From now on, after the XXVI conference of the presidents of ORs at Azores in November 2021, the post Forward over June 2022 is formal and included under the Research & Innovation paragraph in the RCP-RUP Azores-November 18th and 19th, 2021 declaration.
The declaration precises that to take full advantage of this Research and Innovation potential, the ORs must also be integrated into European and international competitive networks. This will allow the strengthening of collaborations, networking with the European and international communities and centers of excellence. Integrating these networks means for ORs to integrate global value chains, increase their competitiveness, capacities, visibilities and the flow of knowledge and know-how.
As mentioned in the declaration, the XXVI CONFERENCE OF PRESIDENTS OF THE OUTERMOST REGIONS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, AZORES, NOVEMBER 18 AND 19, 2021 REQUESTS :
– The continuation of the FORWARD project in order to strengthen the research and innovation capacities of the ORs and to highlight their assets to potential European partners;
– Support for the establishment of a network of regional public entities to accompany Horizon Europe project leaders in the ORs;
– The launch of “OR missions” inspired by the Horizon Europe program model, which would enable stakeholders in the ORs, as well as other European and third-country partners, to coordinate their efforts on the six key challenges identified in the FORWARD project:
ecological conservation and restoration, energy transition, circular economy, adaptation to climate change and risk mitigation, water management, blue economy;
-To complete the statistical information system and associated publications to ensure equal treatment of the French ORs on data related to research and innovation at the European level
– Strengthening the role of the relevant OR actors in the research and innovation component of the EU-Africa dialogue.
This is available in RCP-RUP website https://cp-rup.com/ -> library -> CPRUP (PT, ES, FR).
Source : https://forward-h2020.eu/forward-sustainability-in-or-presidents-declaration/
During the last Steering Committee on February 17th, ITC (Instituto Tecnológico de Canarias) responsible for setting up the Thematic Working Groups highlighted the main success of the groups within the Work Package 3 since 2021.
Extracted from the WP3 report and the B2B meetings with facilitators, key findings have been introduced by ITC. Dynamics within the groups depending on the member’s profile revealed that Subgroups with common profiling led European Framework calls analysis. Some facilitators have taken to themselves relevant responsibilities of the different tasks of the Action plan. Focused on the Framework Program’s calls and opportunities, more than 60 European calls were identified.
Achievements are primarily reported as submitted or prepared calls :
– 3 submitted proposals (Health inTWG1 and Marine Sciences in TWG8)
– Participation of TWG5 Climate change and energy transition in European Cluster 5 brokerage event with 5 abstracts with potential participation.
– More than 250 members registered, opening opportunities to know more about each other and European Union funding opportunities.
In the scope of the end of the project, the upcomings actions are the elaboration of the sustainability report, the final meeting with sub- coordinators in Brussels and the organization oftrainings for the TWG sub-coordinators.
The training targets are as follows : Research and Innovation experts, future project leaders, research organizations, VSEs (very small entreprises) and SMEs (small and medium entreprises).
Training 1 : R&I project for SMEs and University-Private collaboration – March 16, 2022
• Description of Pillar III of Horizon Europe
• Expectations of the European Commission
• Feedback from Mr. Claudio Mantero, Senior
Project Manager and Sub-coordinator of Forward TWG5 “Climate change and energy transition”
• Scenario (practical part)
Registration link :
https://forms.gle/wqmHWKnyzmKEhj1y9
Training 2 : The “Widening participation and Strength European Research Area” an opportunity for the ORs – April 13 and 15, 2022
• History of European framework programs
• Expectation of the European Commission
• Description of Pillar IV and associated programs (Excellence Hub, Teaming, Twinning, Hop-on
Facility)
• Integration of Pillar IV with other programs (ERA
Chair, MSCA, etc.)
• Advice on setting up a Pillar IV project
(testimonial)
Training 3 : Setting up a project Writing a proposal
– May 18, 2022
Training 4 : Management of a European project and the new expectations of the European Commission (equality between men and women,
FAIR protocol for data, Communication and promotion of the results of European projects –
May 20 mai, 2022
Training 5 : International collaborations (networks, management, opportunities, RUP- Caribbean) know how to create and maintain your network – June 13 and 15, 2022
• The basics of international collaboration
• CE’s expectations in terms of collaboration
• Horizon Europe 2021-2027
• International funding in the Caribbean (InterReg-Caribbean)
• Other sources of international funding »
Each training, will be in two days with two-hour sessions (13 :00 CET), with theoretical and practical sessions.
