Interest in the spreading excellence and widening participation calls remains high

The Research Executive Agency has received over 500 project proposals for the Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation Programme calls that closed last Thursday, 14 November. With a total budget of €119 million, the two calls intend to increase research excellence in the Widening countries - with a composite indicator of Research Excellence[1] below 70% of the EU average.

The Twinning call received 439 project proposals (compared to 460 last year), while ERA Chair received 114 (compared to 106 last year). For both calls, the success rate is expected to be higher than in previous similar calls.

Evaluation of the proposals starts next month, and the successful projects will be known by mid-March 2020. The projects are expected to begin in mid-July 2020.

The total budget of €119 million is distributed as €50 million for ERA Chairs and €69 million for Twinning.

ERA Chairs projects aim at bringing outstanding academics to universities and research institutes located in one of the Widening countries to implement the structural changes necessary to achieve excellence in research on a sustainable basis.

Twinning projects aim at linking an institution from a widening country with at least two internationally leading counterparts in Europe to enhance research skills in the widening countries. EU support is granted for activities like short-term staff exchanges, expert visits, on-site or virtual training, workshops, and attendance to conferences, dissemination and outreach in any field of research.

ERA Chair and Twining are coordination and support actions funded under the Horizon 2020 ‘Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation’ programme managed by the Research Executive Agency (REA).

[1] The detailed scores of the composite indicator can be found in p. 5 (Excellence in S&T 2010) of the "Research and Innovation Performance in EU Member States and Associated Countries 2013" at http://ec.europa.eu/research/innovation-union/pdf/state-of-theunion/2012/innovation_union_progress_at_country_level_2013.pdf