Calendar of Horizon Europe 2023 Infodays and Brokerage Events

New Horizon Europ calls are approaching fast. To give prospective applicants the opportunity to get information and ask questions about the main funding instruments and processes of the calls, the European Commission organizes a series of Information days.

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Additionally, the Brokerage Events are planned by relevant NCPs, with the objective to gather all the relevant stakeholders intending to apply for funding, and support the development of consortia and project ideas. 

BATTERY INNOVATION WORKSHOP in VTT

Innovation Workshop held by VTT on 09-10 November 2022 in Finland aimed at the identification and discussion of possible synergies in preparing joint project proposals for Batt4EU Partnership calls.  25 European experts from Finland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, and Portugal took part in the workshop.

“Engaging in Horizon Europe projects: What’s first?"

Organised by Luxinnovation under the Fit4NMP project, the event was held on the 8th of November at the Chambre de Commerce of Luxembourg. Its main objective was to provide a detailed tour guide on the necessary sequential steps to take from newcomer organisations wanting to get engaged on Horizon Europe projects.  Over 20 potential newcomer Luxembourgish organisations took part in the event.

Functional Materials 2022 (hybrid conference)   

FIT-4-NMP project partners Institute of Materials and Machine Mechanics, Slovak Academy of Sciences (IMSAS) held a successful hybrid event in the project area. The Functional Materials 2022 hybrid conference gathered 45 participants from different countries, including 3 FIT-4-NMP talented newcomers. 

FIT-4-NMP Networking and Brokerage Event in Romania at CAS 2022 Conference

On October 13, 2022, “FIT-4-NMP Networking and Brokerage event” was held in the frame of the International Semiconductor Conference (CAS), in Poiana Brasov, Romania. The event was organized by the FIT-4-NMP partner National Institute for R&D in Microtechnologies (IMT), Bucharest.  The local event was attended by 35 participants, including newcomer organizations from Moldova, Romania, Serbia.

High-Performance and Sustainable Composites Innovation Workshop

Innovation Workshop held on 13-14 October 2022 in Technische Universität Dresden aimed at co-creating concrete opportunities for collaborative research projects on High-Performance and Sustainable Composites.  24 European experts from 6 countries took part in the workshop, including including 11 Newcomers and four representatives of the process and manufacturing industry 

Region training in Albania on Horizon Europe proposal writing

FIT-4-NMP held a Horizon Europe training workshop in Tirana, Albania, on 6th October.

Held within the frame of the 22nd edition of the Trends in Nanotechnology International Conference (TNT2022), the training workshop attracted thirty-two participants from the University of Tirana, Agricultural University of Tirana, University of Prishtina and Academy of Sciences of Albania
 

Horizon Europe proposal writing training workshops in Armenia

During 20-21 September, the two training workshops were held by FIT-4-NMP coordinator Giles Brandon in Armenia, covering the coordination and support actions (CSA) funded under the Horizon Europe Widening programme and research and innovation actions (RIA) and innovation actions (IA) funded under Horizon Europe Pillar 2 (Clusters 4 and 5).

Horizon Europe Workshop in UA09 Region

On July, 1st, 2022 the FIT-4-NMP project together with the New Economy of Frankivsk (NEF) project held a regional workshop in FIT-4-NMP prioritized Ukrainian region UA09 (Ivano-Frankivska oblast). 

The workshop was attended by near 20 persons and was focused on the overview of Horizon Europe opportunities and FIT-4-NMP support services. 

2nd Tech transfer training

On 14th and 15th of June, 2022 the FIT-4-NMP project held the 2nd Tech Transfer Interactive Workshop in Riga, Latvia, which was delivered by ASTP.

34 experts in tech transfer from different underrepresented regions participated in this training to learn about collaborations between academia and industry an network within the project community.

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Training on M-ERA.NET 2022 call

On the 10th of May 2022, the FIT-4-NMP team organised online training focused on the M-ERA.NET network opportunities and specifically on the open 2022 call.