The duration is 45 minutes maximum with short interventions by experts, guides (Quadruple helix) and testimonials from program winners.
The training is plan to be in French and count with simultaneous translation.
Within the Work package 1, regarding FORWARD ’s management, all partners had to comply with their interim financial and technical reporting in February 2022.
Partners’ spending is proceeding although there are savings from Other Direct Costs and Subcontractors due to the fact that many events that were supposed to be organised in-person have been converted into online meetings. Until December 2021, the consortium spent 70% of the total maximum eligible grant.
Concerning the technical reporting, WP leaders have provided updates on their own indicators. WP4 and WP6 activities are well on track, while partners are still finalising plans for WP5 activities, which have been the most impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak.
COVID-19 outbreak. As upcoming project actions, the consortium is working on the sustainability of Thematic Working Groups led by Synergile and the recommendations for European Union policies taking into account ORs issues led by ARDITI.
For the diagnosis led by Nexa in the beginning of the project regarding the Research and Innovation ecosystem, it will be updated thanks to a survey and a report that the regional governments of the 9 ORs have been asked to fill out.
The updated joint strategy carried out by FRCT and Nexa will be validated by an internal technical meeting before its adoption in mid-april.
FORWARD is the first European project involving all the 9 outermost regions gathered in consortium to better explore their research and innovation potential: Azores, Madeira, Canary Islands, Saint-Martin, Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Mayotte and Reunion.
The FORWARD project was an unprecedented opportunity for the outermost regions (OR) to work together and come up with a platform and a work program. As a leader in dissemination and communication, the Territorial Collectivity of French Guiana (CTG) has produced the third promotional video highlighting the results of the project. The two previous ones introduced FORWARD and pointed out research infrastructures and projects.
After three years of work, the progresses are significant in terms of evidence and constructive exchanges between regions.
Under WP2, Nexa, the Regional Agency for Development of La Reunion, together with the delegates of the other 8 outermost regions, conducted a thorough analysis of the bottlenecks which hinder the participation of OR in the Horizon calls and their R&I performance. Based on an extensive literature review, on results from 186 interviews with regional stakeholders, on data from a common survey with 258 respondents as well as several participative workshops gathering 155 participants in all 9 ORs, 9 extensive diagnoses about the FP & RI performance in ORs were produced. This exercise gave the Forward community the opportunity to fight against preconceived ideas according to which ORs would have “natural or traditional handicaps” preventing them to play a role in the European Research Area. But rather, the weak participation arises from 3 main factors :
- The lack of synergy between European, national and regional R&I policies to make knowledge society a reality.
- The weak connectivity of regional stakeholders with the advanced organizations and networks that dominate the ERA.
- Few organizations ‘are involved in FP
The Canaries and Guadeloupe have led the co-creation of 8 thematic working groups composed of different experts.
The FORWARD consortium has defined eight core working themes: health, social sciences, earth and space, ICT, climate change and energy transition, agriculture, biodiversity and marine sciences.
This allowed us to share knowledge, best practices and design common action plans.
Networking events for the visibility of their research or to create projects were respectively organized by the Canaries on the theme of “blue innovations” and by the Azores to create collaborative projects based on digital media. French Guiana sponsored the Virtual Island Summit which aims to connect islands and isolated rural areas around the world. It shared its experience with renewable energy in humid intertropical environments using artificial intelligence.
Madeira held a seminar to “rethink the current vision of smart islands” aspiring to become an autonomous, cooperative and hybrid island.
Training sessions related to setting up and monitoring calls for projects, and building networks and consortiums were organized in Martinique. Saint-Martin has provided training on how to finance its project under the framework program.
Regarding researcher’s mobility, the Departmental Council of Mayotte collaborated with the Institute of Parasitology and Tropical Veterinary Medicine of the Free University of Berlin to work on medicinal plants.
Our latest promotional video reviews examples of actions from the 9 territories that have allowed us to exchange with each other, gain visibility and capacity to implement responses to calls for projects.
Thanks to this step, the participation of these territories in Horizon Europe calls for projects should be strengthened.
