Final Report Summary - EECALINK (Promotion and facilitation of international cooperation with eastern European and central Asian countries) Executive summary: The EECALINK was a coordination action aimed at identification of common research priorities of the European Union (EU) and Eastern European and central Asian (EECA) countries and strengthening collaboration between these areas. The EECALINK was financed by the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) (contract no. 223359) under the Health priority theme. In total, the project comprised 17 partners from 12 countries - Armenia, Belarus, Czech Republic, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The project focused on three stakeholder groups: (i) policy makers, (ii) university and academic partners and (iii) the wider research public. The kick-off meeting of the project was held in the beginning of June 2009, and the project ended on 30 November 2011 (duration was 30 months). The project was structured into five Work package (WP)s, and along several main objectives. The overarching objective was to strengthen scientific collaboration between the EU on one side and EECA on the other. The objectives and respective work packages are described in greater depth in the following part of the report. During the closing project meeting in Prague in November 2011, the partners shared their experience from the project and identified important outcomes considered as successes by the majority of the consortium. The main achievements of the project include: - Project tasks and deliverables helped to identify the most important priorities in cooperation with EECA partner countries. - Organisation of national capacity building events and informal consultations enabled all beneficiaries to find out more about the EU Health policy through many practical examples, which will possibly have significant impact on their future work. - Project events and collaboration with other European projects is going to facilitate creation of local networks and their integration into existing and newly forming Europe-wide networks in Health. - The project enabled 14 travel grantees to participate at an info day and brokerage in Brussels (covering all their travel costs) and enabled to participate to all project partners. - Informal networking during project events and / or adjacent activities enhanced international cooperation, not only in the Health area. Besides clearly positive and generally successful outcomes, there were some lessons learned as well, even though not as many as the achievements listed above: - Short project duration was seen as a negative aspect - the partners agreed that such project should last longer as networks are very difficult to build, organise and especially prepare to run independently in short time span. - The internal reporting should have been prepared in more self-explanatory way - some partners found it complicated to follow the templates and fill all the necessary data correctly. Apart from the results of the project itself, there are some longer-term outcomes. All partners agreed to continually maintain and update the project website and informally maintain their contacts within the network, which proved to be very beneficial. Several partners promised to disseminate project results by their own means, to inform other partners about possible collaboration activities and to try to preserve the network, which was initiated by this project. Project context and objectives: The project's key objectives were to: - encourage and to promote international collaboration in health sector through systematic support to the creation of new research consortia for FP7 calls; - stimulate the further development of research consortia and to support these in preparation of their FP7 project proposals; - assure identification of joint research interest of EECA and EU and to assure their effective communication to the relevant policy makers; - strengthen and broaden existing research collaborations among participating universities and academic partners; - build up and strengthen the university and academic capacities for effective participation in FP7 projects; - promote FP7 among programme targeted wider research audience - Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME)s, universities and other research institutes beyond the project consortium. With attention to those objectives, the structure of the project was built in the form of five WPs. WP1 was devoted to project management and administration, other four work packages to collaboration and support actions within the Health priority. The core deliverables and general description of WPs are presented in the following text. WP1 This WP was dealing mainly with the administration of the project, communication and dissemination of projects results, management support, and assessment/evaluation of the project activities and was executed by the coordinator (CUNI) and GG. Part of this work package was also an important task not directly connected with the administration: 'support of transfer of best practice among project partners and beyond them'. Within this task, support to the organisation of joint networking workshops and training activities carried out by individual project partners was planned. Particular attention was paid to the unified corporate identity of training materials and communication of the European Commission (EC) as the financial donor. Additionally, establishment and maintenance of an on-line platform for follow up and support to the FP7 proposals resulting from networking actions was planned. The online platform was maintained within the project's intranet and became an effective tool for facilitation of the dynamic development and support of the newly created consortium. EECALINK project consortium was also offering proposal submission support for new research consortia, created with the project support; this assistance was provided by the FP7 experts participating in the project (GRANT Garant s.r.o. Agency for the Promotion of European Research, Hungarian Science and Technology Foundation, Cracow University of Technology). Core deliverables WP1 - periodic report and final report on the project activities; - report on project internal actions aimed at sharing best-practice among the consortium; - set of project reporting templates and project handbook. %WP2 The general objective of WP2 was to identify any overlaps, as well as gaps between the EECA national funds and EU research funding, and to develop recommendations that would be discussed during individual national policy sessions. Proposed recommendations were based on three different primary resources of information: EECA national grant and policy experts, scientists participating at training and networking actions carried out within the project, and opinion of the EC staff responsible for the formulation of future FP7-TP 'Health' calls. The main goal was to identify areas with existing joint interest that have not been covered by current or previous work programmes. Purpose of this WP was to prepare working documents, which would be further used and disseminated under the activities of WP5. Generally speaking, WP2 was