Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Net4SocietyHE (Network of National Contact Points for Cluster 2 "Culture, Creativity and Inclusive society" and "SSH Integration")
Reporting period: 2022-02-01 to 2023-10-31
Net4SocietyHE (N4SHE) is the transnational network for Cluster 2 "Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society" (CL2) National Contact Points (NCPs) in Horizon Europe. NCPs are officially designated to advise researchers and other relevant, eligible stakeholders in their efforts to secure EU funding. N4SHE builds on Net4Society, the network for Societal Challenge 6 NCPs in Horizon 2020 (H2020), and NCPs for Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities in FP7 (started in 2008), and will further develop services and tools created by its predecessor to help NCPs to succeed in their work.
Through its planned activities, Net4SocietyHE will ensure that all CL2 NCPs have the relevant knowledge and skills necessary to adequately and competently offer a consistently high-degree of professional, high-quality, tailor-made services to potential Programme applicants. All nominated CL2 NCPs (including non-consortium partners) will have access to information and capacity-building tools and events organised by the project, such as CL2 NCP info sessions, trainings, and network meetings. Net4SocietyHE will support prospective applicants in CL2, with a special focus on new stakeholders (e.g. CSOs, CCIs) and researchers from countries with lower-than-average results and participation in H2020. The project will facilitate multi-actor/multidisciplinary/international consortia-building through organisation of brokerages, bilateral meetings of project initiators and researchers from Widening countries, and via use of a partner search platform tool. Net4SocietyHE will also organise info days and proposal check events to encourage participation and development of successful proposals.
To support SSH Integration across Horizon Europe, Net4SocietyHE will organise SSH-themed brokerages, special trainings on the topic for NCPs, and publish an "SSH Opportunities" document, highlighting SSH research funding chances beyond flagged topics within Horizon Europe, including in missions and partnerships, and separately publicize opportunities in other EU Programmes.
Through its planned activities, Net4SocietyHE will ensure that all CL2 NCPs have the relevant knowledge and skills necessary to adequately and competently offer a consistently high-degree of professional, high-quality, tailor-made services to potential Programme applicants. All nominated CL2 NCPs (including non-consortium partners) will have access to information and capacity-building tools and events organised by the project, such as CL2 NCP info sessions, trainings, and network meetings. Net4SocietyHE will support prospective applicants in CL2, with a special focus on new stakeholders (e.g. CSOs, CCIs) and researchers from countries with lower-than-average results and participation in H2020. The project will facilitate multi-actor/multidisciplinary/international consortia-building through organisation of brokerages, bilateral meetings of project initiators and researchers from Widening countries, and via use of a partner search platform tool. Net4SocietyHE will also organise info days and proposal check events to encourage participation and development of successful proposals.
To support SSH Integration across Horizon Europe, Net4SocietyHE will organise SSH-themed brokerages, special trainings on the topic for NCPs, and publish an "SSH Opportunities" document, highlighting SSH research funding chances beyond flagged topics within Horizon Europe, including in missions and partnerships, and separately publicize opportunities in other EU Programmes.
Since the project started in February 2022, Net4SocietyHE made good and steady progress toward meeting its five project objectives:
In order to support the first objective "Enhancing NCP services", Net4SocietyHE provides different services tailored for Cluster 2 NCPs and plans and organises Cluster 2 NCP network meetings in different settings and formats.
Net4SocietyHE progresses toward the second objective "Enabling target communities to write successful proposals" by organising brokerage events which are dedicated to open calls in Cluster 2. These online networking events for Cluster 2 Work Programme calls allow Cluster 2 stakeholders to arrange meetings in an effort to find partners, consolidate their consortia, and submit proposals. All brokerage events follow the Cluster 2 Info Days (organised by the European Commission). In addition to the brokerages, Net4SocietyHE also offers support to applicant project coordinators via online, by invitation-only pre-proposal check events as well as via an additional full-proposal check for proposers not selected to participate in a pre-proposal check and those who took part in the pre-proposal check events.
Net4SocietyHE also contributs toward the third objective "Supporting the integration of the Social Sciences and Humanities across Horizon Europe". Specifically, the project helpes to raise awareness of the importance and necessity of including social scientific, humanities, and arts disciplines, expertise, methods, and approaches in topics flagged “SSH” in the calls of other Horizon Europe thematic clusters. This is being done through numerous speaking engagements to which Net4SocietyHE is invited. These speaking engagements include presentations on how to practice SSH Integration as part of other Clusters’ Info Days, during info sessions tied to brokerage events of other thematic clusters’, events put on by national funders for international audiences, and during events organised by NCPs for their national research communities. The project also worked to endorse the integration of the Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts by regularly monitoring, collecting, and publishing open calls in other programming areas of Horizon Europe, such as the Horizon partnerships. Endorsement also occurres via publication of issues of the project’s flagship “Opportunities for Researcher from the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in Horizon Europe”.
