How can small organizations thrive in a competitive European Research Area (ERA) and become key players in Horizon Europe ? Through WP1, REMORA brings CITEB, OKEANOS and the Observatório Oceânico da Madeira on a transformative journey to strengthen their research and innovation capacities and create an internal environment that encourages and eases the development of successful Horizon Europe proposals by their talented staff members.
Our first stop at DTU Aqua, in Lyngby in August, offered participants the opportunity to confront themselves with the highest standards of research and innovation management. Stimulating discussions with serial coordinators of Horizon Europe projects, experienced research team and network leaders and highly-skilled support teams allowed partners to discover hands’ on how European champions plan and conduct their development. They also mastered essential soft skills through complementary seminars by ERINN on advanced tools and methodologies for knowledge transfer and Nexa on the European Human Resources Strategy for Researchers (HRS4R).
Following this inspiration phase, partner organizations embarked on an internal gap analysis to evaluate how they position themselves vis à vis these ERA standards. To that end, REMORA developed a practical “self-assessment tool” that allows any organization to reveal its strengths and weaknesses on four essential dimensions : human resources strategy, responsible research and innovation, pro-Horizon Europe policy and synergies across funding sources (notably structural funds and Horizon Europe). The results of these assessments were completed by semi-directive interviews with key representatives from the governance, the administrative and financial direction and research teams to reveal the very bottlenecks that so far impedes the competitiveness and successful participation in Horizon Europe. As a means to refine these results and foster a collective dynamic around REMORA, each organization finally conveyed its staff members in a workshop to define a common ambition in terms of Horizon Europe participations.
To make such ambition a reality, CITEB, OKEANOS and the Observatório Oceânico da Madeira are now engaged in the design of an “Excellence to ERA” roadmap, a detailed action plan to become Horizon Europe champions, capitalizing on existing strengths and addressing identified challenges.
Are you willing to become a Horizon Europe champion ? Learn more about REMORA’ approach and practical tools on our website and join us on our social media accounts.
