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HERA Joint Research Programme Cultural Encounters

Periodic Report Summary 3 - HERA JRP CE (HERA Joint Research Programme Cultural Encounters)

Project Context and Objectives:
On 8 February 2012, the HERA Joint Research Programme Cultural Encounters (HERA JRP CE) partners launched a joint call for multilateral projects in the humanities research area: “Cultural Encounters”. Thus the success of the first HERA JRP was continued. The HERA JRP CE consortium, this time consisting of 19 national and regional funding organisations, wants to create collaborative, transnational research opportunities that will derive new insights from humanities research in order to address major social, cultural, and political challenges facing Europe.
The HERA JRP CE partners have jointly defined and developed a common research priority, opened a transnational funding mechanism and pooled a substantial amount of their funding in one virtual pot. The HERA JRP CE Board is the main decision-making body regarding matters such as the funding of the HERA JRP CE projects, the formulation of the Knowledge Transfer Strategy and its implementation, and the monitoring of the HERA JRP CE funded projects. The HERA JRPP CE partners have contracted the European Science Foundation to act as the HERA JRP CE Handling Agency for the first phase of the programme (i.e. organising the call and selection process). For the second phase of the programme the IRC is contracted as the HERA JRP CE Handling Agency (i.e. for managing the HERA JRP CE funded projects and networking activities).
The Call was open to scholars located in Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom, irrespective of their nationality. Successful proposals required the building of consortia of three or more partners based in three or more different HERA JRP CE countries. The total amount of funding available for the transnational research projects funded in the HERA JRP CE theme was 18,2 M€, 6 M€ of which was the ERANET PLUS grant. In addition almost 1,3 M€ was contributed by the HERA JRP CE partners for the handling costs of the selection procedure, the management costs of the projects and the knowledge exchange and networking activities.

The HERA JRP CE call had an excellent take-up: 593 proposals were submitted in the Outline Proposals stage and 88 in the Full Proposals stage. The total budget requested by the 88 submitted Full Proposals amounted up to 86.2 M€. Proposal evaluation under the HERA JRP CE theme was carried out by an international, independent HERA JRP CE Review Panel. The HERA JRP Review Panel recommended 31 Full Proposals for funding. On 21 February 2013, the HERA JRP CE Board accepted the Review Panels recommendations and ranking list. In order to fund 18 transnational projects, four partners increased their original commitments by in total 1,4 M€ and the HERA JRP Board approved that some remaining budget of the first HERA JRP was transferred to the HERA JRP Cultural Encounters.
All 18 projects had commence by the September 30 2013, when the launch conference took place in Dubrovnik. The total budget awarded to the top 18 proposals is 17,571,467 EUR. Contrary to most other joint research programmes set up by ERANETs, in this HERA JRP CE project grants are transferred by the HERA JRP CE Handling Agency in full to the Project Leaders to enable them to truly manage the collaborative transnational project. The midterm evaluation of the projects – to be carried out by the HERA JRP CE Review Panel will be carried out shortly.
The HERA JRP CE Knowledge Transfer Advisory Committee (KTAC) chaired by AHRC has started implementing the Knowledge Exchange (KE) Strategy which aims at increasing awareness of the impact of funded research beyond academia.
The implementation of the Strategy involves organising or supporting HERA JRP CE Knowledge Exchange and Networking activities, which will bring together academic and non-academic partners from more than one HERA JRP project. The HERA JRP CE funding organisations have provided additional funding for these activities. Both at the HERA JRP CE Launch Conference and in a HERA JRP CE workshop in November 2014, Project Leaders and HERA representatives shared their plan and experiences for knowledge exchange activities and developed new KE plans.

Project Results:
All planned objectives were completed:
WP2, WP3 and WP4 had already been completed in the previous reporting period.
For WP5 the main activities during the reporting period were the organisation of the HERA JRP CE Launch Conference in Dubrovnik on on Monday 30th September 2013 and Tuesday 1st of October, finalising the Knowledge Exchange Strategy and staring the implementation of it by organising a special session for the HERA JRP CE project leaders and some of the APs in Amsterdam on November 14 2013. The meeting provided an excellent opportunity for projects to network and reflect on/share experiences of knowledge exchange plans and activities. It also provided a forum for discussion on HERA support and future activities. It is clear the projects are well established and progressing well, there are numerous impact activities being undertaken over the coming months including exhibitions, film festivals and working with business and policy makers. The projects will be surveyed to get further detailed input on future activities

Potential Impact:
18 HERA JRP CE projects are fully funded and expected to succesfully complete. The worlplans and expected impacts are published in the HERA JRP Cultural Encounters bochure that is published as deliverable 5.3.1 and uploaded in the Participant Portal.

List of Websites:

www.heranet.info