Final Report Summary - CAESIE (Connecting Australian-European Science and Innovation Excellence)
Executive Summary:
The objectives of the CAESIE-Project were to enhance science, technology and innovation cooperation between Europe and Australia by identifying and facilitating opportunities for European and Australian researchers and small to medium size enterprises (SME´s) in research and innovation programmes managed by Australia and Europe with a thematic focus on clean energy, healthy ageing through enabling technologies and sustainable cities.
The work of CAESIE built on the previous successful FEAST and AUS-ACCESS4EU projects. As a result the National Contact Point Network in Australia was expanded to support Australian researchers and small and medium sized (SME) companies with regard to participation in FP 7 and Horizon 2020 projects.
Continuing the AUS-ACCESS4EU activities an information tour for high level representatives of Australian research and funding organizations through four EU Member States was organized to spread information on the Australian R&D system and funding opportunities for international cooperation in Europe and to discuss with European counterparts ways and means to increase the collaboration.
In 2015 the scheme was changed and an Australian delegation consisting of representatives from the Cooperative Research Centers and other organizations connecting public research with the private sector visited respective organizations in Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany and France. The tour which had two thematic foci, i.e. advanced manufacturing and health & medical technologies, was considered by all participants as extremely successful with a view to better linking the Australian innovation actors with counterparts in Europe. .
One of the biggest achievements of CAESIE were the “Priming Grants”, a small travel grant scheme funded to a large extent by the Australian government. Through the Priming Grants European researchers were given the possibility to connect with Australian SMEs and vice versa. In total 62 Priming Grants were awarded covering 17 EU Member States. In addition, the Priming Grant holders were closely monitored to assess in a hands on approach success factors as well as obstacles to the innovation cooperation. The Priming Grants, considered by most awardees as extremely helpful, resulted in applications worth more than 14 million Euros with funding organizations in Europe and Australia to continue the collaboration started through CAESIE.
The Australian government, acknowledging the success of the Priming grants has made them a blueprint for international cooperation in science and innovation in the Global Innovation Strategy as part of the National Science & Innovation Agenda released in December 2015.
Project Context and Objectives:
Australia has always been keen to intensify its cooperation in science and technology (S&T) with the European Research Area (ERA), not only with European Member States through bilateral cooperation agreements but also within the EU Framework Programmes. Australia signed an S&T cooperation agreement with the EU in 1994. Cooperation is currently facilitated by a Joint Science and Technology Cooperation Committee (JSTCC) which meets every second year.
In 2014, the EU and Australia held the 14th meeting of the EU-Australia Joint Science and Technology Cooperation Committee (JSTCC). The discussions at the meeting reflected the EU and Australia’s long-standing cooperation across a broad range of research and innovation areas. There are many ‘bottom-up’ collaborations between researchers, institutions and agencies. The EU and Australia have also selected targeted areas of mutual priority, capacity and strength for driving strategic top-down collaboration.
The 2014 JSTCC meeting included an EU-Australia Innovation Policy Dialogue, centred on the theme of: Enhanced EU-Australia research-business collaboration and impact. The dialogue covered policies and flagship initiatives to promote a business-led innovation culture, including enterprise networks and cluster models for driving connections between research and business communities. The EC and Australia identified that increasing EU-Australian industry-research links, and promoting connections between business networks and innovation clusters (also known as knowledge triangle clusters, which are thematically-focussed collaborations between research, industry and education partners), as priorities going forward.
Australia was the first country to partner with Europe under a bilateral cooperation platform. The Forum for European Australian Science and Technology (FEAST) project (2001 – 2004) was successful in promoting opportunities for cooperation to researchers in Europe and Australia. The project used web-based tools and a series of conferences and workshops to promote new EU Australia collaborations in priority areas. The FEAST project has since been used as a model for other bilateral cooperation projects between the EU and third country partners.
FEAST was followed by the FEAST 2 project (2005 – 2008) and the FEAST Extension, Enhancement and Demonstration (FEED) project (2008 – 2011). The AUS ACCESS4EU project (2009 – 2011, supporting EU access to Australian research programmes) has also successfully promoted opportunities for cooperation, and encouraged knowledge sharing regarding Australia and Europe’s research and innovation landscape.
While previous projects concentrated on increasing S&T cooperation the CAESIE (Connecting Australian-European Science and Innovation Excellence) project laid its focus on cooperation in research and innovation. In the CAESIE project, which was supported under the EC’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), the EU and Australia focussed on the areas of: Clean energy; Healthy ageing through enabling technologies; and Sustainable cities. Together, the EU and Australia have worked to address some of the world’s greatest societal challenges.
Operating under the auspices of the EU-Australia JSTCC, the main objectives of CAESIE were to build and enhance bilateral cooperation between research and innovation actors in the EU and Australia and to monitor progress in the bilateral cooperation relationship. Focusing on the societal challenges identified above, the aim of CAESIE was to deliver the activities proposed under the call through the following objectives:
• Driving collaboration - promote strategic collaborations under societal challenges between leading researchers, SMEs and other innovation actors from Europe and Australia to drive new research and economic outcomes.
• Strengthening conditions - support cooperation on framework conditions for research and innovation between Australia and the EU, and achieve better coordination and alignment of policies and programmes of Member States with respect to Australia.
• Promoting opportunities - promote awareness and disseminate information to researchers, SMEs and other innovation actors about opportunities for research and innovation collaboration between Europe and Australia.
• Analysing innovation - analyse Australia’s participation in FP programmes, opportunities for SMEs and other innovation actors and features of Australia’s innovation system to enhance collaboration outcomes.
The work packages were specifically designed to address these objectives during the course of the project.
The longer term aim of the project was to strengthen the impact of the EU-Australia cooperation in science, technology and innovation by:
• fostering strong strategic links between researchers and industry in joint projects on the three societal challenges to produce and use new knowledge and technology to create social and economic value;
• developing the understanding of innovation processes and relationships by furthering the policy debate and providing and testing practical models of collaboration. and
• driving strategic directions by delivering outputs as strategic input to the next JSTCC.
Project Results:
5.3.3 Work progress and achievements
Overview of CAESIE work packages:
• WP1: Driving Collaboration
• WP2: Strengthening Conditions
• WP3: Promoting Opportunities
• WP4: Analysing Innovation
• WP 5: Project Coordination and management
For CAESIE, a ‘parallel work package approach’ was adopted. This means that all five work packages ran through the whole 39 months duration of the project. The main advantages of this approach were that all CAESIE partners were involved in the project implementation process from the very beginning to the end. This led to a higher interdependency of the results, the creation of synergies between work packages and the securing of the commitment of all partners throughout the whole duration of the project.
The following information on the current status of the implementation of each work package is structured as follows:
A) Introduction to/overview of the respective WP
B) Achievements from October 2012 – Dec. 2015
5.3.3.1 WP1: Driving Collaboration
A) Overview
Work package leaders of WP1 was the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science & Research (DIISR) WP 1 aimed at promoting collaboration between research and innovation actors from Europe and Australia in the areas of societal challenge of clean energy, healthy ageing through enabling technologies and sustainable cities and to drive new research and economic outcomes.
WP1 initially consisted of three tasks as follows.
• Task 1.1 SME, cluster and research leader information and planning sessions
• Task 1.2 Societal challenge workshops
• Task 1.3 Enhancing societal challenge collaborations
B) Progress and achievements
Following extensive consultation between CAESIE project partners, researchers and SMEs, the scope of Work Package 1 activities (activities 1.1 1.2 and 1.3 in particular) were revised in order to better meet the requirements of the research and business sectors. In particular, the SME sector was reluctant to engage with the planned more traditional networking event. Our scoping showed that a match making approach followed by support for one-on-one relationships would be more productive. As a result, a pilot priming grants scheme was developed. The work package changes were discussed and agreed by the project coordinator and the EC Desk Officer. The priming grants concept was strongly supported by the CAESIE Advisory Board.
The revised Work Package 1 included the major activities of:
• scoping process – scope possible industry research activities, identify best approach for funding of priming grants (round one completed and analysed with Round 2 implementing improved streamlined processes reducing administration and simplifying grantee reporting; and
• grants activities – the running and administration of two priming grant rounds
EXTENDED PRIMING GRANTS PROGRAM
As reported at the first Progress Report stage the first round of Priming Grants were judged as successful based on the early stage reports we are receiving from awardees
As agreed in November 2013 the review of deliverable 1.1 in 2014 was undertaken. Some awardees had advanced their projects sufficiently to indicate a good measure of engagement and innovation success is associated with the grants and this then led Australian partners to fully support another round of grants for WP1and the Australian Government allocated a further $100K as a contribution for a 2nd round. Review by all CAESIE Partners determined that sufficient unspent funds from other Work Packages could be redirected to a 2nd round of grants. This reallocation of such unsent funds was agreed to by all CAESIE partners and approved within CAESIE Project Management and by the EC. A further €99,000 was allocated as a contribution towards a further round of grants.
The review also led to the process for the second round of grants being modified /streamlined with a single step payment of AUD$ 7,000 or €5,000 thus reducing administration overheads associated with a two part payment system (including given currency exchange costs).
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF D1.1 OUTCOME ACTIVITY- (COVERING BOTH GRANT ROUNDS)
Analysis of grantee reports and grantee survey responses have revealed that:
1. 62 Grants executed over two calls. 58 awardees took up their grants progressing to final reporting.
2. Success Outcomes- survey of grantees showed 77.6% (45) regarded their collaborative projects as very successful 20.7% (12) grantees regarded their projects as partially successful and works in progress, and 1 project (1.7%) failed early on.
3. Interactions exceed expectations: The outcomes emerging from these interactions far exceeded the original expectations of the program with most grantees taking the opportunity to: (i) identify funding sources to develop their projects further; (ii) identify new additional collaborative partners; and (iii) developed additional business or research opportunities.
4. Priming Grants are catalytic enablers. There was a strong response from grantees that without the priming grants the interactions would not or may not have taken place. Others responded that the grants were timely enablers and accelerated the pace at which these interactions occurred.
5. Intangible benefits accrued: In addition to developing the proposed partnerships, other benefits accrued to those participating including, bring participants into contact with other organizations increased likelihood of working with additional partners and served to modestly enlighten the grantees on the science systems in respective jurisdictions.
6. Ongoing funding is impressive: the majority of grantees went on to apply for funding to either AU or EU sources. Grantees have reported that as a result of the CAESIE grants, they have been able to apply for/or raised €15,411,000. The total amount invested in the grants was in the order of €355,725. This represents a positive multiplier of 43 times the original investment.
7. Intellectual Property: 2 provisional patents were recorded and 1 joint company formed (in AU) as a result of these activities. Most grantees considered it likely that as their projects progressed provisional patent for their products would likely be made, other considered that their works could generate copyright and trade secrets. Clearly respondents are cognisant of the IP considerations around their projects and thinking of future developments.
8. Employment: Some 256 people in total were engaged in the funded projects, an average of 4 persons per project. No new employment was generated due to the short term and nature and focus of the grants, but one team did engage a summer research student.
9. Future needs identified: All respondents indicated that future CAESIE programs should continue with the Priming Grants but that a “proof of concept stage grant” is also needed as a next step to the priming grants.
10. CAESIE ranked high on delivery efficiency: Grantees considered this an excellent program and scored CAESIE highly in terms of delivery of the program and seeing their requirements during the process.
In Summary, the engagement mechanism of a priming grant is proven: This has been a highly successful program, appreciated by the SME and Researcher target market alike and the analysis of the outcomes and feedback indicates that this model for early stage funding of new ideas between SMEs and Researchers is a proven success and has global applicability.
ANALYSIS OF GRANT PROCESSES
The feedback and information derived from Reporting by grantees participating in the two Priming Grant calls during the period 2013-2015 demonstrate that the program has been highly successful in engaging Researchers and SMEs in a dialogue which has led to a variety of innovation collaboration models.
Early on, CAESIE took a unique “hands on” approach providing bespoke advice and direction during the Expression of Interest (EOI) phase. From the feedback received this appears to be a key component of success, not only in the pre-qualification and quality control of proposals going forward to eventual applications, but, also by the participants who appreciated receiving expert advice on their proposals, the grant process and other practical aspects.
This approach also ensured that applicants received timely and accurate information to complete their applications. As a result, we made the submission of an EOI mandatory before a grant application could be made for the second call in 2014.
Other equally important contributing factors to the success of the program were:
• The use of National Contact Points (NCP) to assist applicants, answer technical questions and in some cases suggesting potential alternative partners where requested.
• Many hundreds contacted CAESIE seeking advice on other EU and AU collaborative programs and the current CAESIE NCPs have been critical in ensuring that correct and timely advice is provided. Positive feedback on the effectiveness of this advisory activity was made.
• The CAESIE website used as a one-stop-shop to provide comprehensive information, guidelines and on-line application systems for Grants as well as providing FAQ on funding arrangements under Horizon 2020 proved extremely popular and useful.
• Favourable comment was provided on the application form although a couple of applicants thought that 2500 characters was too short for the project description whilst other appreciated the brevity.
Review of the round one activities led to amendments to the guidelines to ensure only one application was submitted per person or company. This was achieved by only allowing people with access to an approved EOI number to submit an application, preventing multiple applications from the same entities and removed the issue of wildcard unapproved applications being received at the last minute as we found in the first call.