an important part reviewing and assessing current situation, necessary for a successful organisation of policy sessions and a final dissemination conference, which were planned in the WP5. This made WP2 one of the core activities in the project. Core deliverables WP2 - list of joint research priorities EECA / EU relevant for FP7 TP 'Health'; - summary analysis of EECA national grant schemes. WP3 The general objective of WP3 was to ensure effective networking among EU and EECA scientists and further support the consortia emerging thanks to the networking actions, in development of their FP7 proposals relevant to TP 'Health' objectives. The aim of this WP was specifically to: - identify the potential FP7 participants from EECA countries (TP Health relevant, required level of experience with grant administration, level of citation index, etc.); - effectively match partners from EECA with EU partners, to bring relevant scientists from both the EU and the EECA countries together on the basis of FP7 call specific project topics and to train the scientists in proposal preparation; - monitor and further support research consortia formed during the networking actions in developments of their proposals; - assess the WP2 activities for internal analysis and external dissemination. Moreover, a travel grant was offered (on a first-come-first-serve basis, for details see the Terms of Reference) to scientists from Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan to participate in the brokerage events of complementary FP7 actions, dedicated to the Health priority. This activity was not foreseen in the Description of work. Formerly, organisation of the project brokerages was planned. However, since it would be very difficult for EECA scientists to travel to those brokerages, mainly due to financial reasons, the travel grant supporting their participation at various brokerages organised by other projects was offered. Core deliverables WP3 - list of potential EECA and EU-MS participants to the networking actions; - list of supported proposals and their coordinators; - list of scientists awarded the travel grant. WP4 The general objective of WP4 was to prepare the scientists from EECA countries as well as those from the EU to participate in the FP7 competition successfully. Moreover, our aim was also to prepare the supporting staff for efficient administration of FP7 grants. Therefore the training needed to cover various levels of FP7 dissemination from simple FP7 promotion to the training of efficient coordination of a FP7 research consortium. Individual tasks of this work package were identified according to the needs of the target audience. The main objectives of WP4 were to train the administrative staff of local university / academia actors in administration of FP7 grants and related agenda; to train research group leaders interested to participate in an FP7 project or wishing to submit an own proposal; to promote FP7 and participation in TP 'Health' programme at national levels and through the organisation of 'administrative oriented' information events opened to the wider research public, to promote FP7 and other EC programmes amongst other local Research and technological development (RTD) performers (including SMEs), and to assess the WP4 activities for internal analysis and external dissemination. Core deliverables WP4 - national capacity building events organisation; - training for research group leaders; - training related modules for the online platform. WP5 The general objective of WP5 was the assurance of effective communication and the best possible use of results generated by the proposed coordination action. We wanted to use different communication strategies in order to be able to reach the specific target audience. Within the project, we proposed communication of relevant analysis to the following target audiences: (i) national policy makers, (ii) EU policy makers and (iii) EU research managers interested in scientific potential of participating EECA countries. The task specific objectives of the WP5 were the following: - to ensure communication of project results towards the EU policy makers; to ensure communication of project results towards EECA national policy makers; - to promote and unlock the EECA research potential for the EU; - to assess the impact of promotion activities carried out within the project as a whole; - to assess the WP5 activities for internal analysis and external dissemination. Within this WP, EECA national policy sessions (based on analysis from WP2, one in each EECA country) were planned, aimed at the discussion of possible topics for the future FP calls targeted to the participation of the EECA countries in the European Research Area (ERA). Organisation of a policy oriented conference in Brussels (project final dissemination conference) with adjacent brokerage event, dedicated to the EECALINK partner countries and timely coordinated together with the EC 2011 call announcement was planned as well. Core deliverables WP5% - summary report on EECA national policy sessions; - project final dissemination conference; - promotion actions. Project Results: This part of the report describes the realised project activities, achievements as well as failures. The text is structured along the respective Work Packages, and deliverables within those WPs. At the end of this section, the general assessment on fulfilling the project objectives is presented. The more detailed description along with all relevant supporting documents can be found in the deliverables reports. WP1 This WP comprised predominantly of project administration and support to the coordinator. The administration and coordination, after some troubles at the beginning of the project, was considered by the majority of partners as smooth and efficient. During the project, no major issues were identified and no partner was sanctioned, even though there were some minor issues with timings of the responses in accordance with the deadlines set by the administrative team. Deliverables WP1: D1.1 - Periodic report and final report on the project activities (GG) The interim periodic report was prepared in month 18, consulted with all project partners, and submitted to the EC. Soon afterwards, the report was approved. The similar activity is carried out in case of this, final, report and hopefully the approval process will be as smooth as in case of the interim periodic report. Deliverable 1.2 - Project logo, brochure, set of PR materials and public-accessible website (CUNI) Since the project started in June 2009 the coordinator together with another partner (GG) worked on the creation of united corporate identity of the project, necessary for further external communication with partners, researchers, general public and the EC. The coordinator hired an external company that gave some propositions about logo and style of promotion materials. The idea behind the logo was that it should be a sort of a "key shape" and that the arrow between the EECA and the EU circle of 12 stars symbolises the connection between both groupings - in the terminology of the project the link between EECA states and the EU. The EECALINK project was meant to be the