Widening (Horizon Europe)

In January 2021, Horizon Europe, the new ambitious European Framework Programme on Research and Innovation for the period of 2021 to 2027, was launched. In this context, the various workshops have started in order to spread all relevant information for potential applicants to support them in preparation of project proposals based on international, intersectoral and interdisciplinary cooperation.

On 27 April 2021, the Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information of the Slovak Ministry of Education, organized the workshop on funding opportunities within a program „Widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area“.

Prof. Dušan Galusek presented at this meeting the “story” of FunGlass project preparation within a H2020 TEAMING area which started in 2014. He shared his experiences and recommendations to the Slovak colleagues interested to apply for the new Teaming calls under Horizon Europe.

The workshop was also dedicated to introducing the main actions of the Widening program. This program targets EU Member States with lower research and innovation performance into which Slovakia is listed too. FunGlass and its European Project Office intends to search for project opportunities in this programme too and they already focus its efforts on preparation of the competitive proposals in the European area.

Widening areas1:

Teaming: Support/create centres of excellences as role models to stimulate excellence, new investments and reforms of national research and innovation systems.

Twinning: Develop excellence in chosen research and innovation domain, increase visibility of the research institutions and universities, and upskill its staff.

ERA Chairs, to support universities or research organisations from eligible countries to attract and maintain high quality human resources and help excellent scientists and their teams to become game changers in their field.

European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST), cross-border scientific network helping excellent researchers and innovators get access to the European and international networks.

1 https://ec.europa.eu/info/horizon-europe/widening-participation-and-spreading-excellence_en (04-28-2021)