Periodic Reporting for period 2 - NCP4HE (HORIZON ACADEMY: CONNECTING AND TRAINING NCPS TOWARDS A UNIFIED SUPPORT SYSTEM)
Berichtszeitraum: 2024-04-01 bis 2025-03-31
The Horizon Academy project has been designed, on one hand, to bring together and support the needs of the NCP National Coordinators and Legal & Financial NCP communities and, on the other hand, to boost a closer and more efficient coordination and cooperation among the different NCP configurations through the infrastructures inherited by the Bridge2HE project, namely the HE NCP Portal and the NCP Virtual Campus, which the project will continue maintaining and developing, enlarging them in content, functionalities and userbase.
A large series of activities involving training events, e-learning courses, pre-meetings, meet and exchange workshops, coffee-talks, and mentoring sessions, have been planned to provide horizontal support to the whole NPC community, improve mutual learning, and create a structured space for exchange, with a particular focus on newcomers. Horizon Academy will also prepare the ground for NCPs in the transition from Horizon Europe to the next Framework Programme, working closely with the European Commission and its agencies to ensure a proper interaction with NCPs during that preparatory process.
Horizon Academy brings together a wide and comprehensive consortium of 36 NCPs host organisations from 22 MS and 9 AS countries, spanning three continents. Additionally, 11 of the 15 widening member countries are represented in the consortium. The project includes a balanced mix of NCPs from countries with extensive participation in Horizon 2020 with NCPs coming from countries with low levels of participation. This wide spectrum of partners is there to ensure that the project activities and outputs serve as many NCPs as possible, but also that the whole community's needs are taken into account when designing and implementing the planned actions.
A large series of activities involving training events, e-learning courses, pre-meetings, meet and exchange workshops, coffee-talks, and mentoring sessions, have been planned to provide horizontal support to the whole NPC community, improve mutual learning, and create a structured space for exchange, with a particular focus on newcomers. Horizon Academy will also prepare the ground for NCPs in the transition from Horizon Europe to the next Framework Programme, working closely with the European Commission and its agencies to ensure a proper interaction with NCPs during that preparatory process.
Horizon Academy brings together a wide and comprehensive consortium of 36 NCPs host organisations from 22 MS and 9 AS countries, spanning three continents. Additionally, 11 of the 15 widening member countries are represented in the consortium. The project includes a balanced mix of NCPs from countries with extensive participation in Horizon 2020 with NCPs coming from countries with low levels of participation. This wide spectrum of partners is there to ensure that the project activities and outputs serve as many NCPs as possible, but also that the whole community's needs are taken into account when designing and implementing the planned actions.
The Horizon Academy project is organised in 9 work packages: the first set of 5 WPs, devoted to the main components of the project (training, Leal and Financial NCP, NCP coordinators, other NCP communities, NCP Portal), runs in parallel until M42; the last 18 months of the projects are covered by WP6, which inherits the topics of the closed WPs refocusing them in preparation of the transition to FP10. All these WPs are supported by three transversal ones (WP7, WP8 and WP9), whose scope is to guarantee the adequate coordination and management of the project as well as to disseminate and communicate the project’s activities.
In the first two years of implementation, Horizon Academy has progressed towards the achievement of the first 4 project objectives described in the action:
1. Bring together Horizon Europe NCP Coordinators and Legal and Financial NCPs.
To enhance the connections within these communities and with the rest of NCPs, WP2 (L&F) and WP3 (NCP Coords) and WP4 (NCP networks) have carried out the following activities:
• 4 Pre-meetings (WP2),
• 19 coffee-talks (W2, W3,WP4)
• 5 Meet & Exchange (WP3, WP4).
To improve their integration with the rest of NCPs configurations, 2 new websites, one for each of these communities, have been created on the HE NCP Portal: L&F NCP website and NCP Co-ordinator website (maintained in collaboration with WP5).
2. Implement relevant, timely and targeted training for National Contact Points:
• 12 online and 3 targeted onsite training sessions for NCPs have been carried out, and the material produced, along with the recording, is available on the HE NCP Portal.
• 5 new e-learning courses have been developed (WP5).
• Support has been provided to several other NCP Projects (namely GenderAction+, GlobalServiceFacility, NCP4Missions and Access2EIC) in the development of their e-learning courses for the NCP Virtual Campus.