The quality of the EOIs received and subsequent applications, was higher than the first round, most likely reflecting the additional guidance provided in the guidelines and online documentation.
While the CAESIE program has ceased in December 2015, the lead for Work Package 3, ATSE, will conduct further surveys of grantees to provide a longitudinal picture of their progression or otherwise as part of the Academy’s research program 2016-2017.
OVERALL ASSESSMENT
Assessment of outcomes against a set of identified deliverables within the set of value propositions developed for CAESIE is summarised below:
Outcomes expected
Proposed Outcome Achieved
Promoting awareness about opportunities for research and innovation collaboration, Yes, through website and Priming Grants program
instigating strong strategic linkages, and increased innovation capacity to advance solutions for key societal challenges. Yes Priming Grants have achieved this
The acceleration of the collaboration process through CAESIE enhances innovation capacity that benefits both the EU and Australian economies. Yes evidenced by Priming grants outcomes per this report
Delivered our Value Proposition to the Grant holders
Proposition Achieved
Eligible SME applicants are awarded a Priming Grant to fund a face-to-face meeting with prospective partners to establish if a long-term working collaboration can be formed. Yes, Delivered
CAESIE will provide free services to SMEs to try and match appropriate research, technology and intellectual property partners in respective countries, saving time money and resources. Yes Delivered
Through the National Contact Points, CAESIE will provide free access to a 'network of networks’ in the EU and Australia to SME's, and researchers seeking collaboration and or partnering opportunities. Yes Delivered
CAESIE can provide further information needed by those collaboration entities moving to apply for additional funds through research and innovation agencies in respective regions. Yes Delivered
Value Proposition to Australia & Europe
Proposition Did we make a difference?
The aim of CAESIE activities is to accelerate research-business relationships by providing more effective strategic network formation Yes
Collaborative relationships are proven to produce better research, and optimise the environment for innovation breakthroughs. Yes
Leveraging one another's strengths in a cooperative way will have benefits for both Australia and Europe and assist both regions in succeeding as technology leaders. Yes
How Does This Contribute To A Better Research & Business Sector?
Our Proposition Did we achieve?
Bringing Australian-EU key skills, capabilities and access to research infrastructure Yes
Facilitating the participation of Australian-EU experts in research activities of global significance; Yes
Enhancing the reputation of Australian-EU science and technology; Partially, ongoing
Enhancing access to international expertise and networks of researchers that facilitate major programs of global and national significance to be addressed; Partially, ongoing
Providing a stimulating environment which triggers new ideas, technologies and innovations Yes and ongoing
Sharing of costs and risks; Yes
Facilitating access to new funding opportunities; Yes
Providing access to data, samples for testing and analysis, cutting edge technology, equipment and infrastructure; and Partially, ongoing
Increasing opportunity for the cultural and professional development of Australian and EU scientists. Yes, ongoing
The Priming Grants scheme has been considered extremely useful and easy to manage by the Australian Government. As a consequence, the program serves as an exemplar for effective international collaboration in research and innovation as outlined in the new Global Innovation Strategy of the Australian Government. It is expected that a respective international collaboration funding line will set up with the start of the program in mid 2016.
5.3.3.2 WP2: Strengthening Conditions
A) Overview
The objectives of Work Package 2 were to support cooperation on framework conditions for research and innovation collaboration between the EU and Australia and to achieve better coordination and alignment of policies and programmes of EU Member States with respect to Australia.
WP 2 consisted of three tasks as follows:
Task 2.1 – EU synchronizing workshop
Task 2.2 – Joint liaison office
Task 2.3 – Innovation policy dialogue
B) Achievements
Task 2.1 EU Synchronizing Workshop
A workshop in Europe (D 2.1) was planned to bring together policy makers and representatives of funding organizations from Member States and from Australia that maintain an ongoing bilateral dialogue in the first period of the CAESIE project.
A concept for the EU synchronizing workshop was developed. This concept included the assessment of the interest and possibilities of Australian funding and governmental organizations in collaborating with European counterpart organizations. For this a preparation workshop was developed and implemented in Australia on 15 October 2013.
The workshop in Australia brought together representatives from Australian governmental departments other than DI, state and territory governments, research institutions and groups that are engaged in or fund international research collaboration and would potentially be interested to jointly fund with EU member states EU-AUS collaboration in science and innovation. In addition representatives of the European Commission and CAESIE partners participated.
EC CAESIE project officer speaking at the Research Agencies Meeting
The discussions and small talks with Australian funding and research organizations during the CAESIE workshop in Canberra in October indicated a general interest in multi-lateral funding frameworks.
However, no large funding organisation expressed an interest in these multi-lateral frameworks to DI so far. This may be due to the fact these organizations do not administer bilateral or multilateral funding programs, while others are subject to other funding constraints (including budgetary constraints). As a result there may not be enough interest to justify building an ERANET-type network. Instead, Australian research organizations have more interest in collaborations in FP7 and Horizon 2020 programmes.
The originally planned EU synchronizing workshops have been replaced by an EU synchronizing survey and planned meetings were merged with meetings at the CAESIE info-tours. For the survey respective EU-MS funding agencies were contacted and asked to provide information on funding opportunities for researchers and SMEs that are open to Australian scientists and SMEs. Furthermore the Department of Industry provided the funding information of Australian funding organizations that have programs which are open to EU-MS scientists and SMEs. The exercise identified details of the funding opportunities of EU-MS such as Germany, France, Denmark, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Spain, Italy etc. that are open for participation of Australian scientists or SMEs. The corresponding information of Australian funding opportunities that are open to European scientists and SMEs was collected as well. Both EU-MS and Australian funding information was published on the CAESIE website. Furthermore, a report on measures that facilitate transfer of knowledge from publicly funded research organisations to industry was included. This information will assist Member States in identifying opportunities to align programmes and policies vis-à-vis Australia.
Task 2.2 Joint Liaison Office
One of the tasks each participating BILAT-project has to perform is the conduction of a survey assessing the feasibility of an STI Joint European Liaison Office (STI JELO) - requirement within the Working Programme of 2012. The purpose of possible future STI JELOs would be to enhance, support, and sustain research cooperation between the European Union and its international partner countries in the field of science, technology and innovation. Through these offices, European research organizations could be enabled to increase their visibility, widen their networks, initiate joint research projects, organize workshops, and share facilities and costs. Supporting the representation and internationalization of European research organizations ultimately promotes the European Union as a strong and progressive STI landscape. As one of the first steps towards these JELOs, a survey was conducted and analyzed to determine whether European research organizations are interested and would be willing to join.
The STI JELO Survey
Twelve BILAT-projects jointly conducted the survey examining the interest about establishing STI Joint European Liaison Offices of European research organizations in:
• Argentina (ABEST III)
• Australia (CAESIE) • Korea (KONNECT)
• Mexico (EU-MEX INNOVA)
• Brazil (B.BICE+)
• Canada (ERA CAN+) • New Zealand (FRIENZ)
• Russia (BILAT RUS Advanced)
• China (DRAGON STAR)
• Japan (JEUPISTE) • South Africa (ESASTAP PLUS)
• USA (BILAT USA 2.0)
The joint activity was coordinated by BILAT USA 2.0 and supported by ABEST III. It started with a workshop on October 30th, 2013, in Bonn, where most of the above mentioned BILAT-projects were represented. Details of the questionnaire (Annex A) and the structure of the survey were discussed, the target survey respondents were defined, and the task of contacting them was divided among the different BILAT-projects. The workshop was followed by an intensive coordination process, in which the questionnaire for the survey was reviewed by the BILAT-project coordinators and the responsible Project Officers. The final approval by the EC was given in June 2014. The survey was launched and made accessible online from September 1st to October 31st, 2014.
The target group of survey respondents included European research organizations, research funding agencies, universities, university associations, SMEs, Clusters, and/or Technology Transfer offices. The envisaged number of responses varied from 1-2 organizations for smaller EU countries, and 3-5 for larger EU members. Approximately 400 organizations in 42 European Union Member States (MS) and Associated Countries (AC) were contacted, which, with a response rate of about 25%, led to a total number of 94 responses.
Increased visibility and enhanced networking possibilities outside of Europe were the main arguments for European research organizations in favor of STI JELOs in Third Countries. The idea of sharing costs and risks and having a representation in the most innovative and dynamic markets worldwide was very well received among European STI key players, especially those in small and moderately innovating European countries.
Results for Australia in particular were:
• With 32% of the respondents who are interested in setting up a representation outside Europe Australia ranks second last among the Third countries of this survey. This may be due to the large distance between Australia and Europe and little knowledge about the research and innovation capacities of Australia which “produces” approx. 3% of the world´s publications with 0.3‰ of the world´s population. The main interest comes from smaller EU Member States like the Czech Republic, Portugal, Slovenia and Croatia, whereas no European Member State with a large population like France, UK or Germany showed any interest in an STI JELO in Australia. This may be due to the fact that the larger EU Member States already have representations in Australia and usually also have science counsellors at their embassies who provide support as necessary. The Czech Republic shows an outstanding interest in setting up a representation with two thirds of the responding organizations being interested in an STI JELO with Australia. It should be noted that all Czech organizations were interested in a virtual rather than a physical representation.
• While energy, ICT, environment, nanotechnology get the highest interest they are closely followed by Social Sciences and Humanities. This may stem from the fact that universities show the highest interest in an STI JELO in Australia.
• All European research organizations have the same needs when going international, i.e. access to information about the respective R&D landscape, funding programs, support in networking, exchange of staff and experts as well as organizing joint workshops, conferences and trainings. This can be achieved more easily by the “larger” European Member States than by the “smaller” ones. On the other hand, from the Australian perspective cooperation interests usually lie with the “larger” European Member States due to a lack of information on the capabilities of the “smaller” EU MS.
The whole report can be found in ANNEX 1.
Task 2.3 Innovation Policy Dialogue
The European Union (EU)-Australia Innovation Policy Dialogue was held on 1 December 2014 in advance of the 13th EU-Australia Joint Science and Technology Cooperation Committee (JSTCC) meeting. The Dialogue provided an opportunity for the EU and Australia to build on the previous two innovation policy discussions held in 2010 and 2012.
Ms Cristina Russo, Director for International Cooperation, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission, and Dr Rob Porteous, Head of Science Policy and Governance Division, Department of Industry, were the co-chairs for the session. The Dialogue was attended by representatives from business and university peak bodies, research agencies, and government officials from Australia and Europe. A list of participants and the agenda for the Dialogue is provided at ANNEX 2.
The objective of the Dialogue was for the EU and Australia to share innovation policy knowledge and experiences, discuss collaboration and any potential impediments, and identify shared strategic priorities for cooperation. The Dialogue was focused on the central theme of ‘enhanced EU-Australia research-business collaboration and impact’, and covered policies and flagship initiatives to promote a business-led innovation culture, including enterprise networks, and cluster models for driving connections between the business and research communities. The EU and Australia also shared their knowledge and experience in implementing cross-jurisdictional initiatives for enhancing innovation capacity. The discussion included best practices for measuring and presenting the impact of innovation collaboration.
When the JSTCC met on 2 December 2015, it welcomed reports from attendees at the Dialogue, and noted the Dialogue’s scope to inform innovation policy thinking in both the EU and Australia, and to facilitate collaboration. The JSTCC encouraged more such innovation dialogues. The EU and Australia agreed to have a regular exchange of innovation policy developments and experiences.
5.3.3.3 WP3: Promoting Opportunities
A) Overview
• WP3 leader was ATSE. The main aim of WP 3 was to promote awareness and to disseminate information about opportunities for research and innovation cooperation between Europe and Australia by promoting the Framework Programs (FP 7 and Horizon 2020) to the best scientists and organizations in Australia by increasing the awareness on Framework Program opportunities,
• Identifying and promoting awareness in Europe of opportunities for European researchers to participate in Australian research and innovation programs involving National contacts Points as appropriate,
• Supporting the implementation of a service approach for FP7/H2020 Contacts in Australia and where appropriate the training and extension of the network in Australia.
WP3 consisted of 3 tasks as follows:
• Task 3.1. Website and social network
• Task 3.2. Promoting cooperation and funding opportunities in Europe and Australia
• Task 3.3. National Contact Points
B) Achievements
Task 3.1 Website and social networks
The project website (www.caesie.org) was launched in March 2013. The website was designed to provide comprehensive information on CAESIE activities as well as relevant information of EU and Australian Research and SME activities.
Further, the website was developed to specifically drive most of its engagement activity on a daily basis via the site content.
To this end, information was provided on EU and AU funding opportunities, the Australian NCP network, Horizon 2020, and the CAESIE mission and its priority areas.
The website was instrumental in driving the CAESIE priming grant process including the initial EOI process, and in providing full documentation on the priming grant guidelines and eventual outcomes.
The website also allowed interested parties to register their interest in receiving relevant announcements by email a process managed by the Australian Department of Industry, Innovation and Science and a regular basis.
The site was the entry point for researchers seeking more information on access to EU opportunities and vice versa. Submitted queries to CAESIE were relayed and addressed by the relevant NCPs.
The website received on average 1500-2000 page views per month reaching over 4500 in peak periods (i.e. during the open call for priming grants).
