EU Funding Workshop – Research Office

The Research Development team held an EU Funding Workshop on 20^th May 2019. It was very successful in bringing together staff from diverse research communities and discovering commonalities around their expertise and the Societal Challenge (SC) calls for Horizon 2020 funding. The intent was to stimulate conversation around the topics, regardless ultimately of whether a H2020 proposal is submitted or not, as these discussions remain relevant throughout the national and international funding landscape.

A panel discussion showcasing currently-funded projects was led by Professors Lindsay Bremner (Architecture and Cities) and Tamas Kiss (Computer Science and Engineering). The follow-up questions from our audience of fellow researchers demonstrated an impressive level of engagement and interest, and illustrated the great benefit to be gleaned from the experiences of a colleague with first-hand knowledge of the potential pitfalls and opportunities of working as part of bid consortia.

Colleagues from the Research Office and External Relations teams provided information on the upcoming Research Innovation Actions and Innovation Actions from the draft work programmes for next year. Presentations from Grace McConnell (Research Development Team Manager), Sue Tuttlebury (Corporate Partnerships Team Manager) and Malgorzata Czerwiec (UKRO European Advisor) are available to download here:

We were particularly fortunate to have Malgorzata present to talk about the services and facilities UKRO can offer to our Westminster researchers, especially via their Brussels office; how Brexit developments might pertain to future European funding bids; and of course to give a strategic overview of Horizon 2020. We are hoping to make a recording of these proceedings available soon via this blog.

_{Image courtesy of Malgorzata Czerwiec, UKRO}

The breakout session saw our researchers organising themselves into groups around a particular H2020 Societal Challenge aligned with their individual research interests. Activity was particularly strong around SC1 Health, demographic change and wellbeing and SC4 Smart, green and integrated transport, with plenty of earnest cross-table conversation, impromptu diagram drawing and swapping of contact details!