The FIT-4-NMP experts presented the call details and shared their experience in preparing successful M-ERA.Net proposals.

The training gathered 96 participants from different European countries.

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Regional Workshop in Ukraine 

On the 5th of May 2022 the FIT-4-NMP held an online workshop focused on the overview of Horizon Europe possibilities open for Ukrainian researchers. The event was co-organized by the Project Office of Lviv Polytechnic National University.

During the online workshop, which was attended by 180 participants, the experts spoke about Horizon Europe programme opportunities and the schedule of the upcoming calls.

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EIC Accelerator Training

On the 4th of April 2022 the FIT-4-NMP held online training dedicated to preparing a successful proposal for the EIC Accelerator calls.

The Horizon Europe EIC Accelerator supports individual Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), in particular Startups and spinout companies to develop and scale up game-changing innovations. In some cases, small mid-caps (up to 500 employees) are supported.

During the online workshop, which was attended by 132 participants from 20 countries, the experts spoke about EIC Accelerator Features, application process. The evaluator's perspective and winner's take were also presented.

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EU support to Ukrainian researchers

The European Commission supports the Ukrainian research community affected by the ongoing Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.

First, the Ukrainian entities are eligible for EU funding under Horizon Europe even without association in force. The agreement’s entry into force is on hold due to the war, however, the EC's commitment toward Ukraine to bring the research communities closer together grows bigger and stronger every day.

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Second, on 22 March, the European Commission has launched a dedicated portal ERA4Ukraine (under the Euraxess network) as a one-stop-shop for information on support to researchers of Ukraine by the EU, its Member States and Associated Countries.

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On the dedicated page, the FIT-4-NMP project collected different sources of help

to Ukrainian researchers offered in European countries.

FIT-4-NMP Policy Workshop

On 31 March 2021 the Innovation Policy Workshop "Increasing the participation of newcomers in NMP projects: challenges, best practices and policy measures" was held online.

The FIT-4-NMP partners demonstrated the findings of the project analytical activities on this topic. The representative of the DG RTD of the European Commission presented EU approaches facilitating the participation of newcomers in Horizon Europe. The experts from Slovakia and Catalonia shared their good practices for enhancing such involvement.

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The workshop gathered near 100 participants from different European countries.

FIT-4-NMP publishes report
on how to increase the participation of talented
newcomers in Horizon Europe NMP projects

The report looks at good practices and experiences in the implementation of policy measures to support participation in the Horizon 2020 (H2020) programme and summarises the main areas of action that should be addressed at European, national, regional and institutional level in removing existing barriers to participation in the Horizon Europe (HE) programme.

FIT-4-NMP offers free support for the Horizon Europe Hop-On Facility

FIT-4-NMP is offering free service to projects funded under the Pillar 2 or EIC pathfinder schemes to get engaged in the recently opened Hop-On Facility. This facility enables one additional participant from a Widening country to join the funded project, which does not already have a participant from a Widening country. FIT-4-NMP offers support to the consortium in finding such a participant and assistance with administrative procedures of the application.

FIT-4-NMP training on use of European Networking Portals

On 30 November 2021, a team of the FIT-4-NMP project experts held online training on the use of European Networking Portals. See the training presentations and video records to collaborate pro-actively regarding new Horizon Europe NMP calls.

FIT-4-NMP published a Report on challenges limiting the participation of talented newcomers in NMP projects

The report describes the results of the FIT-4-NMP survey, which was conducted among talented newcomers and national research and innovation policy experts, in order to understand the reasons for the low participation of newcomers in NMP projects in Horizon 2020.

The survey was completed by 128 respondents from 26 countries (EU-13: 84 respondents; EU-15: 13 respondents; Associated Countries: 31 respondents). 93 of the survey respondents were R&D actors and the remaining 35 were policy-makers.

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The survey questionnaire enabled to investigate three main issues relating to low participation: relevance to newcomers, barriers to participation, and ways to increase participation in Horizon Europe. The key findings of the questionnaire results analysis are presented in the Report.