With this second newsletter, we will take a closer look at the Forward program with the implementation of the Thematic working groups actions to improve the participation of the Outermost Regions in Horizon Europe calls for projects.
Forward so far enabled to have some collaborative tools in each work package such as strategic documents (joint strategy for ORs, capacitation action plans, RIS3 methodology guide, online networking events (conferences, workshops).
WP3 Thematic Working Groups, the heart of Forward are aligned with pillar 2 of Horizon Europe program as well as the the common Smart Specialization Strategies from ORs.They form the basis of Forward in order to increase ORs capacitation. All Kick-off-Meeting of TWG3 launched during 2020 and at the beginning of 2021, actually gather experts from ORs, Europe to discuss and share common OR issues.
Moreover, each TWGs is managed by a sub-coordinator, a Scientific expert based in an research organization in an OR. Each member communicates and shares their work, website, network in order to build future consortia.
Thematic Working Group facilitators provide support in terms of technical proposals, similar European projects granted, budget advices.
In other work packages such as WP4, Forward partners in their Region implemented referred capacitation activities based on the activities foreseen in a work document send by Work Package leader 4 (FRCT).
FRCT, planned some actions on short and medium term such as the organization of punctual meetings as well as well one-to-one meetings when required, with the WP4 Regional coordinators.
The WPL 4 will work in coordination with the TWG coordinators in order to follow up the progress of the Forward project capacitation actions.
Regarding networking, WP5 and WP6 were impacted the most by the health crisis due to travel restrictions.
- Forward partners adapted and organized online events. Forward members voted for a 6 months extension of the project to increase opportunities for an effective physical networking actions.
- A General Assembly within Work Package 1, has been organized on march 10th for official validation of the project extension and review some changes needed in the Grant Agreement. A Steering Committee Meeting is being organised every month, to monitor the project implementation and results, take decisions on relevant aspects and tackle any potential challenges.
- The Project Monitoring Plan (D1.3), delivered at the beginning of the project, will be reviewed in the coming months to add, if applicable, relevant updates. The new version of the plan is supposed to be delivered by June 2021.
For more information click here : Webinaire Forward FLYER-VF
In December, the Spanish National Contact Point CDTI made the official presentation of the new framework programme Horizon Europe (HE) in Spain.
In this context, the FORWARD partners, ULL and ULPGC, are organising a joint seminar to train researchers and R&I officers of the ORs for their future participation in Horizon Europe.
The seminar will be conducted online on January 14, 2021, from 9am to 11am (Canarian time).
For more information, please consult this link here
The meeting “The Canary Islands on the Horizon” is an initiative of the Government of the Canary Islands organized by the Canary Islands Agency for Research, Innovation and Information Society (ACIISI) as a management center responsible for carrying out the responsibilities related to public policies and programs in research, technological development, business innovation and deployment of the information society.
The aim of this second meeting “The Canary Islands on the Horizon” is to bring together all the agents of the quadruple regional helix (research, companies, administrations and society) in order to share the evaluation of the results of the Intelligent Specialization Strategy of the Canary Islands (RIS3) for the period 2014-2020, as well as to discuss proposals for improvement, adaptation of the priorities and fields of specialization in the preparation of the new S3 for the period 2021-2017.
Likewise, given our status as an outermost region, representatives of all the ORs have been invited to participate in this event, with which we will be able to discuss and propose new regulations and joint policies that will strengthen support for R+D+I ecosystems in the ORs in a differentiated manner within the new multiannual financial framework.
This second meeting will take place on December 4, 2020 from 9:00 to 12:30 at the Fuerteventura Technology Park, with live transmission over the Internet.
Resources of interest:
– Programme of the conference / Event programme (pdf, 1,5 MB) https://www3.gobiernodecanarias.org/aciisi/ris3/jornadas-canarias-horizonte
– Registration form (English version): https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdUR7M3OmQdiiU6yYmUk9TZloY7J2OThG98hqzbZ8RPuubbyg/viewform
– Registration for the event (Spanish version) https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdneJYEiFyy6gDpYyqszAFKXzaHbntX9njhMiUFBuen4UGqnA/viewform
Satisfaction survey in Spanish : https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd9JTpI3nNS8NHztVtzvP8Imj0lNQowq2CQ2ApNtzNr29uvgg/viewform
Satisfaction survey in English: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdUw18pfSCscCr9gsJT8cd3X7x6uxapZSTndYRDzPEhGxo1Ng/viewform
Webinar “The Perspectives of the Horizon Europe Programme (2021-2027) and its relation with the Thematic Groups in the FORWARD project”
The event organized by ARDITI and UMa, in the scope of the FORWARD project (Fostering Research Excellence in EU Outermost Regions – https://forward-h2020.eu/), addressed topics related to the new European funding framework program.