Watch the third video to know the progress and results of the Forward project for the ORs here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNOKL25NyaY&t=5s
At less than 6 months of the due date of the FORWARD project, this fourth newsletter relates the successful actions carried out and will also deal with the next steps.
First of all, the third promotional video launched in early January 2022 showcases Forward’s results such as:
events organized by ORs for networking and increasing the visibility of their potential of research and innovation, like in the Canary Islands with the “blue innovations” event, French Guiana sponsoring the “Virtual Island Summit 2021”, “Rethinking smart islands in Madeira, and “Emergence@azores” in the Azores. In addition to this, training actions were implemented to strengthen capacity of the outermost regions to answer calls for proposals in Martinique and Saint-Martin for example.
There have also been mobilities of researchers, as for instance, from Mayotte to Germany on medicinal plants.
Then, in terms of documents produced from exchanges between the consortium of 9 regions, we count the common strategy, the 9 action plans of common interest grouped into 8 themes and the contribution of the territories to the future FORWARD network already called OR-izon network.
The upcoming events joining physically all 9 governments will help to design its implementation such as the final conference at Brussels in June 2022 in conjunction with the final project meeting and the thematic working group subcoordinators.
In the perspective to raise awareness on the funding opportunities of Horizon Europe (2021-2027), CTG will be organizing a training session on Horizon Europe’s cluster 6, Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment on March 17th, 2022 at 1pm Brussels time. The main target is the local R&I ecosystem.
This session will be hosted by our NCP, in French.
As a reminder the R&I activities carried out under this cluster are focused on reaching the objectives of the European Green Deal.
The registration link is here : https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1EghN8zFDnfQ98SikDCUFyQLCHOsP7HCaHoP7yJx_kyY/viewform?edit_requested=true
The OR Presidents’ XXVI Conference took place in November 2021, under the presidency of Azores.
The high-level political event took stock of the results achieved so far by FORWARD and discussed their sustainability. A Declaration summarizing the position of the ORs Presidents towards FORWARD activities has been recently published, and it is available on the official website of the OR Conference of Presidents.
The Declaration recognizes that “the FORWARD project, in which all the ORs participate, is a first step to strengthen collaboration through their respective research centres, mainly to strengthen their ability to participate in European research programmes”.
The Conference of Presidents requests to:
- Continue the FORWARD project to improve research capabilities and innovation in the ORs to promote their potential to potential European partners.
- Aid the creation of a network that integrates regional public entities that give support for promoters of Horizon Europe projects in the ORs;
- Create “RUP missions” inspired by the Horizon Europe programme, which would allow stakeholders from the ORs and other European partners and countries third parties, coordinate their efforts in the face of the six key challenges identified in the framework of the FORWARD project: conservation and ecological restoration, energy transition, circular economy, adaptation to climate change and risk mitigation, management of the water and blue economy;
These statements are in support for the WP4 activities of the project which are now focused on the long-term set-up of a common network of ORs R&I Officers, named the “OR-izon Netwotk”. The FORWARD consortium has established and approved a concept note to regulate the network. The next step is that each OR will be working at regional level to gather the commitment from their relevant Governmental Boards.
All these actions will feed the last deliverable foreseen under WP4, which aims to outline operational frameworks and guidelines for the OR-izon network and ensure the political support from the 9 OR governments.
In the scope of WP4’s capacity building actions, our partner CTG will be implementing a set of 8 trainings sessions on Horizon Europe. On February 15th ; 16th ; 22th ; 23th and March 8th ; 9th ; 15th : 16th
It will be delivered in french and is intended for all actors with an interest in Horizon Europe funds.
-Register here
-Here is the program :
Training 1 : Immerse yourself in writing a European project: writting a Horizon Europe proposal
Training 2 : Building a network and setting up a consortium to respond to a Horizon Europe project
Training 3 : Horizon Europe, the new specificities of the program and focus on the different types of calls for projects
Training 4 : Implementation and coordination of a Horizon Europe project, legal, administrative and financial aspects : how to manage your project
Guyane Développement Innovation from French Guiana, will be implementing their first online training sessions on « Setting up and supporting Horizon Europe projects » on February 11th, 14th and 18th, 2022, in french.
The aim is to attract more SME/business owners toward Horizon Europe funds.
-Please find below the details :
• I am a SME/business owner, I want to get involved in Horizon Europe
• From the idea to the project: prepare your application efficiently
• How to build a consortium : tools and tips
Register here