Skip to main content
European Commission logo print header

Cooperation Of Space NCPs as a Means to Optimise Services under Horizon 2020

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - COSMOS2020 (Cooperation Of Space NCPs as a Means to Optimise Services under Horizon 2020)

Reporting period: 2016-01-01 to 2019-05-31

"Since FP7 Space NCP networks were funded to create added value through cooperation and support newcomers and less experienced National Contact Points. Following this idea COSMOS2020 is the third funding phase of the Space NCP network basing on COSMOS and COSMOS+ as the forerunner projects. The recent project profits from according experiences gained. This is particularly true for the international information days organised. Through individual initiatives and cooperation with the European Commission the network manages to offer such events not just in one location per year but in several. With changed locations the consortium is trying to cover Europe as much as possible. More activities involve joint traings and an exchange scheme aiming at improving knowledge and skills of the NCPs. A website and a news service is run and provides information on Space related events and Horizon 2020. A help desk service on Horizon 2020 Space related questions implemented on the website www.space-ncp.net serves country independent support on request. More activities aim at project partner search support. These include linking with international partner countries (""3rd countries"" in the wording of Horizon 2020) to bridge Europe with Space faring nations in other regions of the world.
The overall objective of the NCP network is to improve the overall quality of the services and thus of proposals submitted under Horizon 2020 Space.
"
Within the first reporting period the Space NCPs send partners to some international partner countries and invited contact persons to their information days.

A joint training on Satellite Communication was organised to provide a knowledge basis on the topic which was newly inserted into the Horizon 2020 Space programme.

The partners analysed the Space call results for internal purposes.

Several newsletter editions were sent out and the website was updated. First information files on country competencies were introduced.

Aside a main information day organised in September 2015 in Warsaw a working team joint forces with the European Commission and supported the official international Space information day held in Brussels in November 2015. Another big event supported by COSMOS2020 took place in Rome in October 2015. Here COSMOS2020 just provided the event organised by the Italian partner APRE who is also European Enterprise Network (EEN). To enforce cooperation with this network a Memorandum of Understanding was signed at the official Infoday in Brussels.
"COSMOS2020 has to be seen as a sustainable means for support. Although new experiences are made with more activities a ""state of the art"" and a ""beyond"" is hard to define. It is clear that the website, the trainings of the NCPs and in particular the jointly organised international events which typically comprise matchmaking means are finally impacting the information status and potentially skills of some proposers under Horizon 2020 Space. It can be assumed that this leads to more proposals and overall better quality of proposals."
Slovak Space Information Day