Rigvir^® medicine manufacture company LATIMA Ltd. has applied project “Registration of melanoma cancer treatment Rigvir^® in European Medicine Agency” for the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme ever – Horizon 2020 . After successfully recieving grant in stage 1, company kept achieving goals and work on requirements set by European Commission experts. Attempting to the stage 2 has finished up with Seal of Excellence award.

“We are very proud and honoured to recieve this certificate. It shows the significance of our project at EU level and gives a support to keep the work on the project. We definitely will proceed our way on Horizon 2020 next calls.” emphasizes the head of business development department, Mr. Karlis Urbans.

But what actually is Seal of Excellence?

In short words, this certificate is official conclusion of European Commission experts which serves a guarantee that the company and its project is safe and valuable investment for investors and financial institutions. And EC grants this award only for the most perspective organizations and projects. This means – we are in the top 10-12% of submitted projects.

Based on the information provided by the European Commission, the Seal of Excellence is the high-quality label awarded to projects submitted to Horizon 2020 which were deemed to deserve funding but did not receive it due to budget limits. Also it recommends project for funding. As well, award must be “earned” as a high-quality project proposal in a highly competetive evaluation process. The evaluation is based on three criteria: excellence, impact and quality, efficiency of implementation. The European Commission has a first-class evaluation system engaging independent, international experts.

The Seal of Excellence Certificate rewards unfunded proposals which were above this quality threshold with a high-quality label and the Seal of Excellence holder can then approach alternative regional, national, private or public funding sources. In addition, it helps interested funding bodies willing to invest in promising proposals (including national & regional authorities through European Structural & Investment Funds) to identify these projects more easily.

In other words – European Commission recommends to execute project with company’s own or investor’s funding. Information and history of the “Seal of Excellence”:
https://ec.europa.eu/research/soe/index.cfm?pg=what

“Seal of Excellence” information leaflet:
https://ec.europa.eu/research/soe/pdf/seal_of_excellence_flyer_2015.pdf