The Regional Agency for Research, Technological Development and Innovation (ARDITI) and the University of Madeira (UMa) promoted, on November 19, a webinar on “The perspectives of the Horizon Europe Program (2021-2027) and its relation to the Thematic Working Groups of the FORWARD project [translated from “As perspetivas do Programa Horizonte Europa (2021-2027) e a sua relação com os Grupos Temáticos no projeto FORWARD“.]
For this initiative, FORWARD was presented by Lúcio Quintal (ARDITI), technical coordinator of the project, who also identified the different areas of the thematic groups and their respective members and coordinators from Madeira, one of the nine outermost regions (OR’s).
Ana Caires (CEO of Saturntech), expert in European projects and European Commission evaluator, presented the new EU Research and Innovation Framework Program (2021-2027) and detailed its three pillars, pillar 1 – Excellent Science; pillar 2 – Global Challenges and European Industrial competitiveness; pillar 3 – Innovative Europe: stimulate revolutionary advancements and generators of markets and innovation ecosystems. She also presented the five mission areas covered by the new framework program, which are 1) Adaptation to climate change including societal transformation; 2) Cancer; 3) Climate-neutral and smart cities; 4) Healthy oceans, seas, coastal and inland waters; and 5) Soil health and food. To conclude, Ana Caires provided practical suggestions for the interested participants in obtaining European funding.
Claudio Mantero, director of the R&D department of the Horários do Funchal (HF), also evaluator of European Commission project proposals, talked about Thematic Working Group 5: Climate change and Energy transition (of which he is the inter-regional coordinator in this project) and the perspectives for Madeira and the OR’s.
To conclude, Miguel Carvalho, from the Centro de Agricultura Sustentável e Tecnologia Alimentar da Universidade da Madeira (ISOPLEXIS / UMa), talked about the Thematic Group 6: Agriculture and Biotechnology (of which he is the regional coordinator of this project) and the research perspectives in the Autonomous Region of Madeira in the scope of the Green Deal.
Attended to the event about 80 (online) participants, which connected from Madeira, the Azores, and even Portugal mainland.
Presentations of the speakers are available to download at https://we.tl/t-M1BfgcQika. The video of the event will also soon be available in the project’s YouTube channel (https://bit.ly/36YeskA).
To contact the project’s coordinators in Madeira, please send an email to forward-project@arditi.pt.
Funchal, 24th November 2020
If some ORs stakeholders are connected to major players that dominate the European Research Area l, Outermost regions (ORs) s display a heterogenous state of connectivity.
Connectivity to major networks is critical for any ecosystem willing to be part of the European Research and Innovation Area. Indeed, scientific litterature has shown the critical importance of “persistant oligarchic networks” which concentrate success in the Research and Innovation (R&I) Framework Programmes (FP). At the opposite, “newcomers to European research, seeking funding without well-developed networks […] are likely to fail” (Enger, 2017).
Analyzing the integration of the ORs in the ERA, the quality of the networks developed and their capacity to be turned into FP projects thus constitutes a key lever to increase the participation.
Therefore, during Forward WP2 diagnosis, each OR was invited to scrutinize its absolute connectivity to the dominant European networks, as well as per thematic, but also to analyze the relative internationalization of its R&I system.
Connections to European FP champions
According to the data gathered through WP2, ORs turn out to be well connected to the most successful organizations. In Madeira and La Reunion, 3 of the 7 most frequent partners have more than 100 FP projects. In Azores, 4 of the 14 most frequent have more than 100 projects. In the Canary, 7 out of 10. As a whole, more than 50% of the most frequent partners of ORs stakeholders appear to be top FP players. However, the connectivity is heterogenous among ORs, which comprises newcomers to FP such as Mayotte and Saint Martin (Forward is indeed their first participation in FP).
Internationalization of R&I systems
The openess of regional innovation systems contributes to their efficiency through the flux of resources, people and ideas it brings to regions which are facing a global competition for talents and resources, in a knowledge econoomy marked by the coexistence of attractive hubs and lagging peripheries.