key how to link both groups. The colour background of the logo was chosen blue as the "official" colour of the EU. This colour is used on the webpage and folders as well. Then the official webpage of the project was created (www.EECALINK.eu). This web was filled with information and was continuously updated by CUNI and GG. In the news section there are interesting links regarding trainings or conferences that could be useful for consortium members. At the final meeting in Prague it was agreed that the coordinating institution (CUNI) will keep the website functioning until the end of FP7. The registration form for EECA researchers applying for a travel grant was also included at the website. The site also has an intranet section where only consortium members and project officers have access, where for example a project handbook, the most important documents, templates, minutes, or project plan can be found. At the project kick off meeting, the project brochure was replaced by a project folder in blue colour, with logo and information about the project. Majority of members voted for this replacement because of bigger informational and practical impact of the folder than of the brochure. The brochure was replaced by electronic version of a leaflet in 9 languages that is downloadable from the address http://www.EECALINK.eu/?cat=about. The idea is that each partner can print out number of leaflets they will really need and the project would economise money for postage. 5 000 folders were printed and subsequently distributed among the consortium. The coordinator bought also project banner used in conferences and during presentation of the project on public events (e.g. EC info day in Brussels). D1.3 - Report on project internal actions aimed at sharing best-practice amongst the consortium This deliverable covered the whole duration of the project from its beginning in June 2009 until the end in November 2011. There was a constant effort to support each beneficiary from the project consortium as well as individuals. The EU countries, as sometimes called FP7 experts in this project, tried to share the best practice gained during numerous previous projects. However, there were also new best practices identified, often initiated by ICPC beneficiaries and also best practices shared on national and local levels. The channels through which the best practices were facilitated may be summarised as follows: 1. Personal (face-to-face) contacts: the best practice were being constantly mentioned during General Assembly meetings and further discussed among project partners in the scope of this meeting as well as informally afterwards. Moreover, the sharing of the best practice was a key aspect of national capacity building workshops organised under WP4, where all participants had the opportunity to discuss FP7 projects with professionals. 2. Constant support (especially of GG and CUNI, but also other partners nationally and locally) under WP3 (task 3.4). This support consisted of guidance on project preparation, financial reporting in ongoing projects, further project opportunities. 3. Online platforms prepared especially for purposes of sharing best practice (also deliverable 1.5) were extensively used also by EECALINK project partners. Those platforms included the project website with all training materials from the national capacity building events accessible for general public, and the LinkedIn platform, which was constantly updated with recent events in the priority Health and other potentially beneficial information. 4. The project administration itself (project secretariat run by GG), with constant and detailed reporting and monitoring, brought a sophisticated project management practice into the consortium, allowing any partner to benefit from introduced methods in their further collaboration activity. 5. Brokerage events, trainings for research group leaders, national capacity building and policy sessions can also be considered as a tool for sharing best practice. 6. Several members of the consortium took part in a new project preparation under the coordinatorship of CUNI. This may also be considered as a direct coaching and transfer of good practice towards more active participation of EECA in FP7. D1.4 - Set of project reporting templates and project handbook For easy internal assessment of the project progress and communication within the project consortium, the intranet section of the project website was developed. To achieve the maximum interactivity and easy updating, it has been agreed to create an intranet accessible to the project partners through their username and password. The handbook was uploaded to the intranet and facilitated day to day management of the project. However, the project did not fully succeed in making the handbook an effective tool. The vast majority of partners preferred an e-mail communication for their inquiries as well as for distributing of the core documents. The structure of the handbook and of reporting templates can be found in the D1.4 report. D1.5 - Online discussion platform dedicated to effective support of FP7 projects resulting from networking actions The online discussion platform was created by GG and CUNI in the framework of the networking tool www.linkedin.com. The discussion forum called 'EECALINK' can be easily joined at http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=3085597. It served as a tool for discussion of EECA researchers as applicants preparing project proposals to FP7 Health call on one side, and EECALINK consultants from Italy (APRE), the Czech Republic (GG), Poland (NENCKI) and Hungary (TETALAP) on the other side. This forum was a bit quiet because our currently supported consortia were contacted on personal basis and cooperation was organised mainly on a face to face basis. However, the LinkedIn group is still active and it is planned to be maintained to support the network created by the EECALINK project. WORK PACKAGE 2 Within this Work Package, the summary analysis of EECA national grant schemes was prepared as well as the list of joint research priorities of EECA and EU countries relevant for the FP7 TP 'Health'. Those documents served as a background document for policy sessions organised within WP5. It was a bit more time demanding than expected in the description of work, and it was delivered few months later than originally scheduled. At the end, however, its final results were solid and more than sufficient for the policy sessions. D2.1 - Summary analysis of EECA national grant schemes We did individual comparisons of the EECA national funding priorities with the work programme of the FP7 TP Health and we identified significant gaps and overlaps between EU research priorities and respective national priorities in Health research (for the summary analysis see the deliverable report). This analysis was a core document for policy sessions that were organised on national level in EECA countries. These policy sessions served also as a tool for further specification of national priorities in the analysis, and further details were also taken from questionnaires distributed on training sessions and regarding all EECALINK member states. More detailed