Newsletter EaP PLUS (November 23, 2017)

Welcome to the third EaP PLUS Newsletter – the “Winter Edition”!
 
The EaP PLUS newsletter informs you on a regular basis about the project’s activities and recent developments in the EU-EaP cooperation in Science, Technology and Innovation.

Under “Highlights” the major news deriving from the project and the EU-EaP Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) sector in general are compiled. The sections “Latest News”, “Latest Documents” and “Latest Calls” serve you with different up-to-date information from the project and beyond including articles, reports, open calls for your consideration (EaP PLUS own calls, H2020, etc.). Under “Upcoming Events” we collect various events relevant to both EU and EaP researchers and STI stakeholders and open for participation.

Horizon 2020 – The final Work Programme 2018-2020 presented

This edition of the EaP PLUS newsletter focuses on the launch of the new Work Programme 2018-2020 of Horizon 2020 and the possibilities provided to applicants from the EaP region.

You can find all relevant information you need to know about the new open calls in Horizon 2020 in this newsletter. Moreover, we introduce to you the H2020 thematic priority SPIRE “Sustainable process industry through resource and energy efficiency”, which seeks applications from EaP partners in particular!

Highlight – new WP 2018-2020 of H2020 is published!

On October 27 the new WP 2018-2020 under Horizon 2020 was published. Over the next 3 years, the Commission will seek greater impact of its research funding by focusing on fewer, but critical topics such as migration, security, climate, clean energy and digital economy. Horizon 2020 will also be more geared towards boosting breakthrough, market-creating innovation. The 2018-2020 Work Programme build on the success of Horizon 2020 so far, and takes account of the extensive interim evaluation of the programme. It also responds to the European Commission’s political priorities and paves the way for its successor programme. The new features include measures to support market-creating innovation, highly integrated activities called focus areas, emphasis on better dissemination of results and a focus on open access to data. The Work Programme also includes measures to increase simplification (e.g. lump sum funding), to widen participation from less performing countries and to address skills mismatches.

As you might know, all associated countries to Horizon 2020 are fully eligible to participate in any of the open calls in the new WP 2018-2020. From the EaP region, currently these are Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

On the other hand, the new WP 2018-2020 includes two calls in 2018 plus two in 2019 (‘SPIRE’ calls)  that encourage participation from all EaP countries, irrespective of their status in Horizon 2020.
“SPIRE – Sustainable Process Industry through resource and energy efficiency.  https://www.spire2030.eu/ .

SPIRE offers an unique opportunity for the researchers in the EaP countries to participate in consortia for preparing proposals with EU partners under H2020 “Industrial Leadership” (Nanotechnologies, Advanced Materials, Biotechnology and Advanced Manufacturing and Processing), since the respective calls recommend to EU applicants “to cooperate with the Eastern Partnership countries in particular”.

EaP PLUS Coordinator George Bonas (CeRISS): ”It is in the interest of the EU researchers to include scientists from EaP countries in order to fulfil all the recommendations of the SPIRE calls, increasing therefore the chances for acceptance of their proposal. In that context, a pro-active action from the EaP side will result in numerous applications and certainly an enhanced number of funded projects. “

In parallel, EaP PLUS  will implement a series of support actions to raise awareness about SPIRE and the new WP 2018-2020 in the EaP region:

• Information Days in each EaP country, with particular focus on SPIRE calls (more info)

• A Webinar on the SPIRE calls on 23rd November, that the researchers can freely attend (more info)

• Grants to travel in EU for meeting partners preparing SPIRE proposals (A call for these grants was launched on 5 November 2017) (more info)

Please find the respective articles on the launch of the new WP 2018-2020 and on SPIRE in our news list below.

More Highlights

Find here a selection of particularly interesting news from the EaP PLUS web portal.

News

• Posted on October 30, 2017 New H2020 Work Programme 2018-2020 published: Commission to invest €30 billion in new solutions for societal challenges and breakthrough innovation

• Posted on October 23, 2017 New Horizon 2020 WP encourages applications from EaP researchers in many fields (e.g. SPIRE)
• Posted on October 23, 2017 EaP PLUS General Assembly Meeting in Vienna from October 10-11

Documents

• Posted on September 15, 2017

EaP PLUS Deliverable: Conclusions of the conference “Sharing experiences from association to H2020″

Calls

• Posted on October 16, 2017 
  EaP PLUS cluster grant scheme for Georgia relaunched: call for applications
  
• Posted on November 5, 2017 
  Grants for networking in Brokerage Events or Preparatory Meetings for proposal applications in H2020 (focus: SPIRE) – 2nd call – Apply now

• EaP PLUS cluster grant scheme for Georgia relaunched: call for applications
• Grants for networking in Brokerage Events or Preparatory Meetings for proposal applications in H2020 (focus: SPIRE) – 2nd call – Apply now!
• SPIRE Call: Processing of material feedstock using non-conventional energy sources (IA)
• SPIRE Call: Energy and resource flexibility in highly energy intensive industries (IA 50%)