NCP4Missions’ progress beyond the state of the art is linked to the nature of the five EU Missions as a novel instrument in HE. The Missions are intended to find concrete solutions to some of the greatest challenges facing humanity and put them into practice. The role of R&I has to be rethought in this context and, more important, needs to be combined with new forms of administration and cooperation. This poses new challenges for all relevant stakeholders. The appli-cants need to develop a more systemic view to address the complex challenges, and in turn the NCPs need to build up capacities and adapt their services. In this respect, NCP4Missions plays a pivotal role in implementing the Missions ob-jectives. With a strong synergistic approach, NCP4Missions provides NCPs and stakeholders with extensive information that goes well beyond HE, but also supports the EU-wide outreach activities to raise awareness and engagement in Mission objectives and activities:
- NCP4Missions enhances the expertise and competences of the (newly) established Mission NCPs both through-out Europe and across all Missions, following a whole programme approach and providing all interested NCPs with relevant knowledge on the EU Missions.Through E-learnings, EC Mission Updates, Meet&Share Sessions and Mission „Deep Dives“, they are invited to trainings addressing the specific requirements of the Mission calls.
- NCP4Missions encourages and promotes the involvement of all (new) target groups through tools and events. BEs and workshops for applicants are designed to promote networking of and exchange between applicants who have rarely worked together so far. User-friendly information on Missions is provided to applicants in the form of Factsheets, FAQ documents and qualitative experience analysis to deepen their understanding of the specific nature of the Mission calls.
- NCP4Missions closely collaborates with other projects, networks and structures. Due to the holistic and ‘be-yond R&I’ nature of the EU Missions this is even more important than in other parts of HE. NCP4Missions con-centrates on the cooperation with other HE NCP networks, with a thematic focus on the Clusters 1, 5 and 6, as well as gathering and providing information on relevant EU policies and funding programmes, interactions with Mission Hubs and the engagement with potential stakeholders across all five Missions.
- NCP4Missions’ communication measures assure that the broad target groups are staying informed about the project’s initiatives, tools and results and that the impact of services offered to the community is maximized.
By striving to achieve these results beyond the state of the art, NCP4Missions could significantly improve and profes-sionalise the skills of Mission and related NCPs and contribute to the overall success of the five EU Missions. To ensure uptake and success, ongoing efforts are needed to foster the continued engagement of NCPs in establishing a harmo-nised, improved transnational network of EU Missions’ NCPs and in enhancing the visibility of the NCP services and support structures amongst the Missions‘ community.