analysis was presented during the final dissemination conference in Brussels in June 2011. D2.2 - Template of questionnaire for survey carried out in WP3 and WP4 According to its role of WP leader, APRE defined, with GG support, a unified methodology for conducting activities foreseen within WP2 (in joint coordination between APRE, CUT, and other WP3 partners). For this purpose, a questionnaire on screening of the EECA national programmes / funding schemes in health area was developed by CIT in close coordination with GG, NENCKI and APRE, who gave a substantial input on the structure of the questionnaire. In months 2-4 the first draft of the questionnaire was prepared by NENCKI and forwarded for comments to the WP2 leader APRE. However, the alternative template proposed by CIT had been used for the survey which was carried out in WP3 and WP4. It had been decided by APRE, GG and CUNI to use the questionnaire developed within task 2.1 also to identify health research priorities from EECA researchers' point of view. Questionnaires were further distributed to participants of brokerages and national capacity building events, whose answers assured the bottom up screening (of needs of researchers) as well. The questionnaires were disseminated at EECA national level, and outcomes of their collected answers were analysed by NENCKI by July 2010. D2.3 - List of joint EECA / EU research priorities relevant for FP7 TP 'Health' All the EECA countries see the FP7 as a very important source of health research funding and support higher involvement of their researchers in its projects. Although several gaps in EU and EECA countries health research priorities exist, the opportunities for cooperation are broad and should be exploited more. Among the fields of possible cooperation with EU from most of the EECA countries, the following were identified as the most important and promising: cancer diseases, cardiovascular diseases, ageing related diseases, and rare diseases, especially familial Mediterranean fever. The outcome of the synthesis of top-down and bottom-up approaches was the analytical paper on gaps and overlaps in EC-EECA 'Health' priorities on national programme / funding scheme level, which clearly shows nearly full overlapping of FP7-EECA research priorities in health thematic priority, however wide space for cooperation considering unused expertise in EECA countries was identified. The joint research priorities were identified though the following steps: 1. Identification of relevant communication partners located at key policy positions in EECA countries - task carried out by local university partners in close cooperation with relevant National contact point (NCP)s for FP7. 2. Comparative analysis of existing national funding opportunities, identification of joint research interests (FP7-TP Health vs. priorities of relevant national funding schemes) - at first existing synergies between national EECA long-term and FP7-TP Health research priorities were identified. 3. Establishing the active dialog between EU and EECA countries through policy sessions organised in each of the EECA partner country, giving floor for critical discussion with the group of EECA national policy makers responsible for strategic definition and implementation of national research priorities in Health sector. 4. Screening of the opinions and suggestions of the local RTD performers in research-priority setting - all RTD performers linked or invited to the project activities were asked to express their expert opinion on the research priority setting relevant to their field of Health research by filling a questionnaire for identification of priorities for future joint (EU and EECA) calls, compiled by the consortium. 5. Involving the key local SME and industry players into the consultation process. Possible gaps and overlaps between the EECA national and EU research priorities in health area were selected; recommendations were formulated on possible common priorities. Health strategies and priorities in the EECA countries All the EECA countries confirm the existence of a health strategy, which is more or less up to date (the oldest one is stated to be from 2007). In Russia and Ukraine the strategy updates are currently under development. In many cases, the countries' health strategies and their priorities are in line with the European trends. To common priorities of almost all the EECA countries belong: oncologic diseases, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, infectious diseases (tuberculosis, HIV / AIDS, hepatitis), obesity and nutrition related disease, high maternal and infant mortality, maternal and child diseases, alcoholism and related pathologies, and brain related diseases. Since many of the identified priorities are quite new, their transfer into practice is the main aim for the upcoming years. Some of the EECA countries also mentioned close cooperation with international organisations such as World Health Organisation when reaching their goals. Possible overlaps and existing gaps in comparison with EU health research policy All the EECA countries identified many overlaps of their research programmes with the EU FP7 Health research programme priorities. Although these common themes exist, a few gaps were also found by several of the EECA countries. The possible gaps could be summarised as follows: - maternal and child healthcare, diagnosis and treatment of the common pathological states in pregnant women and women of the fertile age, new-borns and children, research on obstetrics; - protection of the environment and preventive maintenance of diseases; - physiological and hygienic aspects of human adaptation to environmental and industrial changes; - use of local natural substances / resources for creation of new medicines and their elaboration and implementation in medical practice; - industrial pathology (professional diseases). Obstacles to better participation in FP7 'Health' projects Although several experiences of best practices in participation of EECA researchers in FP7 projects were presented during the national policy sessions, the general level of EECA countries involvement into FP7 projects is considered to be very low. Following obstacles were identified when discussing possibilities on how to change this trend: lack of information on EC priorities in Health research, the programme strategy, calls under the Health theme, structure of the calls and related issues; difficulties with partner search and self-promotion of institutions' research capacities; almost no governmental support especially in financial terms to strengthen the participation in international projects; significant differences in standards, law, administrative rules and financial regulations in EECA countries and EU; human factor, e.g. lack of experienced managers who are able to prepare competitive project proposals, mentality of people, language problems, distrust to official information. Common recommendation from EECA countries To overcome above stated obstacles and support better participation of researchers from EECA countries in FP7 'Health' projects, participants of national policy sessions recommended to: - use the existing programme