Figure 1: CAESIE project website (www.caesie.org)
The website, although not being updated any longer after the end of the CAESIE project, will be available for at least two more years.
Task 3.2 Promoting cooperation and funding opportunities in Europe and Australia
Information days and workshops were organized to bring Australian programme managers, industry representatives and scientists to Europe to inform multipliers, SMEs and interested scientists of open programmes and cooperation potentials in Australia.
1) Infotour 2014 (Sept. 6 – 13, 2015)
The first Infotour was originally planned to take place in June 2014 but had to be postponed to September 2014 against the background of availability of the very senior delegates from Australia.
The CAESIE-Tour took place from Sept. 6 – 13, 2014 and covered four major European cities:
Helsinki – Bonn – Paris - London
The concept of the tour was as follows:
Objectives
• To increase the European research community’s awareness of opportunities to participate in open programs in Australia
• To promote the Australian R&D&I landscape effectively to key target audiences
Events
• Information sessions – One session in each city
• Policy-maker meetings – Up to two appointments anticipated in each city. These appointments will be arranged at the policy-makers organization.
Audiences
• Information sessions – Primary target is multipliers. Small select groups of EU national research managers and administrators, research development managers and others multipliers
• Meetings – Policy-makers
Programme for information sessions
• Mix of information sharing and discussion/Q&A
• Content / themes for information sessions to be identified by DI and representatives of participating AUS-organizations
• Presentations on examples of successful cooperation
• Duration of sessions up to 3hr max
• Information sessions planned for afternoon, buffet lunch provided on arrival of participants
Recruitment for information sessions
• Participants recruited through dissemination of events to priority organizations identified by DI and representatives of participating AUS-organizations and DLR
• Local organizers to recruit participants (expected number of participants at information sessions 50-80)
Meetings with policy-makers
• Meetings are to raise awareness of program at the highest level, briefing policy-makers on openness and reciprocity issues
• DI, representatives of participating AUS-organizations, local organizers, DLR and embassies to identify potential priority contacts for meetings
• Local organizers to arrange appointments
The Australian delegation was composed of:
1) Prof. Aidan Byrne (CEO), Australian Research Council
2) Prof. Warwick Anderson (CEO), National Health & Medical Research Council
3) Anne-Marie Lansdown (Deputy CEO), Universities Australia
4) Leonie Walsh, President of the Australasian Industry Research Group (AIRG) and Lead Scientist of the Department of State Development, Business and Innovation, Victoria
5) Dr. Buzz Palmer (CEO), Small Technologies Cluster (STC) Australia
6) Clare McLaughlin (Counsellor Education & Science), Australian Mission to the European Union
The Agenda and the whole Infotour was prepared and organized with the help of the CAESIE partners, CNRS and the Australian Embassy in Paris for the visit to France and for the London event with great support from Clare McLaughlin and the Australian High Commission in London. The visit of the Australian Ambassador to Scandinavia to the event in Finland was particularly appreciated by the organizers and participants in Helsinki. The same goes for the opening speech in London by the High Commissioner to the UK, Alexander Downer, former Secretary of State.
Australian Ambassador Gerald Thompson at the Helsinki event
Promotion of the events:
The following channels and networks were used:
• NCP networks
• Research Promotion Agencies
• Key contacts in Ministries of S&T
• University networks
• Australian Embassy
• Personal contacts of speakers and consortium members
An online registration system was used. The link to the registration form was on the website and all promotional material drove potential participants to the website to encourage them to learn more about the project.
From the feedback questionnaire it is clear that the invitation to attend the events filtered down from National networks to multipliers to researchers, many stating that they heard about the event through a colleague.
Attendance and Audience:
Helsinki, Finland
Total Registered 53
Presenters 6
Participants 29
No shows 18
Bonn, Germany
Total Registered 52
Presenters 6
Participants 36
No shows 10
Paris, France
Total Registered 49
Presenters 5
Participants 39
No shows 5
London, UK
Total Registered 36
Presenters 6
Participants 17
No shows 13
Total attended (not including presenters): 121
Total registered (not including presenters): 165
Although the no. of participants seems to be low, which may be due to the closeness of the events to the general summer break in Europe, the relevant program managers and multipliers were well represented.
The audience at the Bonn event
Although the no. of participants at the London event London was the lowest, the discussions in the second part of the event were the liveliest and the Australian delegates were most satisfied with this event.
The Paris event
The audience primarily consisted of representatives from the following:
• Researcher community
• Ministries of S&T, Research, Technology and Innovation
• Universities and Research Institutes
• Private enterprise
• National agencies for Research and Technology
• National S&T promotion agencies
• Agencies promoting and supporting national participation in EU programmes
Feedback from the participants:
Along with the pogramme a questionnaire was distributed to each participant and recollected at the end of the event. The total no. of filled in questionnaires was relatively small, however the overwhelming majority found the events very useful in terms of gathering information on the Australian research and research funding system and in connecting with Australian senior representatives and colleagues. The participants were satisfied with the length, the pace of the meeting, found that the presentations were informative and relevant, as well as the room for discussion. Those who did not already have cooperation with Australia found that the events increased their interest in cooperating with Australia.
Feedback from the presenters:
Feedback from the presenters was sought right after the end of the events in London. They were in general happy with the organization of the events. The delegation was satisfied with the composition of the audiences and the discussions that came up during the events. In particular the workshop in Paris and the discussion in London (despite the small no. of participants) were appreciated. The tough itinerary was a point of some criticism. The delegates expressed their readiness to participate in another tour, however with a less tight itinerary.
2) Cluster Tour 2015 (Sept. 21 – 29, 2015)
On the occasion of the CAESIE consortium meeting on Dec. 11, 2014 in Canberra the decision was taken to alter the Infotour concept and to organize an information tour for Australian cluster representatives (i.e. the Cooperative Research Centers (CRCs) and comparable organizations from Australia) to various similar organizations in Europe with a view to contribute to strengthening the innovation cooperation between Europe and Australia.
Originally, the tour was planned to take place in spring 2015. However, due to a renewed review of the Cooperative Research Centers program commissioned by the Australian government, it was for a long time not clear whether the CRC program would be continued or discontinued. The results of the review were made public in late May 2015, i.e. only shortly before the European summer break and the tour therefore had to be postponed until September 2015.
Workshop at DLR in Bonn, Germany
Objectives of the tour were:
1. To promote the Australian R&D&I cluster landscape effectively, specifically profiles and cooperation interests of industry growth centres, collaborative research infrastructure, CRCs and others engaged in CAESIE priority areas
2. To showcase the European cluster landscape (incl. KICs, leading edge clusters, research campus, poles de competitivité, etc. ) with respect to CAESIE priority areas to Australian counterparts
3. To match Australian and European clusters (and SME networks) with each other, and support them in finding relevant funding for international activities.
4. To provide insight into funding schemes dedicated to clusters (such as BSR Innovation Express, H2020, EU-MS and AUS funding schemes) https://www.b2match.eu/cluster-to-cluster-2014/pages/bsr-innovation-express
5. To present and learn from successful European-Australian cluster cooperation case studies and how they got funded
6. To promote CAESIE and key CAESIE activities and services such priming grants scheme, NCP network
The tour took place between Sept. 21 and Sept. 29, 2015 and covered five European member states: Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany and France, based on the interests of the Australian delegation. The itinerary was again tight. However, taking the comments of the previous delegation into account, a free weekend for recovery was built in. The agenda and the whole cluster tour was
Meeting with representatives from Brainport Region, Eindhoven, Netherlands
prepared and organized with the help of the CAESIE partners and CNRS in Paris for the program in France. The main topics covered by the tour were health and medical technologies and advanced manufacturing. Therefore, in some cases the delegation split to visit different organizations according to their thematic interests. The delegation consisted of representatives of Australian Cooperative Research Centers including the CEO of the CRC Association, which represents the current 39 operative CRCs, and comparable organizations/institutions active in the innovation sector. The Australian delegates were:
1) Prof. Anthony Peacock, Chief Executive, CRC Association
2) Dr. Larry Ward, Senior Business Development Manager, CRC for Mental Health
3) Dr. Buzz Palmer, Chief Executive, Small Technologies Clusters (STC)
4) Dr. Geoff Rogers, Director (Technology), Intellimedical Technologies, Melbourne
5) Prof. Sally McArthur, ARC Training Center for Biodevices, Swinburne University of Technology
6) Dr. Stuart Thomson, Chief Executive, Rail Manufacturing CRC
7) Prof. Robert Burford, CRC for Polymers
8) Dr. Mark Bradley, Australian Academy of Technical Sciences & Engineering (ATSE)
The group was partly accompanied by:
Clare McLaughlin, Counsellor Education & Science, Australian Mission to the EU
Feedback from the delegation:
In order to assess the success of the Infotour for the Australian participants a short questionnaire was developed and sent to the Australian delegates six weeks after the end of the tour. Although the number of answered questionnaires was relatively low, the responses were very positive. The respondents to the questionnaire were unanimously satisfied with the selection of the visited organizations/institutes and found the program and the established contacts most useful. Of course, although the organizers of the tour had intended to make the program less tough for the Australian participants than in 2014 and built in a free weekend, the participants found the program very dense. Taking into account that the innovation cooperation is high on the EU-AUS agenda a reciprocal cluster tour from Europe to Australia as soon as possible should be considered as an appropriate mechanism to increase the cooperation.
Task 3.3 National Contact Points
DI as the NCP for communicating information on H2020 (refer to registration list, established under Task 3.1) – this has involved disseminating regular updates electronically to all states and territories, Australian universities, public funded research agencies and a wide variety of business representatives, and preparing frequently asked questions.
A network of advisors on research-industry collaboration under CAESIE developed by ATSE and AIRG involving industry representatives, state governments, universities and Publicly Funded Research Agencies. These were accessed via query directed to the website. ATSE as webmaster refers the query to either DI or the NCP network established by ATSE.
The NCP network comprised six individuals who have been officially registered with the European Commission.
A first training took place in March 2013 in Bonn provided by German NCPs from the energy, environment and life sciences areas. Further training for new NCPs was planned for December 2013 by ATSE and was delayed by the inaccessibility of suitable material on Horizon 2020 from the European Commission until March 2014. The offer of a webinar for Australian Researchers and SMEs by the European CAESIE partners has been a most welcome measure. The webinar took place on May 20, 2014.
5.3.3.4 WP4: Analysing Innovation
A. Overview
The objective of WP 4 which was lead by AIRG was to analyse Australia´s participation in FP programmes and the features of the Australian innovation system to enhance collaboration outcomes. Work Package 4 consisted of 4 tasks:
4.1 Program inventories
4.2 Innovation metrics
4.3 Monitoring Australian involvement in FP7
4.4 Outcomes of individual projects
B. Achievements:
In the course of the project it has proven impossible to get the necessary data for a detailed analysis of Australian participation in FP programmes with a focus on the development of Australian involvement over time and, more important, to identify Australian participants with a view to identify best practises as well as impediments.
In May 2014 the CAESIE partners decided to reduce WP 4 due to issues in obtaining specific project details and measures from FP7 to just one Task, the former Task 4.3 and to allocate any remaining direct costs and partner efforts to other parts of the program, subject to EU agreement.
The exception was that Department of Industry and Science would attempt to provide a high level summary of collaboration between Australia and the EU.
The results of this survey were:
Joint scientific publications
• Over the period 2009-13, the EU-28 as a whole (de-duplicated) has remained stable as Australia’s top-ranked collaboration partner in terms of joint scientific publications.
• Over the same period, cooperation with the EU 28 comprised over 46% of Australia’s total international collaboration on scientific publications (producing approximately 53,000 joint scientific publications).
• Cooperation between the EU-28 and Australia has been growing steadily and consistently from a total number of 33,000 joint scientific publications over the five year period from 2005-2009, to 59,000 over the five year period from 2010 2014:
Year 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Publications in previous five year period
33,000
37,000
41,000
47,000
53,000
59,000
Source: InCites BenchmarkingTM, Thomson Reuters (2014), report generated November 2015
• Over the period 2009-13, Australia was the EU 28’s fifth highest non EU collaboration partner on scientific publications, and 13th highest collaboration partner overall. This represented 5.7% of the EU-28’s total scientific publications involving international collaboration.
• The EU 28’s top ten research publication partners for the period 2009-13 were:
1. USA 2. Germany 3. UK 4. France 5. Italy
6. Spain 7. Netherlands 8. Sweden 9. Switzerland 10. Canada
Source: InCites BenchmarkingTM, Thomson Reuters (2014), report generated November 2015
AU involvement in EU Framework Programmes
• Since the launch of Horizon 2020 in December 2013 (as at October 2015), 27 large collaborative research and innovation projects (Research and Innovation Actions (RIA) and Coordination and Support Actions (CSA)) were signed, or in preparation. These involved 31 Australian contracted partners, with a total research investment of €173 million (approximately A$268 million). In addition, there are 22 Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) projects involving 28 Australian partners; Eight Innovative Training Networks (ITN) involving nine Australian partners; and Eight Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellows who have been selected to come to Australia. The total research investment for all these 67 projects is €225 million (A$348 million), with €4.8 million (A$7.4 million) of EU funds flowing to Australian researchers and institutions, and €9.9 million (A$15.2 million) recorded as the Australian investment in these projects.
