ERAC endorsed at its Plenary in Brussels on 6 December 2018 the final report of the ad-hoc Working Group on Partnerships and discussed two documents presented by the Commission Services. ERAC welcomed the proposed criteria framework further defining and operationalising the criteria from Annex III, and the strategic coordinating process for Partnerships, including the setting up of a "Forum for R&I partnerships", starting with a transitional phase in 2019/20, and the idea for the co-chairmanship. It will provide advice and input to Commission and Member States/Associated countries with the objective to ensure transparent and evidence-based selection of partnerships to rationalise their landscape and maximise their impacts, support the effective and efficient implementation, monitoring and phasing out of partnerships throughout their lifecycle and provide strategic guidance on the overall policy approach and the future objectives and composition of the partnership portfolio.

The documents of the ERAC are now available on our website.

ERA-LEARN looks back to an exciting and successful year 2018. This year, there were many interesting developments and highlights in the P2P-world. We collected our personal highlights from the ERA-LEARN newsalerts in 2018 for you:

1. The European Commission redefined European Partnerships in its proposal for Horizon Europe: For the first time, an overall policy approach for all kinds of partnerships, from ERA-NETs to JTIs, FET Flagships and even the EIT/KICs has been developed and uniformly labelled ‘European partnerships’.
   
   
2. ERA-LEARN has continuously supported P2P newcomers with guidance and good practices: After many years of successful workshops for practitioners, the project organised another well perceived hands-on Workshop for practitioners in ERA-NET Cofund in Berlin.
   
   
3. ERA-LEARN presents itself in a fresh new look with a modern web design and a new Twitter channel to make information and exchange in the P2P sector even faster.