facilitators such as FP7 NCPs, EECALINK-like projects, EU - EECA working groups on health research in order to get up to date and reliable information; - increase awareness of FP7 itself and promote FP7 training activities; - use more available partner search programmes, support researchers participation in conferences, brokerage events and other similar events; - create long-term partnerships with the EU relevant research centres to share knowledge and exchange experiences as well as with the EU academic institutions and universities for joint medical education and improvement of research skills of local staff based on co-financing and joint management; - support better cooperation of organisations at the national level for better representation of health research landscape and raising visibility in Europe. D2.4 - Interim and final activity reports for WP2 This deliverable summarised outcomes of all activities carried out under this Work Package, which are described in the text above. WP3 The most important objective of WP3 was to support networking. EECALINK organised one brokerage event in the first 18 months of the project duration. The event was organised in Budapest, on 23 June 2010, and its aim was to match researchers from EECA countries and Member States for submitting common proposals in the call within the Health area. The consortium assisted to 20 proposals prepared for different calls within Health area in 2009 and 2010, financed by the EC. The proposals will be followed, i.e. the consortium will be assisting successful proposals when it is necessary and required. Instead of organising other brokerage events, the travel grant scheme was introduced. During first 18 months of the project, however, only one travel grant of 200 EUR was awarded. After discussion with partners and EC, the travel grant rules were updated, not only 200 EUR per person, but according to new rules, whole travel cost to the brokerage event were covered to those researchers fitting to criteria mentioned here: http://www.EECALINK.eu/?cat=proposal_support. In the end, 15 travel grants were awarded. Consortium widely promoted the project by presenting the EECALINK idea, objectives and activities during different events organised with participation of the scientists from EECA countries and MS dealing with the Health topics. These events (workshops, info days, conferences) were organised by the project partners or with cooperation with other institutions like Ministries of Health, research units, and others. Also, potential beneficiaries were informed about possibility of getting a travel grant financed by the project. D3.1 - List of potential EECA and EU-MS participants to the networking actions Via the above mentioned activities the list with the names of scientists from EECA countries and EU-MS interested in cooperation within Health area in FP7 was prepared. The list comprises name, institution and address of 211 scientists from EU and EECA countries. It was sent to the EC as the D3.1. The list was presented at the brokerage event in Brussels in June 2011 and distributed at several other events. It was agreed that the consortium will continue with dissemination of the list of researchers (as well as with other results) even after the termination of the project. D3.2 - Final report on networking actions Initial concept, as described in grant agreement - annex I, was changed in order to maximise the impact on participating researchers (this change was agreed upon at the kick-off meeting in Prague in June 2009). Instead of organising own events we chose to support researchers to attend a major brokerage events organised by partner projects in Brussels which secured a wide enough spectrum of participants to cover any specific topic EECA researchers might be involved in. One specific EECALINK brokerage took place in Budapest. The event met with strong interest both in EECA countries and host country, but inefficient funding instrument to support mobility led to the fact that actual attendance of researchers from EECA was lower than initially expected - they were mainly represented by EECALINK partners. Initial form of travel grant support enabled researchers to attend events in the EU, but accounted for only about a fifth of usual costs of their travel expenses (EUR 200). Therefore, this tool was not widely used (only 1 successfully administered travel grant). After change of the concept, we offered to cover full cost of travel and accommodation of researchers participating in brokerage event in the EU, which substantially raised interest and enabled us to support 14 more scientists with EECALINK travel grant directly. The brokerage event attended by these 14 researchers from EECA took place in Brussels on 10 June 2011. It was organised by Fit for Health project and was accompanied by FP7 health open information day organised by the EC, and by the conference on cooperation with EECA in Health organised by EECALINK project, which most of these researchers also attended. Besides financial support, the EECALINK consortium provided full administrative service for the travel grant holders, mainly regarding visa and grant administration. Report from the brokerage event in Budapest, the list of researchers supported by the EECALINK travel grant and researchers supported by partner project in cooperation with EECALINK are included in the deliverable report. D3.3 - List of supported proposals and their coordinators The EU experts of the EECALINK consortium in cooperation with EECA partners were extensively involved in support of consortia resulting from networking activity in WP3. 34 consortia benefited from the expertise of EECALINK partners from 2009 to 2011, they received direct support during the proposal preparation phase, in case of some proposals, e.g. INARMERA coordinated by Centre of Genetics and Primary Health Care from Armenia or InterPregGen with a partner from Uzbekistan, resulting in projects being funded by the EC. List of supported proposals is included as Annex 1 to this deliverable report. D3.4 - Interim activity report for WP3 Similarly as D2.4 this is a deliverable summarising all activities from the whole WP3. WP4 The main objective of this WP is to enable scientists from both EU and EECA countries to participate in FP7 more effectively. Thus the main outcome of this WP was organising training sessions for both research administrators and scientists themselves - national capacity building events and trainings for research group leaders. D4.1 - Report on training activities carried out under task 4.1 a 4.4. During the EECALINK project, a series of training sessions for researchers, research group leaders, administrative staff of universities, and research centres were organised. The target audience consisted of potential future administrators on FP7 projects, scientific group leaders, researchers, and SMEs. FP7 experts from consortium acted as trainers. However, to offer more focused information on national issues, experts from the respective country were also invited. The topics of the training sessions were partly defined by the previous discussions: general information about FP7, priorities of the upcoming FP7 Health call, researchers' mobility possibilities, how to write a successful proposal, main mistakes in proposal preparation, financial rules of FP7, full cost methodology, grant negotiation and signature, consortium agreement, project administration, IPR issues, effective collaboration of local academia and SMEs, national co-financing, national financial rules and FP7. The chosen topics enabled the organisers of the training sessions to adapt the contents of the training to the specific needs of the attendees. The partners from the Member States benefited from the same topics. The majority of the projects partners set the date of the training and selected the topics during the first six months of the project. 