3. Continue the development of the Horizon Europe NCP Portal:
In terms of development, the HE NCP Portal received significant upgrades. After the upgrade of the underlying software infrastructure, the NCP Portal received a complete redesign focusing on a cleaner and simplified look and feel, thanks also to the development of the NCP Corner. It has also grown in terms of number of NCP networks using it, passing from 8 to 13 (with the new MSCA project Radiance recently joining it exclusively), in terms of content published, and in terms of users, with 915 NCPs and 1459 general users registered in the platform, and over 30,000 monthly visits.
4. Address NCP quality standards and good practices.
In addition to the 5 Meet&Exchange and 19 coffee-talks mentioned above, the following initiatives have contributed to the achievement of this objective:
• Online survey among the different target groups (WP1 in collaboration with T2.1 T4.1 & T5.4) to support the identification of NCPs needs.
• New questions and answer pairs for the database of legal and financial rules collected from different sources: 40 F&T Portal, 90 RES, 66 Google Group.
• Guidelines of the Mentoring Scheme (T3.2 T2.5) available on the NCP Portal in L&F/coordinators repository
• NCP Coordinators and L&F NCPs mentoring: pairs have been identified and meetings are ongoing.
• Guide to support the training of NCP Coordinators under Horizon Europe.
• NCP Virtual Campus qualification system developed and proposed for uptake to NCP Coordinators.
In the first two years of implementation, Horizon Academy has progressed towards the achievement of the first 4 project objectives described in the action:
1. Bring together Horizon Europe NCP Coordinators and Legal and Financial NCPs.
To enhance the connections within these communities and with the rest of NCPs, WP2 (L&F) and WP3 (NCP Coords) and WP4 (NCP networks) have carried out the following activities:
• 4 Pre-meetings (WP2),
• 19 coffee-talks (W2, W3,WP4)
• 5 Meet & Exchange (WP3, WP4).
To improve their integration with the rest of NCPs configurations, 2 new websites, one for each of these communities, have been created on the HE NCP Portal: L&F NCP website and NCP Co-ordinator website (maintained in collaboration with WP5).
2. Implement relevant, timely and targeted training for National Contact Points:
• 12 online and 3 targeted onsite training sessions for NCPs have been carried out, and the material produced, along with the recording, is available on the HE NCP Portal.
• 5 new e-learning courses have been developed (WP5).
• Support has been provided to several other NCP Projects (namely GenderAction+, GlobalServiceFacility, NCP4Missions and Access2EIC) in the development of their e-learning courses for the NCP Virtual Campus.
3. Continue the development of the Horizon Europe NCP Portal:
In terms of development, the HE NCP Portal received significant upgrades. After the upgrade of the underlying software infrastructure, the NCP Portal received a complete redesign focusing on a cleaner and simplified look and feel, thanks also to the development of the NCP Corner. It has also grown in terms of number of NCP networks using it, passing from 8 to 13 (with the new MSCA project Radiance recently joining it exclusively), in terms of content published, and in terms of users, with 915 NCPs and 1459 general users registered in the platform, and over 30,000 monthly visits.
4. Address NCP quality standards and good practices.
In addition to the 5 Meet&Exchange and 19 coffee-talks mentioned above, the following initiatives have contributed to the achievement of this objective:
• Online survey among the different target groups (WP1 in collaboration with T2.1 T4.1 & T5.4) to support the identification of NCPs needs.
• New questions and answer pairs for the database of legal and financial rules collected from different sources: 40 F&T Portal, 90 RES, 66 Google Group.
• Guidelines of the Mentoring Scheme (T3.2 T2.5) available on the NCP Portal in L&F/coordinators repository
• NCP Coordinators and L&F NCPs mentoring: pairs have been identified and meetings are ongoing.
• Guide to support the training of NCP Coordinators under Horizon Europe.
• NCP Virtual Campus qualification system developed and proposed for uptake to NCP Coordinators.
Many achievements of the project represent milestones beyond the state of the art in the context of the NCP scenario. For example, the flagship initiative of the NCP Portal, which aims to reduce the fragmentation both within the NCP community and in terms of the NCP offer to participants; the NCP Virtual Campus, with its 20+ e-learning courses from various NCP Networks and its qualification system based on badges; the publication of a guide to train new NCP Coordinators and the L&F NCPS welcome package, available in HTML format, to name a few.