The volume of foreign phD students and post docs can be used as an indicator of such openess as well as of the capacity of the region to be identified as a valuable scientific destination.
With 44% of foreign post docs, The Canary are the most open R&I system, followed by Madeira and Martinique (25%) and the Azores (19%). Data for other regions are either not consolidated or available.
Collaboration with Third countries and among ORs
In its 2008 Communication the European Commission called for a paradigm shift that would turn ORs are “outspots of the EU in the world”. This ambition was recalled in the 2017 communication which insisted on the necessity to facilitate exchanges and joint projects between the OR, their neighbouring countries and territories and regional organisations”.
Yet, despite the efforts to develop relationships with neighbouring countries, notably with the INTERREG programs, the OR, at the notable exception of Guadeloupe, seldom take part in FP projects which also integrate partners from their geographic basins. Moreover, most of the neighbouring countries do participate in FP without the contribution of ORs.
Finally, the majority of the FP projects implicating French OR, also integrate partner(s) from another OR, on the contrary, in the Canary and Madeira, ORs remain minior partners which represents 6 and 8.7% of the projects.
As a conclusion, the analysis of ORs connectivity shows that synergies could be found among ORs in order to learn from big players, reinforce regionalcapacities and exchange good pratices between all ORs. It also shows that European regional funds (ERDF and INTERREG V) could be more used as levers to increase networking for FP, by attracting foreign researchers and /or building future FP consortia, notably with regional partners.
More to follow here : the Forward open dashboards
Authors : Philippe Holstein & Evelyne Tarnus, Nexa
For the first time, thanks to the Forward project, Outermost Regions (ORs)s enjoy factual information to support the public actions to improve their participation in the European Research and Innovation Area through two open-data dashboards.
While a large number of discourses point out the weak participation of ORs in framework programmes projects and inherent structural difficulties, their actual implication in the programmes as well as their Research and Innovation performance remain poorly adressed in the scientific litterature.
Yet factual analysis is crucial to avoid determinist and homogeneizing approaches and policies, which neglect the ongoing realizations and exceptional potential and turn a blind eye at the diversity of Outermost Regions’s situation.
Thanks to the Forward project, ORs and their partners now have access to open data regarding their Research and Innovation performance as well as their FP participation. These dashboards were built by Nexa with the data from the WP2 diagnoses performed in each region and also from other official sources, such as Eurostat.
Research and Innovation dashboard
The Research and Innovation dashboard displays 24 indicators such as GDP growth rate, patent applications (EU), percentage of tertiary education, number of foreign pHD students and post docs, net EU contribution from FP participation, for each of the nine ORs and from 2007 to 2019. These data are available for download to allow users to re-use them.
- R&I indicators : https://public.tableau.com/profile/nexa#!/vizhome/ORRIDashboard/History
Framework programmes participation dashboard
The Framework programmes dashboard describes the participation of OR in the 7th and 8th European framework programme for Research and Innovation (FP7 and Horizon 2020 respectively). The dashboard provides data on the participation per OR, per period, per instruments (Reasearch and Innovation actions, Innovation actions, Coordination and support actions, Marie-Curie actions, etc.), per roles (coordinators, participant, third parties). It also allows comparison between ORs but also with EU NUTS2 region averages.
- FP participation : https://public.tableau.com/profile/nexa#!/vizhome/ORFPDashboard/Home
More to follow here : WP2 outcomes
Authors : Philippe Holstein & Evelyne Tarnus, Nexa
Through WP2 activities, each outermost region performed a 360° diagnosis to understand and improve their participation in frameworks programmes and also increase their research and innovation capacities, through a regional action plan and also a joint strategy.
At the very begining of the Forward project, the consortium co-designed with the help of Nexa an original and science-based methodology (refer to article ” FORWARD project : why another diagnosis ?”) to analyze Outermost Regions’ participation in the Framework programmes and identify the barriers and levers to improve their respective situation.
Thereafter, during 9 months, the 9 regional communities were mobilised to establish a factual state of play of the participation in FP and to complete a thorough analysis of the 4 factors which prevent them to fully take part to the European Research and Innovation Area :
- Connection to the major networks
- Regional innovation systems performance
- Regional organizations’ resources and strategies
- Individual capacities and decisions
Based on this analysis, each region built its territorial diagnosis and action plan to increase FP Participation in the next programmation period.
