The target number of partners per proposal is 1 or 2.
 

Duration of the experiment

The maximum duration of an experiment is 12 months.  The experiments are expected to start in February 2013.
 

Types of experiments

We are looking for experiments in the field of cognitive radio and cognitive networks, that make use of the existing CREW infrastructure.
 

Yes, I'm interested!

All information needed to submit a proposal to the second CREW open call, can be found in following two documents:

• Guide for applicants
• Open call announcement document

The guide for applicants (which includes templates for submission) is also available in .doc format.

CREW open call 2 was officially announced at the Future Network and Mobile Summit in Berlin on July 4, 2012.  The overview presentation is available below:

• Overview of CREW and CREW open call 2

The presentations below were originally presented at the second FIRE open call day in Brussels on September 15th, 2011 to promote the first open call. The information is still relevant to get a quick view on what is available, but more complete and up-to-date information on the CREW infrastructures and cognitive components is available via CREW portal.

• TWIST testbed
• w-iLab.t testbed
• LTE/LTE advanced testbed
• Iris / Iris testbed
• Imec sensing agent
• Thales XCVR API

FAQ

Q: Can you review my proposal before submission?
A: We do not have sufficient time to read through all proposals during the submission phase. To guarantee a fair chance for all submitters, no proposals are reviewed.  If, however, you have targetted questions regarding the technical feasibility of your proposal, of course you can contact the contact persons for the different parts of the CREW facility.

Q: What is the page limit for the proposals?
A: There is no strict page limit. However, during the second FIRE open call day, a total proposal length of 20 to 25 pages was given as a guideline (see this presentation).

Q: Can I develop new solutions using the open call budget?
A: The open call budget is meant specifically to USE the CREW infrastructure for experimentation/validation. This means that, for example, developing a new algorithm cannot be done using CREW funding. However, the implementation of your solution(s) can be done using CREW funding. To summarize, CREW-payed manpower can be used to (1) implement your cognitive solution on the CREW facilities and (2) do the experiments, (3) analyze the results from your experiments and (4) provide feedback to the CREW consortium on the experiments and the use of the CREW platform.

Q: Can I access the infrastructure remotely or do I need to travel?
A: Some parts of the CREW infrastructure can be operated remotely, for other experiments, you will need to travel. Please check the CREW portal for information on how to access/use the different testbeds and cognitive components. In any case, even if a testbed can be operated remotely, you should probably reserve a part of your open call budget for travel, allowing you to meet the people behind the infrastructures and cognitive components, and to actually visit/see the infrastructures/cognitive components you will use.

Q: How do you define a sustainable result?
A: Let us start by describing a proposal that is not useful for us: suppose an experimenter uses the CREW facility for an unknown reason, e.g. developing unknown algorithms, and gives no feedback about how the infrastructure was used, what results were achieved, what part of the CREW infrastructure he/she (dis)liked,... In this case, from our perspective, an experimenter is just consuming funding without added value for the CREW consortium.
What we are looking for are experiments that help us to improve the CREW facilities: to put it sharply: the primary interest of CREW is not knowing how good your solution is or e.g. to get your source code. We are interested how you used the CREW facilities to reach your goals, and how this can help us in the future. For example, sustainability means leaving behind methodologies, tools, feedback, demonstrations (screencasts, videos,...), use cases, interfaces, scripts, experimentation scenarios, useful metrics,...

Q: How do I get access to the CREW facilities?
A: Please consult the CREW portal.

Q: When can the experiments that are part of the open call start officially?
A: The experiments that are accepted as result of the second open call are expected to start in  February 2013. However, a later starting date is possible, e.g. in case manpower is not yet available next January. Please note that the starting date cannot be shifted more than a few months, as otherwise we cannot guarantee the support to your experiments.

Q: The open call document mentions that "one or more federation functionalities" need to be included in the experiments. Are experiments that use more functionalities more likely to be selected?
A: Please note that it is not the CREW consortium that can decide on ranking: external and independent reviewers are responsible for judging the quality of the proposals. However, it is important to know that we included this statement to exclude experiments that would have been possible on top of a single CREW component/infrastructure, without making use of the federation. As such, in our view, defining an experiment is not about including as many functionalities as possible: when a single 'functionality' is used in a good way, this is perfect and a lot better than including 5 functionalities in an experiment that does not make sense at all.

Q: Can I submit multiple proposals (on different topics)?
A: Yes, but at most one proposal can be funded. 

Q: Can I move hardware available at one location to another location for my experiment? Can I move hardware from a CREW testbed to my own lab?
A: The CREW consortium has no view on the content of the proposals that will be submitted. As such, to guarantee the availability of the offered hardware to all experimenters that are accepted as part of the open call (and to the owners of the facilities), moving hardware is not allowed. However, in the past, we did move some of the hardware between the different CREW sites for short periods of time (e.g. during work meetings of the consortium). It is likely that these work meetings will continue once the new partners join as part of the open call- so moving hardware for a short period of time could, exceptionally, be possible. Table 1 of the CREW open call document lists the hardware/components that are available at the different sites.

Q: When will I receive a confirmation of my submission?
A: The confirmations will be sent out shortly after submission. If you do not receive a confirmation but you were expecting one, please contact us (see "contact" section).