'Guidelines for the organisation of FP7 trainings in the EECALINK project' containing practical information was compiled and sent to the partners to help them in the organisation of the trainings. The guidelines and detailed information from each individual event can be found in deliverable report. D4.2 - Report on training activities carried out under task 4.2 Within this deliverable, a series of training sessions for research group leaders were organised. The target audience were experienced researchers, group leaders, program managers who had been already involved in different national and international research projects and who planned to participate in EU FP projects. The original plan according to the description of work was that these trainings would be offered as adjacent events to brokerage events. The targeted joint event was reached in the case of Information Day and Brokerage event in Budapest, June 2010, where a successful partnering event followed the training session. In the case of the other three events, organisation of training as joint events to partnering events was unrealisable because of the lack of suitable local partnering event which the trainings could have been attached to. This difficulty was overcome by the local organiser and the consortium by giving floor to open discussion and project idea generation led by the experts from the consortia in the case of event in Debrecen and Krakow; the expert from APRE presented project ideas and possibilities to join consortium initialised by Italian researchers during the training in Odessa. FP7 experts from consortium acted as trainers to offer more focused information on national issues, experts from the respective country were also invited. The topics of the training sessions for research group leaders were partly defined by the previous discussions as in the case of the trainings for researchers (see deliverable report 4.1) but more information was focused on specific FP7 issues, proposal writing, project management and financial issues. The topics enabled the organisers of the training sessions to adapt the contents of the training to the specific needs of the attendees. Similarly as in case of D4.1 detailed information from all events reported within this deliverable can be found in the corresponding deliverable report. Deliverable 4.3 - Training related modules for the online platform In total 12 EECA and EU-MS trainings for administrative staff (i.e. grant administrators and research managers) and 4 EECA and EU-MS trainings for research performers (research group leaders) were carried out by the FP7 experts (EU partners) and invited experts in collaboration with local university /academia partners. These events were open to local staff members in RTD sector who were interested in presented subject. Those events are in detail described within D4.1 and D4.2. Importantly, all training related materials were uploaded to the project website (http://EECALINK.eu/?cat=past_events) after each event. They typically include detailed agenda, presentations in PowerPoint or PDF, and photos. Anyone without registration can view those documents, and if interested, post a question to the organising team. Altogether, materials from 15 events are downloadable from the website, which makes it rather a big database. Moreover, the website is supported by a LinkedIn group, which was predominantly founded in order to improve networking within the project team as well as toward general public. The LinkedIn networking platform is further described in deliverable 1.5. D4.4 - Interim activity report for WP4 In the deliverable 4.4 report, the whole WP4 is summarised. WP5 The general objective of WP5 was the assurance of effective communication and best possible use of results generated by the proposed coordination action. Importantly, policy sessions (discussion between policy makers and researcher) were organised, building on the analysis prepared under WP2. After organisation of all policy sessions, the summarising report was prepared and presented at the final dissemination conference in Brussels in June 2011. Moreover, this WP consisted also of other dissemination activities, both internal and external. D5.1 - Report on working seminary with the EC (project final dissemination conference) The date of the final conference originally planned for month 30 had to be changed for month 25 in order to link it with the official EC information day on health calls 2012 and to allow the conference participants to attend the Info day and adjacent brokerage event on 9-10 June 2011. After the approval of the change of date by the General Assembly at the meeting in Budapest on 21-22 June 2010 and by the EC project officer, the date of the final EECALINK project conference was set in September 2010. The preparations started already in autumn with drafting the conference agenda. During January and May 2011, the venue of the conference was negotiated by TCASCR, and the speakers and panellists were addressed by the Task leader and the coordinator. The background document based on the 8 EECA national working papers was prepared by TCASCR for the panel discussion. A graphical layout of EECALINK project was used for all conference documentation. There was a possibility for the project partners to place a poster in the conference room and to disseminate information leaflets. A list of FP7 project potential partners in the field of Health (EECA and EU) prepared by Anna Stachowics under WP3 was distributed to the conference participants. The EECALINK project conference took place in Brussels on 7 June 2011 at the premises of the permanent representation of the Czech Republic to the EU under the title 'Conference on cooperation with EECA in health research' with the focus on the main outcomes and conclusions of the project. Almost 80 participants received information on the project activities and outputs and had a lot of possibilities for discussion during the afternoon round table. As the conference was organised just two days prior to the EC information day on call 2012, a wide range of experts attended, coming even from outside Europe, for example the Taiwan Health NCP. Very significant was the involvement of the EECA partners as speakers: during the morning session, Tigran Arsumanyan (CIT, Armenia) presented the main results of the policy session and gave a general overview of EU-EECA cooperation in health research from EECA perspective; amongst the panellists of the afternoon discussion were 