9 regional diagnosis and a comparative analysis
As a result, the diagnosis has shown that:
- ORs are H2020 players, working on key themes for the European Union,but present so far a limited participation.
- there is a high heterogeneity among ORs, some being active and successful for years, other remaining on the margins of the program.
- but there is no fatality, things can change very fast, in few years, some regions having improved rapidly and significantly their level of participation.
- 3 families of factors are very decisive : public policies, connection strategies to the major ERA networks, stakeholders’ behavior, notably their willingness to engage in these projects.
- there is a need for a tailor-made approach for each region and for each thematic
- and other key findings which can be found here : WP2_keyfindings
9 regional roadmaps and a OR joint strategy
Each region also elaborated a regional roadmap with their stakeholders focusing on the most urgent and powerful levers to activate in order to increase strongly and in a sustainable way their participation in the European framework programmes.
During a mutual learning event in Brussels, the nine regions met in order to identify the potential of synergies between regions and build a joint strategy based on :
- A common AMBITION – Inclusive growth through knowledge-based economy
- A common VISION – Achieve excellence in the OR’s R&I ecosystem
- A common MISSION – « Foster political will and synergies between OR’s to turn them into global resilience living labs through the integration into international value chains and increased participation in European research and innovation area.”
- Common VALUES – Synergies, Integration and Participation in respect of the heterogeneities of ORs
The nine detailed diagnoses including regional roadmaps and the joint strategy are available here .
From WP2 data to the OR webplatform and Forward open dashboards
To achieve WP2 diagnoses, regions have produced a large amount of data. These data have been used by Nexa to build very useful tools to increase ORs’ visibility and recognition :
– the OR plateforme : https://forward-h2020.eu/
– and 2 open-data dashboards on
- R&I indicators : https://public.tableau.com/profile/nexa#!/vizhome/ORRIDashboard/History
- FP participation : https://public.tableau.com/profile/nexa#!/vizhome/ORFPDashboard/Home
More to follow here : the Forward open dashboards
Authors : Philippe Holstein & Evelyne Tarnus, Nexa
Though the participation of lagging behind regions in the framework programmes for R&I has been analyzed in depth, Outermost regions remain a blind spot in the growing litterature.
Collective representations, reflected in the article 349 of the treaty on European Union, point out the inherent, structural characteristics of these territories, that would inhibit the participation to collaborative, competitive calls for projects : Small ecosystems, with limited and fragmented research and innovation capacities; physical insolation and lack of integration in the networks; specific challenges and research topics, largely ignored by the calls of the FP.
Such determinist rhetoric naturalizes the obstacles to H2020, homogenizes highly singular territories and neglects their ongoing realizations and exceptional potential.
From representations to knowledge-based public actions
The Forward project offers an opportunity to question these representations. What is the actual performance of Outermost Regions in terms of FP participation? How do they compare to other European Regions? Are they isolated from the networks that dominate the scene? Do the participation determinants identified by the literature apply to Outermost Regions? Do they face specific challenges? What are the similarities and differences between the outermost regions? How do they compare to each other in terms of organization and participation to FP? Do they share the same assets and weaknesses?
The lack of precise diagnostic is also a limit to the effectiveness of the policies implemented by regional and European authorities. In line with the ongoing discussions on Horizon Europe and future cohesion policies, Outermost regions needed to identify the precise obstacles that limit their integration and the most adapted levers to support their ambition.
A common methodology to co-design regional action plan and a OR-joint strategy
In this context, WP2, led by Nexa, the regional agency for Development & Innovation of La Reunion, built an original methodology based on critical principles. First, the will to provide an objectivized and sound analysis of all regions’ participation in the Research and Innovation Framework Programme (FP) through a method based on the state of the art of FP participation and on social sciences standards. Second a multidimensional approach which questions the diversity of factors that influence such participation. Third, the involvement of local quadruple helix to co-design regional action plans.
If WP2 diagnosis have confirmed some of the known obstacles, many determinants which (f)actually and strongly inhibit the transition towards knowledge economy in ORs were underestimated.
More to follow here : WP2 ; Main outcomes R&I diagnosis
Outermost regions as a whole, extract from :
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2006/793/annex/vii/adopted/data.xht?view=snippet&wrap=true
Depistes a growing number of articles about European framework programmes,
OR participation remain a blind spot in the scientific litterature.
Authors : Philippe Holstein & Evelyne Tarnus, Nexa