On 12 December, 2022, the European Commission is organising an info day aimed at informing (potential) applicants about the new topics included in the WIDERA work programme of 2023-2024.

Horizon Europe’s Widening actions support EU countries that lag behind in research and innovation to increase their performance, while ERA actions aim at reforming and enhancing the European research and innovation system overall. The info day will focus on the new calls and topics of the work programme of 2023-2024.

The European Commission has pre-published all work programmes 2023-2024 (except cluster 3). A significant part of Pillar II of Horizon Europe will be implemented through institutionalised partnerships, particularly in the areas of Mobility, Energy, Digital and Bio-based economy, which will also have separate work programmes.

The work programmes include 12 new partnership related Horizon Europe calls in 2023 and 5 calls in 2024. An overview for those calls is available on our website.

The first Partnership Stakeholder Forum organised by ERA-LEARN and the European Commission on 15-16 November 2022 is now behind us, but many insightful lessons and conclusions shared during these two days are now available to be acted upon. Overall, the review of the first year of the partnerships has been quite promising in light of achieving the twin green and digital transitions and increase Europe’s resilience.

The European Commission and Canada have reached an important milestone in their discussions on deeper science collaboration, with the beginning of formal negotiations for Canada to join Horizon Europe as an so-called 'associated country'.

The association would enable Canada's researchers and organisations to participate in the programme on equal terms with entities from EU Members States, including the opportunity to join European Partnerships. Researchers and teams based in Canada would therefore be able to access research funding and networks that involve researchers from Europe and other associated countries and work closely with them for solving global challenges.

Under Horizon 2020, partnerships have developed a variety of governance models, ranging from co-funded actions focusing mainly on the internal consortium management to more elaborated governance structures involving different configurations.

In order to have a coherent and systematic approach to future governance arrangements, including a clearly defined role for the Commission services and national policy makers, it is recommended to identify the governance functionalities that are needed, and how to best reflect them in the Partnership set-up. Against this background, ERA-LEARN aims to provide a systematic overview on common governance functions that European Partnerships should aim to implement and updated its website section with relevant functions and descriptions of those.

On 15 and 16 November 2022 the European Commission launched together with ERA-LEARN its first European Partnership Stakeholder Forum. The Forum focused on the review of the first year of partnerships and, in particular, how they can contribute to the twin green and digital transitions, as well as increasing Europe’s resilience. The event brought together the whole community of co-funded, co-programmed and institutionalised partnerships. It did provide a venue for networking, broadening engagement, sharing of experiences and discussing policy and practical dimensions related to Partnerships.

The just finished 1^st European Patnership Stakeholder Forum is part of the so-called ‘European Partnership Strategic Coordinating Process’. With the Strategic Coordination Process, the European Commission has established a governance framework for the strategic implementation of the European Partnerships. The objective of the process is to support a coherent, evidence-based and strategic policy making process on European Partnerships, guided by a common set of criteria, and ensuring close cooperation with Member States.