• Under Horizon 2020’s predecessor, the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) (2007-2014), Australian participation grew steadily. By October 2014, Australian entities were participating in 169 signed grant agreements for collaborative projects under FP7, with total EU funding of €909 million (approximately A$1,339 million), of which €13 million (A$19 million) went to Australian researchers. The success rate of proposals involving Australian partners was 27.9%, higher than the average for all proposals involving non-EU partners of 22.6%.
EU involvement in AU funding programmes
• Australian Research Council (ARC) projects involving collaboration with Europe consistently comprise the largest share of collaboration in ARC projects. In 2014 alone, Europe accounted for the highest percentage (53%) of total instances of international collaboration by region in ARC funded projects, comprising over 3,300 instances of collaboration. Over the past three years, the ARC has provided 157 fellowships and awards to researchers identified as EU citizens, including three prestigious Australian Laureate Fellowships, 42 Future Fellowships, and 112 Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards. The ARC also provided $2.5 million between 2009-2013 to support Australia's participation as an associate member of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory.
• The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has extended the NHMRC–EU Collaborative Research Grants Scheme under Horizon 2020. Under this Scheme, Horizon 2020 projects involving Australian researchers based in Australia that are chosen by the EC for funding, may be eligible for NHMRC support of up to $100,000 per year. The second round of the scheme closed in October 2015. The NHMRC advises that the Scheme was heavily oversubscribed under FP7. Since 2002, the NHMRC has awarded 57 grants to Australian researchers (total commitment of AUD $29 million) for Australian researchers to participate in EC health research calls. In 2014, there were 226 active grants involving 259 EU researchers as one of the Chief Investigators with a total value of $56.6 million. EU researchers have been involved as partners in NHMRC projects worth $250 million.
5.3.3.5 WP 5: Coordinating Collaboration
A. Overview
Work Package Leader was DLR. The objectives of this WP were to ensure effective oversight and management of the project consistent with European and Australian Government best practise. The WP consisted of three tasks:
5.1. Project coordination and administration, which included
- Project implementation management
- Financial management
- Preparation of, participation and reporting on the meetings of the Consortium
- Audit
5.2. Advisory Board
5.3. External Review Panel
B. Achievements
5.1. Project coordination and administration
The project coordination of the CAESIE project by DLR concentrated on the one hand on ensuring the contractual obligations towards the European Commission and on the other hand on the internal project management. The contractual obligations were mainly the finalisation of the GPF and the transfer of the budget shares to the different partners. The internal management of the project consortium was threefold:
• Coordination among CAESIE partners (within WP’s and tasks)
To ensure the coordination and the exchange between the different project partners various tools are used. These ranged from the usual telephone/e-mail exchange to regular physical and virtual meetings. The intranet section of the CAESIE website has been used for storing useful information, meeting minutes, other documents, photos, etc. so that they can be accessed and downloaded at all times by the consortium partners.
• Information by the project coordinator to the participants
DLR prepared regular internal Management infos via mail or in the form of telephone-conferences (see below) in order to provide information and news on the overall project organisation, project meetings, financial and administrative issues and news from the European Commission. Each consortium partner was encouraged to contribute to the Management Info by sending the information that should be circulated among all partners to DLR. Thus, a constant information flow among all project partners and full transparency of what was happening in the project was ensured.
• Reviewing, monitoring, reporting within the project
The reviewing, monitoring and reporting within the project has been shared between the project partners, the WP leaders and DLR as the coordinator. As laid down in the DoW, all CAESIE consortium partners were responsible for providing information on their tasks to their Task and WP leaders and the coordinator. The WP leaders played an important role in managing the timely and successful implementation of the project tasks. They were responsible for checking the progress within each WP against the planned schedule and for indicating any changes to the project coordinator. Based on regular WP reports the coordinator was able to get a concise overview on the implementation of the project, especially whether the official deliverables to the European Commission are finalised and the milestones are met.
Within the consortium three partners were from Europe, while three partners were from Australia. The project consortium agreed that DLR would serve as the central project communication hub for all project partners. In addition, DI serves as the communication connection-hub for the Australian partners to make use of the closer vicinity to and working within similar time zones to the other Australian partners. DLR and DI maintain continuous communication via email and telephone conferences. All partners agreed to maintain a working culture of transparent and effective communication.
As the consortium consisted of only a relatively small group of six partners and with the communication structures and agreed working culture in place, the consortium agreed that a consortium agreement would not be necessary.
A project manual was developed and implemented. This manual reflects all project activities, deliverables, and further information, such as responsible partner, dissemination, etc. in a chronological order. The manual was continuously revised according to the project needs, changing framework conditions towards achieving higher impact (compare Deliverable D 5.1 Project Manual).
The communication with external bodies ensured promoting the project and integrating it with other activities, e.g. with the other two EC projects in the region including the BILATs with New Zealand and the Pacific.
CAESIE and all other EC BILAT-projects were promoted via a common BILAT portal developed by DLR. http://bilat.eu/. The portal offers a unique access point to research funding opportunities worldwide, and links to projects supporting the EU policy dialogue with those countries that have a science and technology agreement with the European Union.
Figure 1: Bilat project portal at http://bilat.eu/
Communication
In the course of the CAESIE project three physical meetings have taken place. In October 2012 the kick-off meeting was held in Bonn. The kick-off meeting in which also three of the project advisors participated served mainly to “set sails”, i.e. that the partners, advisors and the EC project officer had the possibility to meet, to agree on roles and responsibilities, to agree on the work plan for the first year and to discuss and draft the contents and structure of the project manual.
CAESIE Team including partners, EC project officer, and advisors at Kick-Off Meeting,
Bonn, 12 Oct. 2012
The 2nd physical meeting took place in Canberra in October 2013. The main achievements of this
meeting were:
• Relationship strengthened: CAESIE partners <-> supporting stakeholders
• STI priorities in AUS, EU shared
• Options for regional collaboration identified, communication agreed
• Performance and impact assessed
• Strategic plan for year II adjusted
• Work plan for year II adjusted
• Framework for more effective WP-linkages agreed
• Framework for improved stakeholder engagement agreed
The 3rd physical meeting took place in Canberra on Dec. 11, 2014 just one week after the EU-AUS-JSTCC meeting. The meeting brought together the project consortium advisors as well as representatives from the EU delegation, European Embassies and the FRIENZ project.
Main outcome of the meeting was the decision to alter the Infotour concept towards organizing a tour of Australian clusters or similar organizations to Europe in 2015.
In addition to the physical meetings of the consortium regular bimonthly telephone conferences were held and complemented by calls/telephone conferences/emails, and physical meetings between individual partners on demand. DLR and DI as regional communication hubs maintained continuous communication via email and telephone conferences.
Amendment
On 2nd March 2015 the CAESIE project coordinator requested the EC for Amendment No.2 with reference to the grant agreement and the evaluation results of the technical review undertaken on May27 and 28, 2014.
According to unforeseen political changes influencing the timelines and some contents and of the original Description of Work the following changes to the description of work will be done:
1) changes in the tasks of work package 1; the originally planned workshops were replaced by the Priming Grants, which was welcomed by the reviewers. Deliverables were changed accordingly.
2) changes in the timelines of deliverables in work package 2; The originally planned EU synchronizing workshops were replaced by an EU synchronizing survey and planned meetings were merged with meetings at the CAESIE info-tours. For the survey respective EU-MS funding agencies were contacted and asked to provide information on funding opportunities for researchers and SMEs that are open to Australian scientists and SMEs. Furthermore the Department of Industry provided the funding information of Australian funding organizations that have programs which are open to EU-MS scientists and SMEs. Both the EU-MS and the Australian information were made available by publication on the CAESIE website. EU-MS representatives from funding organizations were invited to the CAESIE info-tour to discuss issues of synchronization with representatives of Australian funding organizations.
3) changes of timelines in work package 3.
4) changes in the tasks of work package 4; tasks which could not be executed due to lack of data were removed as well as the respective deliverables.
5) changes in the tasks of work package 5; as the CAESIE project was intensively evaluated by an external review panel which was organized by the European Commission in Brussels in 2014, there is no further need for a CAESIE organized external review panel anymore. Thus, this task has been dissolved.
6) changes in the deliverables list for all work packages.
7) changes in the distribution of PM reflecting the changes in the work packages; the overall amount of PM were unchanged.
8) cost neutral reallocation of foreseen budget; the budget of partner 3 (ATSE) was increased by 110.000 € to pay out the priming grants part to be borne by CAESIE, whereas the budgets for partners 1, 5 and 6 were reduced accordingly.
9) Partial Transfer of rights and obligations as one partner, The Teknologian tutkimuskeskus VTT Oy (VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd), short name VTT, has taken over the rights and obligations of the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) as of 1 January 2015.
10) the cost-neutral extension of CAESIE due to ongoing forming process of the five Australian Industry Growth Centers that would be involved in the last major international info-tour to Europe besides other reasons.
Potential Impact:
While continuing the work of the predecessor projects and bringing together programme owners and managers from Europe and Australia leading to a better understanding of each other´s programmes and policies, CAESIE has done pioneering work with the Priming Grants. This was the only seed funding scheme developed by the BILAT projects of that period. The Priming Grant´s objective was to connect researchers and businesses from Europe and Australia. One of the aims of the Priming Grants was to learn “hands on” from the awardees about ... and impediments to that type of collaboration Under the Priming Grants scheme, which was mainly funded by the Australian government, 62 travel grants were awarded. With the travel grants 17 EU Member States were covered (involved). The investment for the two Priming grants rounds lay in the order of 350.000 Euros. To continue the established collaboration applications for funding from sources in the European Union and Australia amounted to the order of 14.6 million Euros. In addition, two patents were filed and one company was established in Australia.
The Australian government considered the Priming Grants scheme as so successful that CAESIE serves as an exemplar for successful international collaboration in the recently published Global Innovation Strategy within the National Innovation Science Agenda of Australia: “The National Innovation & Science Agenda builds on this collaboration model by expanding business and research cluster opportunities with priority economies.”
As one of the outcomes of the Info- and Cluster tour the Australian government will fund the visit of a large Science & Innovation delegation to selected European Member States in June 2016.
Dissemination Activities:
TEMPLATE A2: LIST OF DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES
NO. Type of activities Main leader Title Date Place Type of audience
Size of audience Countries addressed
1 Web DLR Launch of CAESIE website 26 February 2013 Internet EU, Australia
2 Workshop DLR EU-Synchronizing workshop (preparation) 15.10.2013 Canberra Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers 25 Australia
3 Presentations DLR Infotour 1 08.09.2014 Helsinki Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers 29 Finland
4 Presentations DLR Infotour 1 09.09.2014 Bonn Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers 36 Germany
5 Presentations DLR Infotour 1 10.- 11.09.2014 Paris Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers 39 France
6 Presentations DLR Infotour 1 12.- 13.09.2014 London Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers 17 United Kingdom
7 Other DLR National Platform City of the Future 30.09.2014 Berlin Scientific Community, Multipliers 8 Germany
8 Other DLR Connecting knowledge worldwide 02.10.2014 Berlin Scientific Community, Multipliers Germany
9 Other DLR German-Australian Business and Technology Forum 16.10.2014 Munich Makers, Multipliers 5 Germany
10 Conference DISSR Innovation policy dialogue 01.12.2014 Canberra Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers 26 Australia, Slovenia, Belgium, Spain, Croatia, Netherlands, Hungary, Germany
11 Other DLR Bonn Conference for Global Transformation 12.-13.05.2015 Bonn Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers 10 Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg
12 Presentations DLR Cluster tour 21.09.2015 Stockholm Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers Sweden
13
14 Presentations DLR Cluster tour 22.09.2015 Copenhagen Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers Denmark
15 Presentations DLR Cluster tour 23.09.2015 Eindhoven Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers Netherlands
16 Presentations DLR Cluster tour 24. -25.09.2015 Aachen, Jülich, Bonn Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers Germany
17 Presentations DLR Cluster tour 28.-29.09.2015 Paris Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers France
List of Websites:
website: www.caesie.org
Consortium and Contact details
Consortium partners
The CAESIE consortium committee responsible for the implementation of the four work packages consisted of the following partners:
Name Acronym Country
1 Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. DLR Germany
2 Department of Innovation, Industry, Science & Research and Tertiary Education DIISRTE Australia
3 Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering ATSE Australia
4 Australian Industrial Research Group AIRG Australia
5 Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Angewandten Forschung e.V. FhG Germany
6 Teknologikan Tutkimuskeskus VTT Finland
Contact information
Coordinator
Dr. Hans-Jörg Stähle
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Project Management Agency
European & International Cooperation
Heinrich-Konen-Strasse 1
53227 Bonn, Germany
Tel.: +49/(0)228/3821-1403
Fax.: +49/(0)228/3821-1444
E-Mail: hans.staehle@dlr.de
Managing coordinator
Dr. Gerd Rücker
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Project Management Agency
European & International Cooperation
Heinrich-Konen-Strasse 1
53227 Bonn, Germany
Tel.: +49/(0)228/3821-1180
Fax.: +49/(0)228/3821-1444
E-Mail: gerd.ruecker@dlr.de
The objectives of the CAESIE-Project were to enhance science, technology and innovation cooperation between Europe and Australia by identifying and facilitating opportunities for European and Australian researchers and small to medium size enterprises (SME´s) in research and innovation programmes managed by Australia and Europe with a thematic focus on clean energy, healthy ageing through enabling technologies and sustainable cities.
