The 1st Ambassador Meeting within the RM ROADMAP project was successfully held on 9 May 2023, in Budapest, Hungary. The event was organised by HETFA Research Institute, a partner of the RM ROADMAP consortium, which is coordinated by EARMA.
The RM ROADMAP consortium welcomed more than 60 Ambassadors from 40 countries, who are the national and regional community builders of research management communities. The first part of the meeting was live-streamed via Zoom. The meeting provided an opportunity for networking and knowledge exchange for the selected Ambassadors.
The event was opened with the welcoming words of Renáta Anna Jaksa, Head of Division for International Cooperation of HETFA Research Institute and László Lengyel, Vice President of the National Research, Development and Innovation Office (HU), both highlighting the significance of research management in the research and innovation ecosystem.
After their opening words, Stijn Delauré, Policy Officer at the European Commission, introduced the European-level initiative dedicated to research management, Action 17 of the European Research Area (ERA), highlighting the importance of Member States supporting the Action. Hungary recognising the importance of the initiative is one of the co-sponsors of Action 17. A workshop focusing on the Action was organised back-to-back with the Ambassador meeting, on 10 May with the participation of Ambassadors and other stakeholders. You can learn more about our project foRMAtion which is a flagship initiative of the ERA Action 17.
By participating in the Ambassador meeting, Ambassadors learned about the vision and objectives of the RM ROADMAP project and gained insight into the Knowledge and Community Platform (to be opened in the autumn of 2023) and the Research Management Helix (Crowdhelix). An interactive session was dedicated to the possible ways of engaging with national research management communities. Adele Del Bello from the RESTART Foundation in Italy, Andreja Zulim de Swarte from the University Medical Centre Utrecht in The Netherlands, and Ladislav Cocek from Masaryk University in Czechia shared their best practices on how to reach local communities.
The event continued with parallel sessions, with discussion groups focusing the future engagement with the Ambassador’s national communities. The event was concluded by the reflections of Jan Andersen (RM ROADMAP Advisory Board Member) and Nik Claesen, and Borana Taraj (EARMA) who outlined the next steps of the project.
The recording of the Ambassador meeting is available on the YouTube channel of EARMA.
HETFA is delighted to be part of the RM ROADMAP project and host of the 1st RM ROADMAP Ambassador meeting. It is a unique opportunity to participate in the co-creation of the future of research management in Europe. We would like to welcome and thank the support of the coordinator of the RM ROADMAP project, EARMA, especially Nik Claesen and Borana Taraj, furthermore Stijn Delaure, the representative of the European Commission, all of the other partners participating in the project, and the sponsors of the ERA Action 17 as well. We are also extremely grateful for the engagement of Ambassadors; who are the driving force of the new European Research Area.