Project Submissions for Participants from Switzerland

The Euresearch head office reminds Swiss participants in Horizon 2020 that they have to submit their projects as participants from associated countries and thus claim their budget from the European Commission.

In its announcement as of 17 August 2016, the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) clarified the current rules of proposal submissions from Swiss participants in Horizon 2020. The State Secretariat advised researchers in Switzerland to prepare their project on the basis of Switzerland’s full association in 2017 and therefore submit project proposals for all calls as participants from an associated country. In its detailed recommendations, SERI mentioned that exceptions for participants from Switzerland submitting projects as a Third-Country participant would be considered only for calls with deadlines earlier than 30 September 2016.

This means that since 30 September 2016 Swiss participants in Horizon 2020 have to submit their projects as participants from associated countries and thus claim their budget from the European Commission.

SERI understands that specific problems can be encountered in case of two-stage project submissions. If at the first stage, Swiss project partners submitted its budget as a Third-Country participant (EC contribution = 0), SERI accepts that the Swiss partner submits its budget as a Third-Country participant at the second stage too.

Please visit for further information the SERI Website on Horizon 2020.

Interim Evaluation of Horizon 2020: Public Consultation

All citizens and organisations are invited to contribute to a public consultation for the Interim Evaluation of Horizon 2020.

Contributions are particularly sought from researchers, entrepreneurs, innovators and all types of organisations that have participated in Horizon 2020.

The objective of this consultation launched by the European Commission is to collect information from a wide audience on different aspects of Horizon 2020 implementation. The results of the public stakeholder consultation will feed into the interim evaluation of Horizon 2020.

Hence, as does Euresearch, SCIPROM strongly encourages all Swiss participants to Horizon 2020 projects to answer to this consultation.

Public consultation is open until 15 Jan 2017. It should take about 20 minutes to complete the questionnaire, depending on the level of detail of your answers.

More information and the online questionnaire. 

Give input to Horizon 2020 WPs 2018-2020!

On 1 January 2018, the last Work Programme (WP) of Horizon 2020 will come into effect.
 
Contrary to the previous WP, the final WP of Horizon 2020 will cover three years, namely 2018 until 2020. First preparations are already under way to define the main focus areas for the strategic programme 2018-2020 as well as to collect input on the contents of the WP 2018-2020. Whereas the Advisory Groups of Horizon 2020 should deliver their reports in June 2016 on the strategic programme, the European Commission and several stakeholder organisations collect input for the WP.

Following consultations are currently open:

Food Security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and maritime and inland water research and the bioeconomy. Deadline 28 August 2016.

Health, Demographic Change and Wellbeing. Deadline 11 July 2016.

CassaMobile is getting real

The CassaMobile container, main outcome of the  correspondent project, is getting real and it's our pleasure to share with you a blog we started to report regularly about the progress we make.

Recently, the first process modules have been installed and more is already scheduled ...

Enjoy browsing!

Integration of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in Horizon 2020: participants, budgets and disciplines

The European Commission issued a monitoring and evaluation report on the integration of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in Horizon 2020, by focusing on participants, budgets and disciplines. The report shows an uneven and unequal integration of SSH in projects and provides a series of recommendations.

The integration of Social Sciences and Humanities in the European framework programme for research and innovation Horizon 2020 is part of the priorities of the European Commission (EC). The SSH comprise various disciplines such as anthropology, economics, history, humanities and the arts (archaeology, ethics, literature, theology, etc), political science, law, sociology and psychology. Contributions from these fields are needed "to generate new knowledge, support evidence-based policymaking, develop key competences and produce interdisciplinary solutions to both societal and technological issues."

While in the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) SSH had their own dedicated programme, Horizon 2020 'embeds' SSH researchers in areas and topics under the Societal Challenges and Industrial Leadership priorities. EC has recently issued a monitoring and evaluation report on the intergration of SSH in these two areas. Its aim is to evaluate the quality of the integration by focusing on participation, budget allowed and the variety of SSH disciplines in the 2014 calls for proposals.

A summary of the report conclusions can be found on the SWISSCORE website and the full report is available from the EC. 

Work Programme 2016 - 2017

The European Commission published today the Horizon 2020 Work Programme for 2016 and 2017. The Work Programme (WP) makes available €16 billion for research and innovation for 2016 and 2017.

The current main Horizon 2020 work programme comprises an introduction, 18 thematic sections and the general annexes describing general rules such as standard admissibility conditions and eligibility criteria, types of action, selection and award criteria, etc. Each thematic section is self-contained, and describes the overall objectives, the respective calls for proposals, and the topics within each call.

More section-oriented information on the input to the preparation of the current work programmes can be found for the following topics:

- Future and Emerging Technologies
- Information and Communication Technologies
- Societal Challenge 1 (Health, demographic change and wellbeing)
- Societal Challenge 2 (Food Security, Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry, Marine, Maritime and Inland Water Research and the Bioeconomy)
- Societal Challenge 4 (Smart, Green and Integrated Transport)
- Societal Challenge 5 (Climate Action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials)
- Innovation in SMEs
- Access to Risk Finance

4L Trophy orientation course in Renault 4L in the Moroccan desert.

SCIPROM proudly presents the team of Matthieu Charlot et Florian Gharib, who participated in the "4L Trophy orientation course," a charity race in which everyone drove Renault 4Ls in the Moroccan desert in  February/March 2015.

Financially supported by SCIPROM, these two students of the University of Lausanne successfully completed the 2800 km distance between Lausanne-Marrakech and finished this 18th edition of the course 650th out of 1117 participants. Congratulations!

You can read much more about their adventures on their facebook page. They will be present at the market in St-Sulpice this Saturday, 20 June 2015, to tell their stories around a glass of wine. Everybody is welcome!