The work of CAESIE built on the previous successful FEAST and AUS-ACCESS4EU projects. As a result the National Contact Point Network in Australia was expanded to support Australian researchers and small and medium sized (SME) companies with regard to participation in FP 7 and Horizon 2020 projects.
Continuing the AUS-ACCESS4EU activities an information tour for high level representatives of Australian research and funding organizations through four EU Member States was organized to spread information on the Australian R&D system and funding opportunities for international cooperation in Europe and to discuss with European counterparts ways and means to increase the collaboration.
In 2015 the scheme was changed and an Australian delegation consisting of representatives from the Cooperative Research Centers and other organizations connecting public research with the private sector visited respective organizations in Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany and France. The tour which had two thematic foci, i.e. advanced manufacturing and health & medical technologies, was considered by all participants as extremely successful with a view to better linking the Australian innovation actors with counterparts in Europe. .
One of the biggest achievements of CAESIE were the “Priming Grants”, a small travel grant scheme funded to a large extent by the Australian government. Through the Priming Grants European researchers were given the possibility to connect with Australian SMEs and vice versa. In total 62 Priming Grants were awarded covering 17 EU Member States. In addition, the Priming Grant holders were closely monitored to assess in a hands on approach success factors as well as obstacles to the innovation cooperation. The Priming Grants, considered by most awardees as extremely helpful, resulted in applications worth more than 14 million Euros with funding organizations in Europe and Australia to continue the collaboration started through CAESIE.
The Australian government, acknowledging the success of the Priming grants has made them a blueprint for international cooperation in science and innovation in the Global Innovation Strategy as part of the National Science & Innovation Agenda released in December 2015.
Project Context and Objectives:
Australia has always been keen to intensify its cooperation in science and technology (S&T) with the European Research Area (ERA), not only with European Member States through bilateral cooperation agreements but also within the EU Framework Programmes. Australia signed an S&T cooperation agreement with the EU in 1994. Cooperation is currently facilitated by a Joint Science and Technology Cooperation Committee (JSTCC) which meets every second year.
In 2014, the EU and Australia held the 14th meeting of the EU-Australia Joint Science and Technology Cooperation Committee (JSTCC). The discussions at the meeting reflected the EU and Australia’s long-standing cooperation across a broad range of research and innovation areas. There are many ‘bottom-up’ collaborations between researchers, institutions and agencies. The EU and Australia have also selected targeted areas of mutual priority, capacity and strength for driving strategic top-down collaboration.
The 2014 JSTCC meeting included an EU-Australia Innovation Policy Dialogue, centred on the theme of: Enhanced EU-Australia research-business collaboration and impact. The dialogue covered policies and flagship initiatives to promote a business-led innovation culture, including enterprise networks and cluster models for driving connections between research and business communities. The EC and Australia identified that increasing EU-Australian industry-research links, and promoting connections between business networks and innovation clusters (also known as knowledge triangle clusters, which are thematically-focussed collaborations between research, industry and education partners), as priorities going forward.
Australia was the first country to partner with Europe under a bilateral cooperation platform. The Forum for European Australian Science and Technology (FEAST) project (2001 – 2004) was successful in promoting opportunities for cooperation to researchers in Europe and Australia. The project used web-based tools and a series of conferences and workshops to promote new EU Australia collaborations in priority areas. The FEAST project has since been used as a model for other bilateral cooperation projects between the EU and third country partners.
FEAST was followed by the FEAST 2 project (2005 – 2008) and the FEAST Extension, Enhancement and Demonstration (FEED) project (2008 – 2011). The AUS ACCESS4EU project (2009 – 2011, supporting EU access to Australian research programmes) has also successfully promoted opportunities for cooperation, and encouraged knowledge sharing regarding Australia and Europe’s research and innovation landscape.
While previous projects concentrated on increasing S&T cooperation the CAESIE (Connecting Australian-European Science and Innovation Excellence) project laid its focus on cooperation in research and innovation. In the CAESIE project, which was supported under the EC’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), the EU and Australia focussed on the areas of: Clean energy; Healthy ageing through enabling technologies; and Sustainable cities. Together, the EU and Australia have worked to address some of the world’s greatest societal challenges.
Operating under the auspices of the EU-Australia JSTCC, the main objectives of CAESIE were to build and enhance bilateral cooperation between research and innovation actors in the EU and Australia and to monitor progress in the bilateral cooperation relationship. Focusing on the societal challenges identified above, the aim of CAESIE was to deliver the activities proposed under the call through the following objectives:
• Driving collaboration - promote strategic collaborations under societal challenges between leading researchers, SMEs and other innovation actors from Europe and Australia to drive new research and economic outcomes.
• Strengthening conditions - support cooperation on framework conditions for research and innovation between Australia and the EU, and achieve better coordination and alignment of policies and programmes of Member States with respect to Australia.
• Promoting opportunities - promote awareness and disseminate information to researchers, SMEs and other innovation actors about opportunities for research and innovation collaboration between Europe and Australia.
• Analysing innovation - analyse Australia’s participation in FP programmes, opportunities for SMEs and other innovation actors and features of Australia’s innovation system to enhance collaboration outcomes.
The work packages were specifically designed to address these objectives during the course of the project.
The longer term aim of the project was to strengthen the impact of the EU-Australia cooperation in science, technology and innovation by:
• fostering strong strategic links between researchers and industry in joint projects on the three societal challenges to produce and use new knowledge and technology to create social and economic value;
• developing the understanding of innovation processes and relationships by furthering the policy debate and providing and testing practical models of collaboration. and
• driving strategic directions by delivering outputs as strategic input to the next JSTCC.
Project Results:
5.3.3 Work progress and achievements
Overview of CAESIE work packages:
• WP1: Driving Collaboration
• WP2: Strengthening Conditions
• WP3: Promoting Opportunities
• WP4: Analysing Innovation
• WP 5: Project Coordination and management
For CAESIE, a ‘parallel work package approach’ was adopted. This means that all five work packages ran through the whole 39 months duration of the project. The main advantages of this approach were that all CAESIE partners were involved in the project implementation process from the very beginning to the end. This led to a higher interdependency of the results, the creation of synergies between work packages and the securing of the commitment of all partners throughout the whole duration of the project.
The following information on the current status of the implementation of each work package is structured as follows:
A) Introduction to/overview of the respective WP
B) Achievements from October 2012 – Dec. 2015
5.3.3.1 WP1: Driving Collaboration
A) Overview
Work package leaders of WP1 was the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science & Research (DIISR) WP 1 aimed at promoting collaboration between research and innovation actors from Europe and Australia in the areas of societal challenge of clean energy, healthy ageing through enabling technologies and sustainable cities and to drive new research and economic outcomes.
WP1 initially consisted of three tasks as follows.
• Task 1.1 SME, cluster and research leader information and planning sessions
• Task 1.2 Societal challenge workshops
• Task 1.3 Enhancing societal challenge collaborations
B) Progress and achievements
Following extensive consultation between CAESIE project partners, researchers and SMEs, the scope of Work Package 1 activities (activities 1.1 1.2 and 1.3 in particular) were revised in order to better meet the requirements of the research and business sectors. In particular, the SME sector was reluctant to engage with the planned more traditional networking event. Our scoping showed that a match making approach followed by support for one-on-one relationships would be more productive. As a result, a pilot priming grants scheme was developed. The work package changes were discussed and agreed by the project coordinator and the EC Desk Officer. The priming grants concept was strongly supported by the CAESIE Advisory Board.
The revised Work Package 1 included the major activities of:
• scoping process – scope possible industry research activities, identify best approach for funding of priming grants (round one completed and analysed with Round 2 implementing improved streamlined processes reducing administration and simplifying grantee reporting; and
• grants activities – the running and administration of two priming grant rounds
EXTENDED PRIMING GRANTS PROGRAM
As reported at the first Progress Report stage the first round of Priming Grants were judged as successful based on the early stage reports we are receiving from awardees
As agreed in November 2013 the review of deliverable 1.1 in 2014 was undertaken. Some awardees had advanced their projects sufficiently to indicate a good measure of engagement and innovation success is associated with the grants and this then led Australian partners to fully support another round of grants for WP1and the Australian Government allocated a further $100K as a contribution for a 2nd round. Review by all CAESIE Partners determined that sufficient unspent funds from other Work Packages could be redirected to a 2nd round of grants. This reallocation of such unsent funds was agreed to by all CAESIE partners and approved within CAESIE Project Management and by the EC. A further €99,000 was allocated as a contribution towards a further round of grants.
The review also led to the process for the second round of grants being modified /streamlined with a single step payment of AUD$ 7,000 or €5,000 thus reducing administration overheads associated with a two part payment system (including given currency exchange costs).
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF D1.1 OUTCOME ACTIVITY- (COVERING BOTH GRANT ROUNDS)
Analysis of grantee reports and grantee survey responses have revealed that:
1. 62 Grants executed over two calls. 58 awardees took up their grants progressing to final reporting.
2. Success Outcomes- survey of grantees showed 77.6% (45) regarded their collaborative projects as very successful 20.7% (12) grantees regarded their projects as partially successful and works in progress, and 1 project (1.7%) failed early on.
3. Interactions exceed expectations: The outcomes emerging from these interactions far exceeded the original expectations of the program with most grantees taking the opportunity to: (i) identify funding sources to develop their projects further; (ii) identify new additional collaborative partners; and (iii) developed additional business or research opportunities.
4. Priming Grants are catalytic enablers. There was a strong response from grantees that without the priming grants the interactions would not or may not have taken place. Others responded that the grants were timely enablers and accelerated the pace at which these interactions occurred.
5. Intangible benefits accrued: In addition to developing the proposed partnerships, other benefits accrued to those participating including, bring participants into contact with other organizations increased likelihood of working with additional partners and served to modestly enlighten the grantees on the science systems in respective jurisdictions.
6. Ongoing funding is impressive: the majority of grantees went on to apply for funding to either AU or EU sources. Grantees have reported that as a result of the CAESIE grants, they have been able to apply for/or raised €15,411,000. The total amount invested in the grants was in the order of €355,725. This represents a positive multiplier of 43 times the original investment.
7. Intellectual Property: 2 provisional patents were recorded and 1 joint company formed (in AU) as a result of these activities. Most grantees considered it likely that as their projects progressed provisional patent for their products would likely be made, other considered that their works could generate copyright and trade secrets. Clearly respondents are cognisant of the IP considerations around their projects and thinking of future developments.
8. Employment: Some 256 people in total were engaged in the funded projects, an average of 4 persons per project. No new employment was generated due to the short term and nature and focus of the grants, but one team did engage a summer research student.
9. Future needs identified: All respondents indicated that future CAESIE programs should continue with the Priming Grants but that a “proof of concept stage grant” is also needed as a next step to the priming grants.
10. CAESIE ranked high on delivery efficiency: Grantees considered this an excellent program and scored CAESIE highly in terms of delivery of the program and seeing their requirements during the process.
In Summary, the engagement mechanism of a priming grant is proven: This has been a highly successful program, appreciated by the SME and Researcher target market alike and the analysis of the outcomes and feedback indicates that this model for early stage funding of new ideas between SMEs and Researchers is a proven success and has global applicability.
ANALYSIS OF GRANT PROCESSES
The feedback and information derived from Reporting by grantees participating in the two Priming Grant calls during the period 2013-2015 demonstrate that the program has been highly successful in engaging Researchers and SMEs in a dialogue which has led to a variety of innovation collaboration models.
Early on, CAESIE took a unique “hands on” approach providing bespoke advice and direction during the Expression of Interest (EOI) phase. From the feedback received this appears to be a key component of success, not only in the pre-qualification and quality control of proposals going forward to eventual applications, but, also by the participants who appreciated receiving expert advice on their proposals, the grant process and other practical aspects.
This approach also ensured that applicants received timely and accurate information to complete their applications. As a result, we made the submission of an EOI mandatory before a grant application could be made for the second call in 2014.
Other equally important contributing factors to the success of the program were:
• The use of National Contact Points (NCP) to assist applicants, answer technical questions and in some cases suggesting potential alternative partners where requested.
• Many hundreds contacted CAESIE seeking advice on other EU and AU collaborative programs and the current CAESIE NCPs have been critical in ensuring that correct and timely advice is provided. Positive feedback on the effectiveness of this advisory activity was made.
• The CAESIE website used as a one-stop-shop to provide comprehensive information, guidelines and on-line application systems for Grants as well as providing FAQ on funding arrangements under Horizon 2020 proved extremely popular and useful.
• Favourable comment was provided on the application form although a couple of applicants thought that 2500 characters was too short for the project description whilst other appreciated the brevity.
Review of the round one activities led to amendments to the guidelines to ensure only one application was submitted per person or company. This was achieved by only allowing people with access to an approved EOI number to submit an application, preventing multiple applications from the same entities and removed the issue of wildcard unapproved applications being received at the last minute as we found in the first call.