4 EECA representatives - Yuriy Arkhipenko (FFM-MSU, Russia), Tea Gergedava (IJTSU, Georgia), Kamila Magsieva (InExCB-Ks, Kasakhstan) and Roman Viter (ONU, Ukraine). All partners actively participated in the conference preparation. The outcomes of the conference were placed on relevant websites of most of the project partners and on the EECALINK website. An article on the conference proceedings was prepared by TCASCR in cooperation with the RTD communication unit. It was published on 18 November 2011 under Research Headlines with the title 'Stronger EU-EECA ties in the pipeline' as a part of a weekly newsletter distributed by DG RTD. It can be reached at: http://ec.europa.eu/research/infocentre/article_en.cfm?id=/research/headlines/news/article_11_11_18_en.html&item=Infocentre&artid=23256 . The visibility of the EECALINK project at the EC health information day on 9 June 2011 in Brussels was ensured by CUNI and GG. At the EECALINK stand, the project leaflets and the list of FP7 project potential partners in the field of Health from the 8 EECA countries and 4 EU Member States were displayed. On 10 June 2011, the EECALINK project joined the brokerage event organised by Health-NCP-net and Fit-for-Health projects for the participants of the information day. CUNI and GG presented the research potential of EECA countries together with 14 researchers that received a travel grant from EECALINK project (this time, the travel grant covered all real costs). D5.2 - Summary report on EECA national policy sessions First, EECA partners have identified the EECA national policy makers and officials responsible for formulation of future research priorities and their implementation in health sector. These policy makers and officials were then invited to the planned national policy sessions. The major purpose of these events was to produce the EECA / EU individual national lists of research priorities (EECA national working papers), which were further used as background documents for the panel discussion held within the framework of the final project conference in Brussels. The organisation and timing of these eight EECA national policy sessions were being intensively discussed during the second half of the year 2010 by CUNI (task leader), GG, and WP leader TCASCR with the project officer and other representatives of the EC. The organisation of events in clusters was discussed in order to enable the project officer to be present at some of them. Unfortunately, he could attend only two of the policy sessions. The cookbook for technical part of the organisation policy sessions was prepared and made available on the intranet at: (http://www.EECALINK.eu/download/policy%20session%20cookbook.pdf). All partners received this cookbook. No major problems with organising those events were identified. Each event, organisational details, list of participants and main outcomes are summarised in the corresponding deliverable report. The outcomes of respective policy session were standardised in a form of working papers, with template prepared by TCASCR, GG, and CUNI. Besides those working papers, Tigran Arsumanyan (CIT) prepared an analytical presentation summarising the most important outcomes from all Policy Sessions. This presentation included discussions of common problems as well as national and macro-regional similarities. This presentation was subsequently processed by TCASCR and a summarising analytical document was prepared. This document can again be found in the corresponding deliverable report. D5.3 This deliverable covered the project from month 10 until its end in November 2011. The task promotion of EECA research potential across the EU is closely linked to the activities done under WP3, especially Task 3.1 Identification of relevant EECA and EU-MS scientists and task 3.2 efficient matching. The main channels through which the EECA potential was disseminated included: - distribution of list of potential partners from EECA; - EECALINK stand at open information day of FP7 Health and adjacent partnering event; - promotion of EECA research potential at stakeholders' conferences; - facilitation of registration of researchers from the EECA into Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS) partners service. More detailed description is included in the deliverable itself. D5.4 - Other promotion activities report for 2011 The project was actively promoted by all partners in their respective countries and on every occasion during relevant events abroad. TCASCR disseminated the information about the project through its office in Brussels (CSELO) to the European research community, using all means - printed information, article on CORDIS and active presentation. Information on EECALINK project and direct links to its website has been uploaded at the different websites of the project partners as well as to some others, like e.g. at the FP7 national information point website in Armenia: http://nip.sci.am. Mutual cooperation was established by the coordinator, project manager and some other partners with several projects having similar objectives as EECALINK, such as FITFORHEALTH (former SMESGOHEALTH project), HEALTH-NCP NET, INCO-NET EECA, SM BIO POWER and others. Detailed description of individual activities is presented in the deliverable itself. D5.5 The D5.5 summarises the WP5 as a whole. Potential impact: This part of the report presents the impact the project has had and also will have in future. The text is structured into three main parts: (i) general socio-economic impact, (ii) audience reached, and (iii) continuation of activities. In the first part, we are summarising the impact, both direct and long-term, in a general way. In the following part, we are presenting precise numbers of audience reached, both directly (through, for instance, project activities) or indirectly (such as website, online platform). In the last part, we are describing activities to be organised by the consortium after the end of the project. General socio-economic impact Following the primary objective of the call (HEALTH-2007-4.1-8: Promotion and facilitation of international cooperation in areas relevant to the objectives of the Health theme), overall objective of the project was to contribute to the implementation of the FP7 and to the preparation of future Community research and technological development policy. The project directly targeted eight International cooperation partner countries (ICPC) (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan) and allowed strengthening the developing network of contact points in countries of EECA. The cooperation programme has been designed to be responsive to the changing research needs of European industry and policy makers and work programmes of individual thematic priorities represent tools to their implementation. The project consortium used actual work programmes and their call topics as a basic platform for construction of the matching tool, allowing them to identify scientific group leaders with complementary research interests relevant to FP7-TP Health. The work programmes of FP7 and public health were used as two the most important background documents for analysis of EU research priorities on