Periodic Reporting for period 1 - REMORA (REMORA - Small fishes in a big pond)
Período documentado: 2024-06-01 hasta 2025-08-31
The EU’s innovation gap has a detrimental impact on small and emerging regional research and innovation systems, such as the Outermost Regions, primarily due to their limited resources. These regions have faced challenges in participating in FP7 and Horizon 2020, largely due to the competing priorities between structural funds and these framework programmes. Supported by the Widening strand of Horizon Europe programme, the REMORA project aims to elevate three Ocean and Marine institutions in La Réunion, Madeira, and the Azores to become leading players in Horizon Europe. The goal is to facilitate knowledge transfer, bolster innovation capacities, refine strategic positioning, and foster connections with prominent EU networks. The project’s success will serve as a blueprint for other research and innovation organisations and policymakers.
During its first fifteen months, REMORA consolidated the scientific, institutional and strategic conditions for strengthening marine research excellence and Horizon Europe participation in the three European Outermost Regions (Madeira, Azores and La Réunion). The project focused on building human and organisational capacities, mapping research infrastructures and assets, and designing a joint framework for internationalisation and cooperation. Under the first pillar, “Excellence for ERA”, each centre conducted a full institutional self-assessment and produced an Excellence for ERA Roadmap defining actions for human resources reform, open science, gender equality and responsible research and innovation. The process engaged more than one hundred researchers and administrators and marked the first systematic alignment of these institutions with ERA standards. The second pillar produced the Portfolio of Key Research and Innovation Assets, which mapped infrastructures, datasets and expertise across the three centres and identified six shared scientific niches of high European relevance, such as biodiversity hotspots, distributed ocean observatories, and blue-economy solutions for island environments. These analyses formed the basis for the Joint Internationalisation Strategy, currently finalised in draft form, which defines three long-term priorities: talent development, strategic connections and Horizon Europe participation. The project also launched early networking actions with leading European institutions, including a study visit to DTU Aqua (Denmark), researcher fellowships at GEOMAR (Germany), and participation in European marine R&I forums. By M17, six deliverables had been completed, the Policy Lab framework for funding synergies was prepared, and the communication ecosystem was established. Collectively, these achievements have positioned the three marine centres as emerging European players in ocean science and set the foundation for joint participation in future Horizon Europe calls.
REMORA’s results go beyond the state of the art by creating, for the first time, an integrated mechanism for transforming regional, structurally funded marine institutions into ERA-competitive research organisations. Previous widening and regional initiatives tended to focus on either institutional reform or networking. REMORA merges both dimensions through its synergy-based transformation model, demonstrated in three geographically distant but scientifically complementary Outermost Regions. The Excellence for ERA roadmaps represent an innovation in research governance for small and mid-sized centres: they provide quantified pathways for human resources reform, research ethics integration and funding diversification, tailored to outermost contexts. The mapping of European marine infrastructures and the Portfolio of Key R&I Assets together provide a novel evidence base for connecting peripheral ecosystems with major European marine networks such as EMBRC, EMSO and SBEP. The Joint Internationalisation Strategy further extends this approach by identifying concrete instruments for transnational access, shared visibility actions, and the creation of a joint “REMORA brand” linking Atlantic and Indian Ocean research infrastructures. These results create a replicable framework that can be applied in other widening and island territories facing similar structural constraints. While the project is non-technological, it has generated significant process innovation in how institutions organise for excellence, synergy and international visibility. Continued uptake beyond the project will depend on maintaining the Joint Internationalisation Strategy as a living instrument, embedding the proposed Trans-national Access schemes, and sustaining the Policy Lab as a permanent interface between regional managing authorities and research organisations.