The quality of the EOIs received and subsequent applications, was higher than the first round, most likely reflecting the additional guidance provided in the guidelines and online documentation.
While the CAESIE program has ceased in December 2015, the lead for Work Package 3, ATSE, will conduct further surveys of grantees to provide a longitudinal picture of their progression or otherwise as part of the Academy’s research program 2016-2017.
OVERALL ASSESSMENT
Assessment of outcomes against a set of identified deliverables within the set of value propositions developed for CAESIE is summarised below:
Outcomes expected
Proposed Outcome Achieved
Promoting awareness about opportunities for research and innovation collaboration, Yes, through website and Priming Grants program
instigating strong strategic linkages, and increased innovation capacity to advance solutions for key societal challenges. Yes Priming Grants have achieved this
The acceleration of the collaboration process through CAESIE enhances innovation capacity that benefits both the EU and Australian economies. Yes evidenced by Priming grants outcomes per this report
Delivered our Value Proposition to the Grant holders
Proposition Achieved
Eligible SME applicants are awarded a Priming Grant to fund a face-to-face meeting with prospective partners to establish if a long-term working collaboration can be formed. Yes, Delivered
CAESIE will provide free services to SMEs to try and match appropriate research, technology and intellectual property partners in respective countries, saving time money and resources. Yes Delivered
Through the National Contact Points, CAESIE will provide free access to a 'network of networks’ in the EU and Australia to SME's, and researchers seeking collaboration and or partnering opportunities. Yes Delivered
CAESIE can provide further information needed by those collaboration entities moving to apply for additional funds through research and innovation agencies in respective regions. Yes Delivered
Value Proposition to Australia & Europe
Proposition Did we make a difference?
The aim of CAESIE activities is to accelerate research-business relationships by providing more effective strategic network formation Yes
Collaborative relationships are proven to produce better research, and optimise the environment for innovation breakthroughs. Yes
Leveraging one another's strengths in a cooperative way will have benefits for both Australia and Europe and assist both regions in succeeding as technology leaders. Yes
How Does This Contribute To A Better Research & Business Sector?
Our Proposition Did we achieve?
Bringing Australian-EU key skills, capabilities and access to research infrastructure Yes
Facilitating the participation of Australian-EU experts in research activities of global significance; Yes
Enhancing the reputation of Australian-EU science and technology; Partially, ongoing
Enhancing access to international expertise and networks of researchers that facilitate major programs of global and national significance to be addressed; Partially, ongoing
Providing a stimulating environment which triggers new ideas, technologies and innovations Yes and ongoing
Sharing of costs and risks; Yes
Facilitating access to new funding opportunities; Yes
Providing access to data, samples for testing and analysis, cutting edge technology, equipment and infrastructure; and Partially, ongoing
Increasing opportunity for the cultural and professional development of Australian and EU scientists. Yes, ongoing
The Priming Grants scheme has been considered extremely useful and easy to manage by the Australian Government. As a consequence, the program serves as an exemplar for effective international collaboration in research and innovation as outlined in the new Global Innovation Strategy of the Australian Government. It is expected that a respective international collaboration funding line will set up with the start of the program in mid 2016.
5.3.3.2 WP2: Strengthening Conditions
A) Overview
The objectives of Work Package 2 were to support cooperation on framework conditions for research and innovation collaboration between the EU and Australia and to achieve better coordination and alignment of policies and programmes of EU Member States with respect to Australia.
WP 2 consisted of three tasks as follows:
Task 2.1 – EU synchronizing workshop
Task 2.2 – Joint liaison office
Task 2.3 – Innovation policy dialogue
B) Achievements
Task 2.1 EU Synchronizing Workshop
A workshop in Europe (D 2.1) was planned to bring together policy makers and representatives of funding organizations from Member States and from Australia that maintain an ongoing bilateral dialogue in the first period of the CAESIE project.
A concept for the EU synchronizing workshop was developed. This concept included the assessment of the interest and possibilities of Australian funding and governmental organizations in collaborating with European counterpart organizations. For this a preparation workshop was developed and implemented in Australia on 15 October 2013.
The workshop in Australia brought together representatives from Australian governmental departments other than DI, state and territory governments, research institutions and groups that are engaged in or fund international research collaboration and would potentially be interested to jointly fund with EU member states EU-AUS collaboration in science and innovation. In addition representatives of the European Commission and CAESIE partners participated.
EC CAESIE project officer speaking at the Research Agencies Meeting
The discussions and small talks with Australian funding and research organizations during the CAESIE workshop in Canberra in October indicated a general interest in multi-lateral funding frameworks.
However, no large funding organisation expressed an interest in these multi-lateral frameworks to DI so far. This may be due to the fact these organizations do not administer bilateral or multilateral funding programs, while others are subject to other funding constraints (including budgetary constraints). As a result there may not be enough interest to justify building an ERANET-type network. Instead, Australian research organizations have more interest in collaborations in FP7 and Horizon 2020 programmes.
The originally planned EU synchronizing workshops have been replaced by an EU synchronizing survey and planned meetings were merged with meetings at the CAESIE info-tours. For the survey respective EU-MS funding agencies were contacted and asked to provide information on funding opportunities for researchers and SMEs that are open to Australian scientists and SMEs. Furthermore the Department of Industry provided the funding information of Australian funding organizations that have programs which are open to EU-MS scientists and SMEs. The exercise identified details of the funding opportunities of EU-MS such as Germany, France, Denmark, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Spain, Italy etc. that are open for participation of Australian scientists or SMEs. The corresponding information of Australian funding opportunities that are open to European scientists and SMEs was collected as well. Both EU-MS and Australian funding information was published on the CAESIE website. Furthermore, a report on measures that facilitate transfer of knowledge from publicly funded research organisations to industry was included. This information will assist Member States in identifying opportunities to align programmes and policies vis-à-vis Australia.
Task 2.2 Joint Liaison Office
One of the tasks each participating BILAT-project has to perform is the conduction of a survey assessing the feasibility of an STI Joint European Liaison Office (STI JELO) - requirement within the Working Programme of 2012. The purpose of possible future STI JELOs would be to enhance, support, and sustain research cooperation between the European Union and its international partner countries in the field of science, technology and innovation. Through these offices, European research organizations could be enabled to increase their visibility, widen their networks, initiate joint research projects, organize workshops, and share facilities and costs. Supporting the representation and internationalization of European research organizations ultimately promotes the European Union as a strong and progressive STI landscape. As one of the first steps towards these JELOs, a survey was conducted and analyzed to determine whether European research organizations are interested and would be willing to join.
The STI JELO Survey
Twelve BILAT-projects jointly conducted the survey examining the interest about establishing STI Joint European Liaison Offices of European research organizations in:
• Argentina (ABEST III)
• Australia (CAESIE) • Korea (KONNECT)
• Mexico (EU-MEX INNOVA)
• Brazil (B.BICE+)
• Canada (ERA CAN+) • New Zealand (FRIENZ)
• Russia (BILAT RUS Advanced)
• China (DRAGON STAR)
• Japan (JEUPISTE) • South Africa (ESASTAP PLUS)
• USA (BILAT USA 2.0)
The joint activity was coordinated by BILAT USA 2.0 and supported by ABEST III. It started with a workshop on October 30th, 2013, in Bonn, where most of the above mentioned BILAT-projects were represented. Details of the questionnaire (Annex A) and the structure of the survey were discussed, the target survey respondents were defined, and the task of contacting them was divided among the different BILAT-projects. The workshop was followed by an intensive coordination process, in which the questionnaire for the survey was reviewed by the BILAT-project coordinators and the responsible Project Officers. The final approval by the EC was given in June 2014. The survey was launched and made accessible online from September 1st to October 31st, 2014.
The target group of survey respondents included European research organizations, research funding agencies, universities, university associations, SMEs, Clusters, and/or Technology Transfer offices. The envisaged number of responses varied from 1-2 organizations for smaller EU countries, and 3-5 for larger EU members. Approximately 400 organizations in 42 European Union Member States (MS) and Associated Countries (AC) were contacted, which, with a response rate of about 25%, led to a total number of 94 responses.
Increased visibility and enhanced networking possibilities outside of Europe were the main arguments for European research organizations in favor of STI JELOs in Third Countries. The idea of sharing costs and risks and having a representation in the most innovative and dynamic markets worldwide was very well received among European STI key players, especially those in small and moderately innovating European countries.
Results for Australia in particular were:
• With 32% of the respondents who are interested in setting up a representation outside Europe Australia ranks second last among the Third countries of this survey. This may be due to the large distance between Australia and Europe and little knowledge about the research and innovation capacities of Australia which “produces” approx. 3% of the world´s publications with 0.3‰ of the world´s population. The main interest comes from smaller EU Member States like the Czech Republic, Portugal, Slovenia and Croatia, whereas no European Member State with a large population like France, UK or Germany showed any interest in an STI JELO in Australia. This may be due to the fact that the larger EU Member States already have representations in Australia and usually also have science counsellors at their embassies who provide support as necessary. The Czech Republic shows an outstanding interest in setting up a representation with two thirds of the responding organizations being interested in an STI JELO with Australia. It should be noted that all Czech organizations were interested in a virtual rather than a physical representation.
• While energy, ICT, environment, nanotechnology get the highest interest they are closely followed by Social Sciences and Humanities. This may stem from the fact that universities show the highest interest in an STI JELO in Australia.
• All European research organizations have the same needs when going international, i.e. access to information about the respective R&D landscape, funding programs, support in networking, exchange of staff and experts as well as organizing joint workshops, conferences and trainings. This can be achieved more easily by the “larger” European Member States than by the “smaller” ones. On the other hand, from the Australian perspective cooperation interests usually lie with the “larger” European Member States due to a lack of information on the capabilities of the “smaller” EU MS.
The whole report can be found in ANNEX 1.
Task 2.3 Innovation Policy Dialogue
The European Union (EU)-Australia Innovation Policy Dialogue was held on 1 December 2014 in advance of the 13th EU-Australia Joint Science and Technology Cooperation Committee (JSTCC) meeting. The Dialogue provided an opportunity for the EU and Australia to build on the previous two innovation policy discussions held in 2010 and 2012.
Ms Cristina Russo, Director for International Cooperation, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission, and Dr Rob Porteous, Head of Science Policy and Governance Division, Department of Industry, were the co-chairs for the session. The Dialogue was attended by representatives from business and university peak bodies, research agencies, and government officials from Australia and Europe. A list of participants and the agenda for the Dialogue is provided at ANNEX 2.
The objective of the Dialogue was for the EU and Australia to share innovation policy knowledge and experiences, discuss collaboration and any potential impediments, and identify shared strategic priorities for cooperation. The Dialogue was focused on the central theme of ‘enhanced EU-Australia research-business collaboration and impact’, and covered policies and flagship initiatives to promote a business-led innovation culture, including enterprise networks, and cluster models for driving connections between the business and research communities. The EU and Australia also shared their knowledge and experience in implementing cross-jurisdictional initiatives for enhancing innovation capacity. The discussion included best practices for measuring and presenting the impact of innovation collaboration.
When the JSTCC met on 2 December 2015, it welcomed reports from attendees at the Dialogue, and noted the Dialogue’s scope to inform innovation policy thinking in both the EU and Australia, and to facilitate collaboration. The JSTCC encouraged more such innovation dialogues. The EU and Australia agreed to have a regular exchange of innovation policy developments and experiences.
5.3.3.3 WP3: Promoting Opportunities
A) Overview
• WP3 leader was ATSE. The main aim of WP 3 was to promote awareness and to disseminate information about opportunities for research and innovation cooperation between Europe and Australia by promoting the Framework Programs (FP 7 and Horizon 2020) to the best scientists and organizations in Australia by increasing the awareness on Framework Program opportunities,
• Identifying and promoting awareness in Europe of opportunities for European researchers to participate in Australian research and innovation programs involving National contacts Points as appropriate,
• Supporting the implementation of a service approach for FP7/H2020 Contacts in Australia and where appropriate the training and extension of the network in Australia.
WP3 consisted of 3 tasks as follows:
• Task 3.1. Website and social network
• Task 3.2. Promoting cooperation and funding opportunities in Europe and Australia
• Task 3.3. National Contact Points
B) Achievements
Task 3.1 Website and social networks
The project website (www.caesie.org) was launched in March 2013. The website was designed to provide comprehensive information on CAESIE activities as well as relevant information of EU and Australian Research and SME activities.
Further, the website was developed to specifically drive most of its engagement activity on a daily basis via the site content.
To this end, information was provided on EU and AU funding opportunities, the Australian NCP network, Horizon 2020, and the CAESIE mission and its priority areas.
The website was instrumental in driving the CAESIE priming grant process including the initial EOI process, and in providing full documentation on the priming grant guidelines and eventual outcomes.
The website also allowed interested parties to register their interest in receiving relevant announcements by email a process managed by the Australian Department of Industry, Innovation and Science and a regular basis.
The site was the entry point for researchers seeking more information on access to EU opportunities and vice versa. Submitted queries to CAESIE were relayed and addressed by the relevant NCPs.
The website received on average 1500-2000 page views per month reaching over 4500 in peak periods (i.e. during the open call for priming grants).
