Contribution of HETFA for reinforcing research support at European level

Our colleagues from HETFA have been taking part at BESTPRAC meeting in Tallinn on 11-12 March. The meeting was held in the frame of the EU funded COST action aiming to raise excellence of research management and administration. Although the action is coming to an end this year, there are still a number of challenges and activities ahead in which our colleagues intensively contribute.
The meeting has had a very intensive and attractive programme: during the plenary sessions, Peter Härtwich from the European Commission presented the new EU funding participant portal and then Ellen Schenk, Coordinator of EU Funding from Erasmus University Rotterdam provided a concise presentation on the art of writing Horizon 2020 proposals.
During the Working Group session, the 3 groups put on the table various hot topics with regard to the different aspects of research management and EU funding advising. In Working Group 1, which is co-led by Virág Zsár, the Coordinator of the Division for International Cooperation of HETFA, participants discussed the ways and possibilities of the engagement of the different axes of the quadruple helix. Afterwards, extensive presentations were held on the current state of the art of the next research and innovation framework programme, called Horizon Europe as well as on Erasmus +.
On the second they working group members have had the chance to discuss about their position, roles, responsibilities and power within their organization to get to know each other and to pave the way for an internal expert pool in research management.
Since BESTPRAC is ending in October 2019, strategies for stakeholders’ engagement, sustainability and communication were finalized. Now it is momentum to formulate an action plan defining the activities, roles and responsibilities of members to promote BESTPRAC, our activities and engage stakeholders for long-term sustainability of the action. Besides participants also found relevant to form a position paper on the relevance of including measures for supporting research support staff in the next framework programme, namely, Horizon Europe.