Besides the traditional stakeholder groups associated with research and innovation in Cluster 2 (i.e. academic researchers, policymakers, etc.), the scope of who is invited to apply for funding in this Cluster has been broadened with the start of the Horizon Europe Programme. In the case of Cluster 2, new stakeholder groups refer to actors from the cultural and creative industries (CCIs), artists, and actors from the community of galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAMs). To address the forth objective "Identifying new stakeholders and enabling participation from countries with lower-than-average success rates in Horizon Europe", the project engaged in a dedicated mapping exercise. Designed as a survey, the project worked together with a large number of Cluster 2 NCPs (at the national level) to develop a database list of organisations from these two groups, which was sent out to this list in order to ask survey recipients about the nature of the barriers and challenges they encounter which hinder or have hindered their participation in Horizon Europe so far. To learn more about these barriers, the project then conducted interviews with selected survey takers, who agreed to a more in-depth discussion of the reasons behind their hesitation in participating.
Net4SocietyHE actively works toward achieving the fifths objective "Achieving greater impact—promoting the relevance of research and innovation in Cluster 2" on the basis of its communication activities. Specifically, the project regularly highlighted and shared information on research, project event [announcements], and project outputs generated by projects funded in Cluster 2.
In order to support the first objective "Enhancing NCP services", Net4SocietyHE provides different services tailored for Cluster 2 NCPs and plans and organises Cluster 2 NCP network meetings in different settings and formats.
Net4SocietyHE progresses toward the second objective "Enabling target communities to write successful proposals" by organising brokerage events which are dedicated to open calls in Cluster 2. These online networking events for Cluster 2 Work Programme calls allow Cluster 2 stakeholders to arrange meetings in an effort to find partners, consolidate their consortia, and submit proposals. All brokerage events follow the Cluster 2 Info Days (organised by the European Commission). In addition to the brokerages, Net4SocietyHE also offers support to applicant project coordinators via online, by invitation-only pre-proposal check events as well as via an additional full-proposal check for proposers not selected to participate in a pre-proposal check and those who took part in the pre-proposal check events.
Net4SocietyHE also contributs toward the third objective "Supporting the integration of the Social Sciences and Humanities across Horizon Europe". Specifically, the project helpes to raise awareness of the importance and necessity of including social scientific, humanities, and arts disciplines, expertise, methods, and approaches in topics flagged “SSH” in the calls of other Horizon Europe thematic clusters. This is being done through numerous speaking engagements to which Net4SocietyHE is invited. These speaking engagements include presentations on how to practice SSH Integration as part of other Clusters’ Info Days, during info sessions tied to brokerage events of other thematic clusters’, events put on by national funders for international audiences, and during events organised by NCPs for their national research communities. The project also worked to endorse the integration of the Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts by regularly monitoring, collecting, and publishing open calls in other programming areas of Horizon Europe, such as the Horizon partnerships. Endorsement also occurres via publication of issues of the project’s flagship “Opportunities for Researcher from the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in Horizon Europe”.
Besides the traditional stakeholder groups associated with research and innovation in Cluster 2 (i.e. academic researchers, policymakers, etc.), the scope of who is invited to apply for funding in this Cluster has been broadened with the start of the Horizon Europe Programme. In the case of Cluster 2, new stakeholder groups refer to actors from the cultural and creative industries (CCIs), artists, and actors from the community of galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAMs). To address the forth objective "Identifying new stakeholders and enabling participation from countries with lower-than-average success rates in Horizon Europe", the project engaged in a dedicated mapping exercise. Designed as a survey, the project worked together with a large number of Cluster 2 NCPs (at the national level) to develop a database list of organisations from these two groups, which was sent out to this list in order to ask survey recipients about the nature of the barriers and challenges they encounter which hinder or have hindered their participation in Horizon Europe so far. To learn more about these barriers, the project then conducted interviews with selected survey takers, who agreed to a more in-depth discussion of the reasons behind their hesitation in participating.
Net4SocietyHE actively works toward achieving the fifths objective "Achieving greater impact—promoting the relevance of research and innovation in Cluster 2" on the basis of its communication activities. Specifically, the project regularly highlighted and shared information on research, project event [announcements], and project outputs generated by projects funded in Cluster 2.
Net4SocietyHE set-up and maintains an online matchmaking platform for potential applicants to Cluster 2 calls. The tool is made available to all stakeholder groups in Cluster 2 (e.g. researchers, non-academic actors from industry, policymakers, NCPs, etc.). Initially, the idea was to set-up an online tool and make it available to Cluster 2 community stakeholders only for the duration of each Cluster 2 call opening/closure period. By doing so, stakeholders would have the option to schedule meetings between potential applicants until the call deadline closes (and engage in these meetings during the aforementioned brokerage events). However, after careful analysis and consideration, the project decided that the most efficient approach would be to transform the usual matchmaking tool into a new solution proposed by B2Match, called the Community Platform. This allows for an uninterrupted operation of the Cluster 2 Community Platform for the whole duration of the Net4SocietyHE project. .