Figure 1: CAESIE project website (www.caesie.org)
The website, although not being updated any longer after the end of the CAESIE project, will be available for at least two more years.
Task 3.2 Promoting cooperation and funding opportunities in Europe and Australia
Information days and workshops were organized to bring Australian programme managers, industry representatives and scientists to Europe to inform multipliers, SMEs and interested scientists of open programmes and cooperation potentials in Australia.
1) Infotour 2014 (Sept. 6 – 13, 2015)
The first Infotour was originally planned to take place in June 2014 but had to be postponed to September 2014 against the background of availability of the very senior delegates from Australia.
The CAESIE-Tour took place from Sept. 6 – 13, 2014 and covered four major European cities:
Helsinki – Bonn – Paris - London
The concept of the tour was as follows:
Objectives
• To increase the European research community’s awareness of opportunities to participate in open programs in Australia
• To promote the Australian R&D&I landscape effectively to key target audiences
Events
• Information sessions – One session in each city
• Policy-maker meetings – Up to two appointments anticipated in each city. These appointments will be arranged at the policy-makers organization.
Audiences
• Information sessions – Primary target is multipliers. Small select groups of EU national research managers and administrators, research development managers and others multipliers
• Meetings – Policy-makers
Programme for information sessions
• Mix of information sharing and discussion/Q&A
• Content / themes for information sessions to be identified by DI and representatives of participating AUS-organizations
• Presentations on examples of successful cooperation
• Duration of sessions up to 3hr max
• Information sessions planned for afternoon, buffet lunch provided on arrival of participants
Recruitment for information sessions
• Participants recruited through dissemination of events to priority organizations identified by DI and representatives of participating AUS-organizations and DLR
• Local organizers to recruit participants (expected number of participants at information sessions 50-80)
Meetings with policy-makers
• Meetings are to raise awareness of program at the highest level, briefing policy-makers on openness and reciprocity issues
• DI, representatives of participating AUS-organizations, local organizers, DLR and embassies to identify potential priority contacts for meetings
• Local organizers to arrange appointments
The Australian delegation was composed of:
1) Prof. Aidan Byrne (CEO), Australian Research Council
2) Prof. Warwick Anderson (CEO), National Health & Medical Research Council
3) Anne-Marie Lansdown (Deputy CEO), Universities Australia
4) Leonie Walsh, President of the Australasian Industry Research Group (AIRG) and Lead Scientist of the Department of State Development, Business and Innovation, Victoria
5) Dr. Buzz Palmer (CEO), Small Technologies Cluster (STC) Australia
6) Clare McLaughlin (Counsellor Education & Science), Australian Mission to the European Union
The Agenda and the whole Infotour was prepared and organized with the help of the CAESIE partners, CNRS and the Australian Embassy in Paris for the visit to France and for the London event with great support from Clare McLaughlin and the Australian High Commission in London. The visit of the Australian Ambassador to Scandinavia to the event in Finland was particularly appreciated by the organizers and participants in Helsinki. The same goes for the opening speech in London by the High Commissioner to the UK, Alexander Downer, former Secretary of State.
Australian Ambassador Gerald Thompson at the Helsinki event
Promotion of the events:
The following channels and networks were used:
• NCP networks
• Research Promotion Agencies
• Key contacts in Ministries of S&T
• University networks
• Australian Embassy
• Personal contacts of speakers and consortium members
An online registration system was used. The link to the registration form was on the website and all promotional material drove potential participants to the website to encourage them to learn more about the project.
From the feedback questionnaire it is clear that the invitation to attend the events filtered down from National networks to multipliers to researchers, many stating that they heard about the event through a colleague.
Attendance and Audience:
Helsinki, Finland
Total Registered 53
Presenters 6
Participants 29
No shows 18
Bonn, Germany
Total Registered 52
Presenters 6
Participants 36
No shows 10
Paris, France
Total Registered 49
Presenters 5
Participants 39
No shows 5
London, UK
Total Registered 36
Presenters 6
Participants 17
No shows 13
Total attended (not including presenters): 121
Total registered (not including presenters): 165
Although the no. of participants seems to be low, which may be due to the closeness of the events to the general summer break in Europe, the relevant program managers and multipliers were well represented.
The audience at the Bonn event
Although the no. of participants at the London event London was the lowest, the discussions in the second part of the event were the liveliest and the Australian delegates were most satisfied with this event.
The Paris event
The audience primarily consisted of representatives from the following:
• Researcher community
• Ministries of S&T, Research, Technology and Innovation
• Universities and Research Institutes
• Private enterprise
• National agencies for Research and Technology
• National S&T promotion agencies
• Agencies promoting and supporting national participation in EU programmes
Feedback from the participants:
Along with the pogramme a questionnaire was distributed to each participant and recollected at the end of the event. The total no. of filled in questionnaires was relatively small, however the overwhelming majority found the events very useful in terms of gathering information on the Australian research and research funding system and in connecting with Australian senior representatives and colleagues. The participants were satisfied with the length, the pace of the meeting, found that the presentations were informative and relevant, as well as the room for discussion. Those who did not already have cooperation with Australia found that the events increased their interest in cooperating with Australia.
Feedback from the presenters:
Feedback from the presenters was sought right after the end of the events in London. They were in general happy with the organization of the events. The delegation was satisfied with the composition of the audiences and the discussions that came up during the events. In particular the workshop in Paris and the discussion in London (despite the small no. of participants) were appreciated. The tough itinerary was a point of some criticism. The delegates expressed their readiness to participate in another tour, however with a less tight itinerary.
2) Cluster Tour 2015 (Sept. 21 – 29, 2015)
On the occasion of the CAESIE consortium meeting on Dec. 11, 2014 in Canberra the decision was taken to alter the Infotour concept and to organize an information tour for Australian cluster representatives (i.e. the Cooperative Research Centers (CRCs) and comparable organizations from Australia) to various similar organizations in Europe with a view to contribute to strengthening the innovation cooperation between Europe and Australia.
Originally, the tour was planned to take place in spring 2015. However, due to a renewed review of the Cooperative Research Centers program commissioned by the Australian government, it was for a long time not clear whether the CRC program would be continued or discontinued. The results of the review were made public in late May 2015, i.e. only shortly before the European summer break and the tour therefore had to be postponed until September 2015.
Workshop at DLR in Bonn, Germany
Objectives of the tour were:
1. To promote the Australian R&D&I cluster landscape effectively, specifically profiles and cooperation interests of industry growth centres, collaborative research infrastructure, CRCs and others engaged in CAESIE priority areas
2. To showcase the European cluster landscape (incl. KICs, leading edge clusters, research campus, poles de competitivité, etc. ) with respect to CAESIE priority areas to Australian counterparts
3. To match Australian and European clusters (and SME networks) with each other, and support them in finding relevant funding for international activities.
4. To provide insight into funding schemes dedicated to clusters (such as BSR Innovation Express, H2020, EU-MS and AUS funding schemes) https://www.b2match.eu/cluster-to-cluster-2014/pages/bsr-innovation-express
5. To present and learn from successful European-Australian cluster cooperation case studies and how they got funded
6. To promote CAESIE and key CAESIE activities and services such priming grants scheme, NCP network
The tour took place between Sept. 21 and Sept. 29, 2015 and covered five European member states: Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany and France, based on the interests of the Australian delegation. The itinerary was again tight. However, taking the comments of the previous delegation into account, a free weekend for recovery was built in. The agenda and the whole cluster tour was
Meeting with representatives from Brainport Region, Eindhoven, Netherlands
prepared and organized with the help of the CAESIE partners and CNRS in Paris for the program in France. The main topics covered by the tour were health and medical technologies and advanced manufacturing. Therefore, in some cases the delegation split to visit different organizations according to their thematic interests. The delegation consisted of representatives of Australian Cooperative Research Centers including the CEO of the CRC Association, which represents the current 39 operative CRCs, and comparable organizations/institutions active in the innovation sector. The Australian delegates were:
1) Prof. Anthony Peacock, Chief Executive, CRC Association
2) Dr. Larry Ward, Senior Business Development Manager, CRC for Mental Health
3) Dr. Buzz Palmer, Chief Executive, Small Technologies Clusters (STC)
4) Dr. Geoff Rogers, Director (Technology), Intellimedical Technologies, Melbourne
5) Prof. Sally McArthur, ARC Training Center for Biodevices, Swinburne University of Technology
6) Dr. Stuart Thomson, Chief Executive, Rail Manufacturing CRC
7) Prof. Robert Burford, CRC for Polymers
8) Dr. Mark Bradley, Australian Academy of Technical Sciences & Engineering (ATSE)
The group was partly accompanied by:
Clare McLaughlin, Counsellor Education & Science, Australian Mission to the EU
Feedback from the delegation:
In order to assess the success of the Infotour for the Australian participants a short questionnaire was developed and sent to the Australian delegates six weeks after the end of the tour. Although the number of answered questionnaires was relatively low, the responses were very positive. The respondents to the questionnaire were unanimously satisfied with the selection of the visited organizations/institutes and found the program and the established contacts most useful. Of course, although the organizers of the tour had intended to make the program less tough for the Australian participants than in 2014 and built in a free weekend, the participants found the program very dense. Taking into account that the innovation cooperation is high on the EU-AUS agenda a reciprocal cluster tour from Europe to Australia as soon as possible should be considered as an appropriate mechanism to increase the cooperation.
Task 3.3 National Contact Points
DI as the NCP for communicating information on H2020 (refer to registration list, established under Task 3.1) – this has involved disseminating regular updates electronically to all states and territories, Australian universities, public funded research agencies and a wide variety of business representatives, and preparing frequently asked questions.
A network of advisors on research-industry collaboration under CAESIE developed by ATSE and AIRG involving industry representatives, state governments, universities and Publicly Funded Research Agencies. These were accessed via query directed to the website. ATSE as webmaster refers the query to either DI or the NCP network established by ATSE.
The NCP network comprised six individuals who have been officially registered with the European Commission.
A first training took place in March 2013 in Bonn provided by German NCPs from the energy, environment and life sciences areas. Further training for new NCPs was planned for December 2013 by ATSE and was delayed by the inaccessibility of suitable material on Horizon 2020 from the European Commission until March 2014. The offer of a webinar for Australian Researchers and SMEs by the European CAESIE partners has been a most welcome measure. The webinar took place on May 20, 2014.
5.3.3.4 WP4: Analysing Innovation
A. Overview
The objective of WP 4 which was lead by AIRG was to analyse Australia´s participation in FP programmes and the features of the Australian innovation system to enhance collaboration outcomes. Work Package 4 consisted of 4 tasks:
4.1 Program inventories
4.2 Innovation metrics
4.3 Monitoring Australian involvement in FP7
4.4 Outcomes of individual projects
B. Achievements:
In the course of the project it has proven impossible to get the necessary data for a detailed analysis of Australian participation in FP programmes with a focus on the development of Australian involvement over time and, more important, to identify Australian participants with a view to identify best practises as well as impediments.
In May 2014 the CAESIE partners decided to reduce WP 4 due to issues in obtaining specific project details and measures from FP7 to just one Task, the former Task 4.3 and to allocate any remaining direct costs and partner efforts to other parts of the program, subject to EU agreement.
The exception was that Department of Industry and Science would attempt to provide a high level summary of collaboration between Australia and the EU.
The results of this survey were:
Joint scientific publications
• Over the period 2009-13, the EU-28 as a whole (de-duplicated) has remained stable as Australia’s top-ranked collaboration partner in terms of joint scientific publications.
• Over the same period, cooperation with the EU 28 comprised over 46% of Australia’s total international collaboration on scientific publications (producing approximately 53,000 joint scientific publications).
• Cooperation between the EU-28 and Australia has been growing steadily and consistently from a total number of 33,000 joint scientific publications over the five year period from 2005-2009, to 59,000 over the five year period from 2010 2014:
Year 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Publications in previous five year period
33,000
37,000
41,000
47,000
53,000
59,000
Source: InCites BenchmarkingTM, Thomson Reuters (2014), report generated November 2015
• Over the period 2009-13, Australia was the EU 28’s fifth highest non EU collaboration partner on scientific publications, and 13th highest collaboration partner overall. This represented 5.7% of the EU-28’s total scientific publications involving international collaboration.
• The EU 28’s top ten research publication partners for the period 2009-13 were:
1. USA 2. Germany 3. UK 4. France 5. Italy
6. Spain 7. Netherlands 8. Sweden 9. Switzerland 10. Canada
Source: InCites BenchmarkingTM, Thomson Reuters (2014), report generated November 2015
AU involvement in EU Framework Programmes
• Since the launch of Horizon 2020 in December 2013 (as at October 2015), 27 large collaborative research and innovation projects (Research and Innovation Actions (RIA) and Coordination and Support Actions (CSA)) were signed, or in preparation. These involved 31 Australian contracted partners, with a total research investment of €173 million (approximately A$268 million). In addition, there are 22 Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) projects involving 28 Australian partners; Eight Innovative Training Networks (ITN) involving nine Australian partners; and Eight Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellows who have been selected to come to Australia. The total research investment for all these 67 projects is €225 million (A$348 million), with €4.8 million (A$7.4 million) of EU funds flowing to Australian researchers and institutions, and €9.9 million (A$15.2 million) recorded as the Australian investment in these projects.
