National Contact Points for Climate action, Raw materials, Environment and Resource Efficiency

Project Information

NCPs CaRE

Grant agreement ID: 642025

DOI

10.3030/642025

Project closed

EC signature date 9 December 2014

Start date 1 February 2015

End date 31 January 2021

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Climate action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials

Total cost

€ 1 999 933,75

EU contribution

€ 1 999 932,00

Coordinated by

FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM JULICH GMBH
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - NCPs CaRE (National Contact Points for Climate action, Raw materials, Environment and Resource Efficiency)

Reporting period: 2019-08-01 to 2021-01-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

NCPs perform valuable services in guiding and supporting national applicants in preparing proposals for Horizon 2020 funding. The overall objective of NCPs CaRE was to form a joint cooperation network of experienced and less experienced NCPs on SC5 “Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials” which aimed at pooling their resources and know-how to raise the overall quality of services provided to their clients. NCPs CaRE provided tools and services beyond the capacities of individual SC5 NCP’s to develop at the national level. By in-volving 23 formally nominated NCPs across Europe, NCPs CaRE significantly strengthened trans-national coopera-tion. In addition, NCPs CaRE extensively involved 26 NCPs that were “associated partner”. To harness synergies was especially relevant to SC5 NCPs, since potential applicants within this Challenge were very diverse with respect to their scientific or organisational background, level of experience, involvement in transnational networks. The net-work fostered exchange between SC5 NCPs and for new SC5 NCPs (i.e. newly/recently appointed and/or less expe-rienced), in particular, it provided a support structure and facilitated integration. As a result, the project made considerable advances in aligning SC5 NCP services across Europe and beyond, thereby simplifying access to H2020 for national stakeholders and lowering entry barriers to newcomers.
Activities of NCPs CaRE included teaming and twinning schemes, compilation of best practices handbooks and manuals, brokerage events (served to dismantle barriers to participation affecting many stakeholders, especially newcomers with no networks and those from less active countries, fostering H2020’s ‘widening participation’ ap-proach), meetings and trainings (on-line and on a face-to-face basis), as well as a wide range of other communica-tion and dissemination tools and platforms. These activities contributed to enhancing the impact of R&I in SC5 and ensured a more efficient use of resources and R&I developments by improving the work flow between NCPs, applicants, the EC and other relevant stakeholders with a stake in SC5.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Over the duration of the project, i.e. from 2015-2021 (as per 31.01.2021) NCPs CaRE has: been represented at events (speaker/slides, roll-up, information desk, flyers, webinars, referring of website or represented within the support of brokerage events of Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) – Sector Group Environment (SGE)) in total: 256 | had subscribers to newsletter (total): 395 | had subscribers to Twitter (total): 214 | had subscribers to Linkedin (total): 263 | had Website visits in total 1,249,403 and 360,333 visitors | had number of downloads of useful guides (as of 31 January 2021) - with the top 5 downloads being:
1. Overview of the European Green Deal Call 2020 (939 downloads) | 2. Slides Webinar Partner Search for the Green Deal Call (412 downloads) | 3. Overview of the 2019 SC5 calls (240 downloads) | 4. Good practices for NCP Participating to (EEN) brokerage events (225 downloads) | 5. Climate Change Topics 2018-2020 (210 downloads).
We trained a total of 1462 SC5 NCPs & SC5 stakeholders through:
• 5 (interactive) masterclasses with 102 participants (SC5 NCPs as Beneficiary, Partner Organisation, European Neighbourhood Policy Country),
• 40 webinars (also in cooperation/as co-organiser with NCP network projects, EEN or EC/EASME) with 1336 participants (SC5 NCPs, but also others when co-organiser), however the total number does not include 5 webinars that were organized by other NCP networks, in collaboration with the NCPs CaRE, and where the number of participants was not retrieved
• 2 proposal writing workshops for SMEs with 36 participants,
• 1 internal SC5-NCP workshop on how to effectively advise/address/access SMEs with 20 participants (SC5 NCPs, excl. 4 facilitators from beneficiaries)
• 1 internal SC5-NCP workshop on how to best prepare EU-13 & ENP for SC5-related funding opportunities – Best practices for trainings (9 participants + 2 facilitators from beneficiaries).
• 16 Twinnings (9 physical, 7 virtual) with 59 participants (SC5 NCPs, where some participated in multiple rounds)
We had 3 Brokerage events between 2016 and 2019 with 432 participants:
• 1st Brokerage Event “Horizon 2020 Societal Challenge 5 Brokerage Event” (https://www.b2match.eu/infodaySC5-2016) - Brussels, 14 September 2016 - 195 participants from 25 countries in 515 meetings
• 2nd Brokerage Event “"Innovative by Nature: Responding to Societal Challenges through Nature-based solutions and Cultural Heritage"” (https://www.b2match.eu/infodayh2020-nature-culture) – Brussels, 8 December 2016 - 143 participants from 25 countries in 199 meetings
• 3rd Brokerage Event “#CETI_H2020 Brokerage Event on Circular Economy and transforming Industry” (https://ceti-h2020.b2match.io/) – Warsaw, 9 October 2019 - 127 participants from 26 countries with 94 participants in 207 meetings.
EEN collaboration: 11 NCP-EEN exchanges at national level (“What is my EEN job about”) took place with 15 participants (SC5 NCPs excl. EEN counterparts) | 11 EEN Sector Group environment meetings were attended by one SC5 NCPs on top of the tasks leader who was both EEN and SC5 NCP | NCPs CaRE supported 4 brokerage events organized by EEN (Enterprise Europe Network) | EEN members supported as co-organizers all three brokerage events organized by NCPs CaRE | 114 EEN partner searches were circulated. 53 partner searches were circulated to NCPs (2015-July 2020), 60 during the second extension in relation with the Green Deal Call (Aug 2020-Jan 2021) | 19 partner searches coming from the EEN were published in the Partner Search Tool.
The NCPs CaRE Partner Search Tool had a total of 2027 registries as per 31.01.2021.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

As this is a CSA the "progress beyond" does not apply. NCPs CaRE aimed to generate impact on three different levels: Level I Improvement and professionalisation of NCP services: This target was reached through a mutual learning process supported by various measures undertaken in NCPs CaRE. Throughout the pro-ject, good practises were identified and transferred from one NCP to another. Through an exchange of knowledge and expertise between MS, AC and ENP countries within NCPs CaRE, a more consistent level of support services across the EU was established in the long term. This was supported by various measures (benchmarking, trainings, twinnings). Especially less-experienced NCPs had a chance to rapidly acquire know-how, thereby improved their standard of consulting service. Level II Higher quality of proposals submitted: Through an increased cooperation with other stakeholders and initiatives, potential clients were more easily reached, mobilised & supported. This resulted in better professionalised NCP services, which furthermore provided potential clients with a more con-sistent NCP service across the MS, AC & ENP countries. Level III Establishment of an active and competent network of SC5 NCPs on the European level and beyond was in itself an added value and thus impact of this project. Through coordination and joint efforts, NCPs CaRE became a network that was more than the sum of its parts. The project was a way to implement the ideas of ENP as it strengthened the relationship between the EU & its neigh-bourhood countries, determined common interests & benefits.

logo of NCPs CaRE