From October 12 to 14, the coach from the ISSP UL’s Department of Development, Edīte Kalniņa, participated in the "V4 Training for Research Project Managers" in Brussels. The V4 Training consisted of presentations and interactive sessions during which participants from the Visegrád 4 countries and beyond could get to know each other and share experiences and best practices. The participating research managers had the opportunity to further broaden their knowledge in the field of European research and innovation, project management and researcher support.
Edīte Kalniņa emphasized that the training was aimed at improving knowledge about the political contexts in EU science and innovation programs, namely, how they affect the priorities of project calls. Participation in the event also provided a chance to develop contact networks with science project managers of the Visegrád countries so that joint project applications could be created.
The training program included presentations on the funding system of Horizon Europe programs, priorities, comitology, cooperation between different EU countries, and practical training for attracting partners and forming consortia. There was an opportunity to meet with KE project evaluators, to discuss the evaluation criteria and the most frequent shortcomings in project applications. Participants were introduced to the Open Research Europe platform Horizon Dashboard - a data platform and good practices in writing project applications and managing projects.
The ISSP UL’s representative started negotiations on possible cooperation with:
- Institute of Physics Czech Academy of Sciences (FZU) – working in six main research directions – elementary particle physics, condensed matter physics, solid-state physics, optics, plasma physics, and laser physics,
- Center for Advanced Materials and BioEngineering Research (AMBER), Dublin, Ireland. The Center brings a multidisciplinary partnership between leading academics in Advanced Materials Science, BioEngineering and Industry. Working collaboratively, they develop new materials and devices for the ICT, medical devices, energy and sustainable industrial technology sectors,
- An independent think tank in Budapest Hetfa, Hungary. Developed training programs - Erasmus+ foRMAtion project, the Horizon Europe RM ROADMAP project and the V4+WB Network of RMAs project. The main objective of the showcased tools and platforms developed by these projects is to strengthen the competitiveness of research-performing organizations by supporting the networking, education, and upskilling of research managers,
- Department of Bioinformatics of the Semmelweis University, Hungary,
- The Institute of Geophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences (IGF PAN) whose basic research area is Earth sciences, seismology, geomagnetism, and selected areas of atmospheric physics (presented a good data management plan).
V4 Training is a training course designed for experienced research managers working in project departments (mainly international: H2020 and Horizon Europe) at universities, scientific and research institutes in departments responsible for the acquisition, management, and reporting from each Visegrád Group country and from countries associated in IGLO (Informal Group of RTD Liaison Offices). The event is organized in Brussels by the Polish Science Contact Agency PolSCA together with the Czech Liaison Office for Education and Science (CZELO), the National Research, Development and Innovation Office of Hungary (NRDIO) and the Slovak Liaison Office for Research and Development (SLORD), with a total of 35 participants.
