Documents

• to take stock of the experiences in preparing and implementing ERA-NET Cofund,
• to identify critical issues that need to be addressed and if necessary propose adjustments, and
• to assess how the instrument can best contribute to the policy developments.

The focus of this case study is on the practical implementation of alignment of national AAL programmes from an Austrian perspective. AAL can by understood as a synonym for ICT-supported technologies for older adults to increase their quality of life. Since 2008, there exists a transnational Article 185 Initiative dedicated to AAL. In order to participate in Article 185 Initiatives a dedicated national programme is mandatory. Austria is founding member of the transnational AAL Programme. As a necessary pre-condition Austria has established a national programme BENEFIT dedicated to AAL in 2007. The case study reveals how Austria aligns its national and transnational activities in AAL related programmes. Two aspects turned out: (1) ‘taking joint actions’ aspect: Within the transnational AAL Programme, Austria aligns its activities at strategic, operational and financial level with other countries in Europe and (2) ‘building complementarities and synergies’ aspect: Within the national programme BENEFIT, Austria aligns its activities by building complementarities to the transnational AAL Programme and looks for synergies.

There is wide consensus within the P2P community that evaluation and impact assessment of P2Ps and their supported projects is of major importance not only in view of improving performance but for enabling strategic decisions to be made. A number of P2Ps have developed relevant frameworks while others have already engaged in assessment the impacts of supported projects. Drawing upon international evaluation and impact assessment practice, this framework tries to bring all efforts together in a comprehensive framework that can be applied in all P2Ps. It will be presented at the Annual Joint Programming Conference, Brussels, 22-23 November 2016 with the purpose of receiving comments for further improvement and final validation.

OpenAIRE is a support platform that promotes Open Access (OA) to research outputs across 33 countries from Europe and beyond. It provides a technical infrastructure that includes an online platform and associated services in order to centralise, harmonise, disseminate and interlink open research data. The initiative also facilitates the coordination of national and transnational OA activities through a network of national experts in order to promote open access, disseminate related best practices and support countries and research institutes in developing and aligning OA policies and infrastructures. OpenAIRE has enhanced transparency and awareness of past and current research activities and related outputs and outcomes at the level of researchers, end-users and policy-makers. This has contributed to avoiding unnecessary duplication of research efforts, fostering re-use of research data by scientists, increasing return on investment and supporting efficient progress of research.

The 2^nd ERA-LEARN 2020 annual report on public-public (P2P) networks in Europe covers the 12 month period from July 2015 to the end of June 2016. It also aims to present the cumulative and emerging position on joint calls since the launch of the P2P movement in 2003 and provides a spotlight on the Cofund instrument, presenting a picture of the investment and results of the Cofunds to date.

The aim of this workshop was to reach agreement on the main areas and issues deserving attention if the performance of Joint Programming has to be improved.

The aim of this workshop was to reach agreement on the main areas and issues deserving attention if the performance of Joint Programming has to be improved.

The aim of this workshop was to reach agreement on the main areas and issues deserving attention if the performance of Joint Programming has to be improved.

This case study examines the process towards finding a common position on alignment in Austria among the mayor R&D Stakeholders. The Austrian Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology, together with the Austrian Ministry for Science, Research and Economy set up a collaborative process bringing together the relevant Austrian research stakeholders to work towards a common national agreement on transnational alignment in research strategy, planning and funding. In the course of this process, awareness for the alignment topic is raised and commitment for future alignment activities among national RTI stakeholders is built.

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Four ways to use EC contribution to cover the implementation costs.

Explanation of calculation unit costs in ERA-NET Cofund initiatives.

Explanation regarding EC-TOP-Up Distribution for ERA-NET Cofund: overview and practical examples.

Overview presentation on general principles of financial aspects of ERA-NET Cofunds.

A consortium of researchers from Fraunhofer ISI and AIT Austrian Institute of Technology carried out a targeted impact assessment for the COST Association between late April and August 2016. The aim was to investigate the participation of non-academic partners and partners from non-COST countries in COST Actions. In order to increase both the frequency and effectiveness of their participation in COST Actions, there were two concrete goals in this study: firstly, to gain a thorough understanding of the nature and impact of their participation in COST Actions, and secondly, to identify crucial factors which influence the participation of these two groups.

HERA is a transnational network of 25 national research funding organisations in the field of humanities, which has been established thanks to the ERA-NET scheme (European Research Area Networks), that is co-funded by the EC and facilitates the launch of joint calls for project proposals. This 15 year old network has provided an effective framework for trust-building and mutual learning amongst partners, coordination of national research funding strategies and pooling of resources at the European level in order to fund new research activities.

Members of the Joint Programming Initiative on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change (FACCE JPI) jointly conducted a mapping of existing and planned national research initiatives in the FACCE JPI remit, as an essential step in the Joint Programming Process. The mapping methodology used relied on Mapping Meetings that brought together delegated national policy, funding and research representatives who exchanged information and views, identified joint programming opportunities and developed a common vision regarding future transnational research priorities. Joint mapping is a pre-requisite for fostering cross-border alignment at strategic/policy level, as well as for assessing the potential for financial and operational alignment.

The Joint Programming Initiative Healthy and Productive Seas and Oceans (JPI Oceans) has launched a three-year pilot research action "Ecological Aspects of Deep-Sea Mining" in order to assess the ecological impacts that could arise from commercial mining of deep-sea minerals called polymetallic nodules. This transnational research project, which brings together 11 European countries, was initiated by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, which offered to share the use of its newly built research vessel RV SONNE during 118 days to support this project. The joint use of national research infrastructure has promoted cost-effectiveness, contributed to trust-building amongst researchers, and allowed the integration of national research activities around a common scientific objective. At an operational level, it has facilitated standardised data collection, coordination of research methods and open access to research data. It has also allowed for more effective collective European contributions to international policy-making.

This lecture was held at the Workshop Implementing ERA-NET Cofund 2016

This lecture was held at the Workshop Implementing ERA-NET Cofund 2016