• Under Horizon 2020’s predecessor, the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) (2007-2014), Australian participation grew steadily. By October 2014, Australian entities were participating in 169 signed grant agreements for collaborative projects under FP7, with total EU funding of €909 million (approximately A$1,339 million), of which €13 million (A$19 million) went to Australian researchers. The success rate of proposals involving Australian partners was 27.9%, higher than the average for all proposals involving non-EU partners of 22.6%.
EU involvement in AU funding programmes
• Australian Research Council (ARC) projects involving collaboration with Europe consistently comprise the largest share of collaboration in ARC projects. In 2014 alone, Europe accounted for the highest percentage (53%) of total instances of international collaboration by region in ARC funded projects, comprising over 3,300 instances of collaboration. Over the past three years, the ARC has provided 157 fellowships and awards to researchers identified as EU citizens, including three prestigious Australian Laureate Fellowships, 42 Future Fellowships, and 112 Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards. The ARC also provided $2.5 million between 2009-2013 to support Australia's participation as an associate member of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory.
• The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has extended the NHMRC–EU Collaborative Research Grants Scheme under Horizon 2020. Under this Scheme, Horizon 2020 projects involving Australian researchers based in Australia that are chosen by the EC for funding, may be eligible for NHMRC support of up to $100,000 per year. The second round of the scheme closed in October 2015. The NHMRC advises that the Scheme was heavily oversubscribed under FP7. Since 2002, the NHMRC has awarded 57 grants to Australian researchers (total commitment of AUD $29 million) for Australian researchers to participate in EC health research calls. In 2014, there were 226 active grants involving 259 EU researchers as one of the Chief Investigators with a total value of $56.6 million. EU researchers have been involved as partners in NHMRC projects worth $250 million.
5.3.3.5 WP 5: Coordinating Collaboration
A. Overview
Work Package Leader was DLR. The objectives of this WP were to ensure effective oversight and management of the project consistent with European and Australian Government best practise. The WP consisted of three tasks:
5.1. Project coordination and administration, which included
- Project implementation management
- Financial management
- Preparation of, participation and reporting on the meetings of the Consortium
- Audit
5.2. Advisory Board
5.3. External Review Panel
B. Achievements
5.1. Project coordination and administration
The project coordination of the CAESIE project by DLR concentrated on the one hand on ensuring the contractual obligations towards the European Commission and on the other hand on the internal project management. The contractual obligations were mainly the finalisation of the GPF and the transfer of the budget shares to the different partners. The internal management of the project consortium was threefold:
• Coordination among CAESIE partners (within WP’s and tasks)
To ensure the coordination and the exchange between the different project partners various tools are used. These ranged from the usual telephone/e-mail exchange to regular physical and virtual meetings. The intranet section of the CAESIE website has been used for storing useful information, meeting minutes, other documents, photos, etc. so that they can be accessed and downloaded at all times by the consortium partners.
• Information by the project coordinator to the participants
DLR prepared regular internal Management infos via mail or in the form of telephone-conferences (see below) in order to provide information and news on the overall project organisation, project meetings, financial and administrative issues and news from the European Commission. Each consortium partner was encouraged to contribute to the Management Info by sending the information that should be circulated among all partners to DLR. Thus, a constant information flow among all project partners and full transparency of what was happening in the project was ensured.
• Reviewing, monitoring, reporting within the project
The reviewing, monitoring and reporting within the project has been shared between the project partners, the WP leaders and DLR as the coordinator. As laid down in the DoW, all CAESIE consortium partners were responsible for providing information on their tasks to their Task and WP leaders and the coordinator. The WP leaders played an important role in managing the timely and successful implementation of the project tasks. They were responsible for checking the progress within each WP against the planned schedule and for indicating any changes to the project coordinator. Based on regular WP reports the coordinator was able to get a concise overview on the implementation of the project, especially whether the official deliverables to the European Commission are finalised and the milestones are met.
Within the consortium three partners were from Europe, while three partners were from Australia. The project consortium agreed that DLR would serve as the central project communication hub for all project partners. In addition, DI serves as the communication connection-hub for the Australian partners to make use of the closer vicinity to and working within similar time zones to the other Australian partners. DLR and DI maintain continuous communication via email and telephone conferences. All partners agreed to maintain a working culture of transparent and effective communication.
As the consortium consisted of only a relatively small group of six partners and with the communication structures and agreed working culture in place, the consortium agreed that a consortium agreement would not be necessary.
A project manual was developed and implemented. This manual reflects all project activities, deliverables, and further information, such as responsible partner, dissemination, etc. in a chronological order. The manual was continuously revised according to the project needs, changing framework conditions towards achieving higher impact (compare Deliverable D 5.1 Project Manual).
The communication with external bodies ensured promoting the project and integrating it with other activities, e.g. with the other two EC projects in the region including the BILATs with New Zealand and the Pacific.
CAESIE and all other EC BILAT-projects were promoted via a common BILAT portal developed by DLR. http://bilat.eu/. The portal offers a unique access point to research funding opportunities worldwide, and links to projects supporting the EU policy dialogue with those countries that have a science and technology agreement with the European Union.
Figure 1: Bilat project portal at http://bilat.eu/
Communication
In the course of the CAESIE project three physical meetings have taken place. In October 2012 the kick-off meeting was held in Bonn. The kick-off meeting in which also three of the project advisors participated served mainly to “set sails”, i.e. that the partners, advisors and the EC project officer had the possibility to meet, to agree on roles and responsibilities, to agree on the work plan for the first year and to discuss and draft the contents and structure of the project manual.
CAESIE Team including partners, EC project officer, and advisors at Kick-Off Meeting,
Bonn, 12 Oct. 2012
The 2nd physical meeting took place in Canberra in October 2013. The main achievements of this
meeting were:
• Relationship strengthened: CAESIE partners <-> supporting stakeholders
• STI priorities in AUS, EU shared
• Options for regional collaboration identified, communication agreed
• Performance and impact assessed
• Strategic plan for year II adjusted
• Work plan for year II adjusted
• Framework for more effective WP-linkages agreed
• Framework for improved stakeholder engagement agreed
The 3rd physical meeting took place in Canberra on Dec. 11, 2014 just one week after the EU-AUS-JSTCC meeting. The meeting brought together the project consortium advisors as well as representatives from the EU delegation, European Embassies and the FRIENZ project.
Main outcome of the meeting was the decision to alter the Infotour concept towards organizing a tour of Australian clusters or similar organizations to Europe in 2015.
In addition to the physical meetings of the consortium regular bimonthly telephone conferences were held and complemented by calls/telephone conferences/emails, and physical meetings between individual partners on demand. DLR and DI as regional communication hubs maintained continuous communication via email and telephone conferences.
Amendment
On 2nd March 2015 the CAESIE project coordinator requested the EC for Amendment No.2 with reference to the grant agreement and the evaluation results of the technical review undertaken on May27 and 28, 2014.
According to unforeseen political changes influencing the timelines and some contents and of the original Description of Work the following changes to the description of work will be done:
1) changes in the tasks of work package 1; the originally planned workshops were replaced by the Priming Grants, which was welcomed by the reviewers. Deliverables were changed accordingly.
2) changes in the timelines of deliverables in work package 2; The originally planned EU synchronizing workshops were replaced by an EU synchronizing survey and planned meetings were merged with meetings at the CAESIE info-tours. For the survey respective EU-MS funding agencies were contacted and asked to provide information on funding opportunities for researchers and SMEs that are open to Australian scientists and SMEs. Furthermore the Department of Industry provided the funding information of Australian funding organizations that have programs which are open to EU-MS scientists and SMEs. Both the EU-MS and the Australian information were made available by publication on the CAESIE website. EU-MS representatives from funding organizations were invited to the CAESIE info-tour to discuss issues of synchronization with representatives of Australian funding organizations.
3) changes of timelines in work package 3.
4) changes in the tasks of work package 4; tasks which could not be executed due to lack of data were removed as well as the respective deliverables.
5) changes in the tasks of work package 5; as the CAESIE project was intensively evaluated by an external review panel which was organized by the European Commission in Brussels in 2014, there is no further need for a CAESIE organized external review panel anymore. Thus, this task has been dissolved.
6) changes in the deliverables list for all work packages.
7) changes in the distribution of PM reflecting the changes in the work packages; the overall amount of PM were unchanged.
8) cost neutral reallocation of foreseen budget; the budget of partner 3 (ATSE) was increased by 110.000 € to pay out the priming grants part to be borne by CAESIE, whereas the budgets for partners 1, 5 and 6 were reduced accordingly.
9) Partial Transfer of rights and obligations as one partner, The Teknologian tutkimuskeskus VTT Oy (VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd), short name VTT, has taken over the rights and obligations of the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) as of 1 January 2015.
10) the cost-neutral extension of CAESIE due to ongoing forming process of the five Australian Industry Growth Centers that would be involved in the last major international info-tour to Europe besides other reasons.
Potential Impact:
While continuing the work of the predecessor projects and bringing together programme owners and managers from Europe and Australia leading to a better understanding of each other´s programmes and policies, CAESIE has done pioneering work with the Priming Grants. This was the only seed funding scheme developed by the BILAT projects of that period. The Priming Grant´s objective was to connect researchers and businesses from Europe and Australia. One of the aims of the Priming Grants was to learn “hands on” from the awardees about ... and impediments to that type of collaboration Under the Priming Grants scheme, which was mainly funded by the Australian government, 62 travel grants were awarded. With the travel grants 17 EU Member States were covered (involved). The investment for the two Priming grants rounds lay in the order of 350.000 Euros. To continue the established collaboration applications for funding from sources in the European Union and Australia amounted to the order of 14.6 million Euros. In addition, two patents were filed and one company was established in Australia.
The Australian government considered the Priming Grants scheme as so successful that CAESIE serves as an exemplar for successful international collaboration in the recently published Global Innovation Strategy within the National Innovation Science Agenda of Australia: “The National Innovation & Science Agenda builds on this collaboration model by expanding business and research cluster opportunities with priority economies.”
As one of the outcomes of the Info- and Cluster tour the Australian government will fund the visit of a large Science & Innovation delegation to selected European Member States in June 2016.
Dissemination Activities:
TEMPLATE A2: LIST OF DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES
NO. Type of activities Main leader Title Date Place Type of audience
Size of audience Countries addressed
1 Web DLR Launch of CAESIE website 26 February 2013 Internet EU, Australia
2 Workshop DLR EU-Synchronizing workshop (preparation) 15.10.2013 Canberra Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers 25 Australia
3 Presentations DLR Infotour 1 08.09.2014 Helsinki Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers 29 Finland
4 Presentations DLR Infotour 1 09.09.2014 Bonn Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers 36 Germany
5 Presentations DLR Infotour 1 10.- 11.09.2014 Paris Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers 39 France
6 Presentations DLR Infotour 1 12.- 13.09.2014 London Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers 17 United Kingdom
7 Other DLR National Platform City of the Future 30.09.2014 Berlin Scientific Community, Multipliers 8 Germany
8 Other DLR Connecting knowledge worldwide 02.10.2014 Berlin Scientific Community, Multipliers Germany
9 Other DLR German-Australian Business and Technology Forum 16.10.2014 Munich Makers, Multipliers 5 Germany
10 Conference DISSR Innovation policy dialogue 01.12.2014 Canberra Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers 26 Australia, Slovenia, Belgium, Spain, Croatia, Netherlands, Hungary, Germany
11 Other DLR Bonn Conference for Global Transformation 12.-13.05.2015 Bonn Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers 10 Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg
12 Presentations DLR Cluster tour 21.09.2015 Stockholm Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers Sweden
13
14 Presentations DLR Cluster tour 22.09.2015 Copenhagen Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers Denmark
15 Presentations DLR Cluster tour 23.09.2015 Eindhoven Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers Netherlands
16 Presentations DLR Cluster tour 24. -25.09.2015 Aachen, Jülich, Bonn Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers Germany
17 Presentations DLR Cluster tour 28.-29.09.2015 Paris Scientific Community, Policy Makers, Multipliers France
List of Websites:
website: www.caesie.org
Consortium and Contact details
Consortium partners
The CAESIE consortium committee responsible for the implementation of the four work packages consisted of the following partners:
Name Acronym Country
1 Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. DLR Germany
2 Department of Innovation, Industry, Science & Research and Tertiary Education DIISRTE Australia
3 Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering ATSE Australia
4 Australian Industrial Research Group AIRG Australia
5 Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Angewandten Forschung e.V. FhG Germany
6 Teknologikan Tutkimuskeskus VTT Finland
Contact information
Coordinator
Dr. Hans-Jörg Stähle
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Project Management Agency
European & International Cooperation
Heinrich-Konen-Strasse 1
53227 Bonn, Germany
Tel.: +49/(0)228/3821-1403
Fax.: +49/(0)228/3821-1444
E-Mail: hans.staehle@dlr.de
Managing coordinator
Dr. Gerd Rücker
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Project Management Agency
European & International Cooperation
Heinrich-Konen-Strasse 1
53227 Bonn, Germany
Tel.: +49/(0)228/3821-1180
Fax.: +49/(0)228/3821-1444
E-Mail: gerd.ruecker@dlr.de
