A key to enabling the success of Horizon Europe is the dissemination and distribution of resources and information to potential applicants and beneficiaries. Tasked with a budget of €95.5 billion, Horizon Europe is the EU’s new funding program for research and innovation aimed at tackling climate change, helping achieve the UN’s sustainability goals and boosting the EU’s competitiveness and growth.
But how to ensure that access, the necessary guidance, and practical information is available to all who are interested? This is where the National Contact Points or NCPs come into play. The NCPs are an EU support structure that provide guidance, practical information, and assistance on all aspects of participation in Horizon Europe.
NCPs are key components of national structures that are offering the following basic services as part of their involvement with Horizon Europe:
Guidance on choosing relevant Horizon Europe topics and types of action
Advice on administrative procedures and contractual issues
Training and assistance on proposal writing
Distribution of documentation (forms, guidelines, manuals etc.)
Assistance in partner search
NCPs offer support in all participating countries, and they are also established in many non-EU and non-associated countries ("third countries"). They provide guidance, practical information and assistance on all aspects of participation in Horizon Europe to potential applicants and beneficiaries in the applicant’s own language.
To make things easier the EU has created a portal with all the NCPs in all their respective countries. This portal can serve as a launching point for future involvement with Horizon Europe as it offers those interested an opportunity to find a first point of contact in their own country and their own language.
The NCPs involved in the dissemination of information vary in form and bring together a cross section of the EU’s diverse society with actors coming from ministries to universities, research centres and special agencies to private consulting companies.
The NCP Network allows Horizon Europe to truly become a research and innovation fund that is fostering a culture of international collaboration built from the ground up.
Horizon Europe
Investing in research and innovation is investing in Europe’s future. Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation with a budget of €95.5 billion. It tackles climate change, helps to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and boosts the EU’s competitiveness and growth. The programme facilitates collaboration and strengthens the impact of research and innovation in developing, supporting and implementing EU policies while tackling global challenges. It supports creating and better dispersing of excellent knowledge and technologies. It creates jobs, fully engages the EU’s talent pool, boosts economic growth, promotes industrial competitiveness, and optimises investment impact within a strengthened European Research Area. Horizon Europe is fully open to participation from the associated Wester Balkan partners.
More information:
Podcast: Horizon Europe in the Western Balkans (Spotify and Anchor) Factsheet: Horizon Europe and National Contact Points
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