the Health sector. Their comparison to the corresponding EECA national policy-implementation papers served for getting a clear picture of funding overlaps and common research opportunities. Such working material was further elaborated through so called 'policy sessions'. Outcomes of those events were disseminated at individual national and at the European levels (the final conference held in Brussels in June 2010). With the aim of encouraging the development of ERA beyond its actual political borders, an account was taken of the possible relevance of project results for the purposes of science management education. Communication and dissemination strategies addressed the wider audience of policy-makers, various FP7 multipliers (i.e. NCPs, focal information points at the RTD institutions and other FP7 consultants) and the general public (including especially young and promising people), in order to promote the FP7 and increase understanding between the scientific world and society at large. In order to strengthen the diffusion and use of the output of the EECALINK, the dissemination of knowledge and transfer of results, including to policy makers, was assured through the well-developed communication strategies. A special emphasis was placed on the participation of SMEs; indeed the aim of 15 % of the SME participation was fulfilled. Specific research topics of particular interest for SMEs, or specifically targeted to SMEs were highlighted at relevant training and networking events. The coordination of non-Community research programmes is an important and integral part of the development of the ERA and the project efforts contributed to the synergising of relevant EECA national research funding in the Health sector and help to banish the overlaps of the funding priorities. Our project was built on the success of similar networking and training activities carried out under the FP6 (e.g. CERA, TraiNet, SME goes Life Sciences, ERA West Balkan and many others). The proposed action also enhanced synergies between FP7, other Community programmes and ongoing cooperation initiatives (e.g. COST and EUREKA), other activities of intergovernmental research organisations, and networks and associations active at EU level. During the project implementation EECALINK successfully cooperated also with HEALTH-NCP-NET (the coordinator still being a member of quality assurance panel) and fit-for-health projects. Generally, international cooperation represented an important dimension of all activities carried out within the framework of EECALINK project and was implemented in the following two ways: 1. through the opening up of research activities to researchers and research organisations from ICPC and those of EECA region in particular; 2. the proposed budget also contained the specific provisions for the financing of the participation of research partners from the ICPC countries according to the financial rules of FP7. In order to strengthen the diffusion and use of the output of the EECALINK project, the dissemination of knowledge and transfer of results, including to policy makers, was implemented by means of CORDIS, as well. All research profiles were encouraged to register via CORDIS partnering tools, which allowed the dissemination of knowledge and better exploitation of projects results. Finally, the network of NCPs for FP7 health theme in eastern Europe was crucial to facilitate access of local scientists to FP7 calls, lowering barriers to entry for newcomers and raising the quality of submitted proposals. The project represented a support to the development of NCP-Health network in participating EECA countries and their transnational cooperation. To summarise the general socio-economic impact, we present a list of activities considered to have the biggest impact: - promotion of FP7, specifically priority Health, both in EU and EECA countries; - facilitation of dialogue between (i) policy makers on one side and researchers on the other, (ii) EU researchers and administrators and EECA specialists, and (iii) EC and individual countries both from EU and EECA region; - promotion of formal and informal networking in the field of health research; - enhancing cooperation between EU and EECA researchers. The above mentioned impact may be considered as direct or immediate. In addition to this, one can find out also a longer-term impact initiated or enhanced by the EECALINK project. This type of impact is, however, difficult to measure. Nevertheless, through capacity building events, we can expect that the success rate in FP7 projects will be higher, especially in case of EECA countries where the benchmark has been rather low. Through formal but especially through informal networks, it can be expected that the share of best practice will continue, which will be beneficial not only for less experienced EECA researchers, administrators and policy makers, but also for EU based researchers and administrators who can benefit from working with renown experts from EECA countries. Finally, it is clear that even though the impact on health research and even health care is minimal, the EECALINK project contributed to the positive change and improvement in one of the key priorities worldwide - the health of the population. Audience reached During the run of the project, we have reached quite a wide audience. In the following part, we are trying to summarise specific numbers. We are distinguishing between the audience reached directly and indirectly. In some cases, such as the website audience, we had to use estimates. Altogether we have reached more than 1 500 people directly and approximately more than 15 000 indirectly. Continuation of activities In the text above, we have described the impact generated by the EECALINK project itself. However, apart from the 'official' project activities, the informal network of contacts was established and some of the project activities will therefore run independently on the EU financing. We regard this as a considerable success, since it will, to some extent, ensure the project's sustainability. First of all, the network will function on an informal basis (including keeping the mailing list), all the partners informing each other about cooperation possibilities, interesting calls which can be addressed jointly. We reckon informal relations as very important for proper functioning of every network, especially for its sustainability. The Coordinating institution promised to keep the website alive, which is especially useful for informing all partners about interesting events and activities. Moreover, there will be training materials from capacity buildings stored and they will be accessible for wide public. The website should be maintained by the end of FP7. The cooperation with ongoing EU projects should be still fostered. At the final meeting in Prague, some people volunteered to make it their responsibility. It should be primarily HEALTH-NCP-NET, Fit-for-Health and International cooperation (Inconet) EECA. In Prague, we have also agreed to prepare a project leaflet informing about the main outcomes of the project and subsequently distribute this leaflet as much as possible. Project website: http://EECALINK.eu
