Write 1 page description of Horizon2020 community building aim

Research Network Horizon
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This task refers to the second aim of the 5 listed as a result of a broader conversation on what we want to see funded through this program. It goes like this: “We want to deploy community building and ICT tools to support local social innovation in various parts of Europe.”

We need a writeup to be able to then break it into concrete activities with realistic budgets.

But first, which call should we focus on? The best suited I’ve found so far, but also quite general I’d say is on New Forms of Innovation:

Social Innovation community: aims to stimulate and support the establishment of a ‘Social Innovation Community’ of researchers, social innovators, end users (citizens) and policy-makers. It is one of the few that makes a reference to citizens as stakeholders (most calls contain top level views); plus it includes a wide array of activities: in research, grassroots experimentation and evidence based policy making, but it doesn’t specify anything with regards to prefered methods - in our case online engagement and coordination space.

Deadline: 31 March 2015 !! so next year

http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/2476-inso-5-2015.html

Do you guys have some other call in mind that we can work around?

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That’s the most relevant I saw too. There is also the ICT for Learning and Inclusion call which focuses on digital exclusion, but it’s less comprehensively relevant to Edgeryders than the call you mention. Here is the background to the Social Innovation Community call.

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Collective intelligence at work

Hey Noel,

Can you summarise the key points from the two documents you link to above?

Reasoning: If we all get into the habit of summarising key relevant points in any EU application related document we come across,  we save time for one another in the ling run as we can cover more ground if we don’t need to replicate work. And probably makes it faster to build partnerships or join other ones as people new to the conversation can quickly get up to speed on what’s going on. Look at the example exchange between Alberto and Matthias here as a reference…

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Check call focus, what is funded & how, and person responsible

Hi Guys,

In order for the process to work we need two things:

  1. Familiarising oneself with the funding body's understanding and assumptions around the questions. Including how they define the different concepts, you can check this by looking at the documents the concerned publish including vision papers and slides (e.g. look at links for the different sessions in the ICT For Societal Challenges track here)
  2. Two persons  in charge of coordinating the work and ensuring the application is submitted in time. This does NOT mean these persons do all the work: the only way an application can be completed is through a team effort of people tied to the different organisations involved. It means we have two persons taking on some additional task of keeping track of the requirements of the different parts of the application, and ensuring they finished well in time for the deadlines. Ideally at least one of them has been involved in successful EU research funding applications before, and the other is a newbie. This way we increase likelihood of successfull applications and train more people in the community to be able to do this, p2p. Noemi and Noel, since you two are the first here are you up for this together?
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That’s what it looks like

Sure, me and Noel have worked together before, and luckily he has experience with this sort of things. Still going through the different forms and requirements, will publish my synthesis in a week’s time at the latest.

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Yep, will do

Good idea, will summarise key aspects of document. Estimated date of completion next Tuesday.

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Erasmus Plus instead of Horizon 2020

Unfortunately I haven’t yet got to grips with Horizon 2020, but a programme which could help fund community building in a different way is Erasmus Plus. For that, here is the briefing, any questions do let me know!

Erasmus Plus

The new programme combines the former Erasmus programme which coordinated student exchanges, vocational training & internships between countries, the European Voluntary Service and the Youth in Action programme which focused on youth exchanges to develop projects across borders. All of these programmes will be managed by national agencies.

In addition to this, Erasmus Plus includes work on developing strategic partnerships in the areas of education, training & young people between different organisations and capacity building between EU & non-EU countries. These programmes on the other hand will be managed centrally by the European Commission.

Every Erasmus+ funded project will need to show it will improve

·         young people’s skills, in particular those with fewer opportunities

·         their opportunities to participate in society and the economy

·         dialogue between people from different cultures

·         desire by the participants to want to take part in future learning after the project

·         the international dimension of youth activities & mobility

·         the sustainability of the organisation/s coordinating

Projects will need to reflect one or more of the following policy priorities:

·         young people’s social inclusion and well-being, such as tackling youth unemployment

·         promoting healthy behaviours;

·         raising awareness about European citizenship and the rights that go with it

·         encouraging young people to get involved in EU policy-making

·         developing transferable skills, like entrepreneurship & digital skills

·         use creative learning approaches

Youth Exchanges:

Youth Exchanges allow groups of young people from different countries to meet and live together for up to 21 days. During the exchange, people would carry out a work programme (workshops, activities, etc.) that they would design and prepare beforehand.

The exchanges would need to enable young people to develop new skills & knowledge, discover new ways of doing, living & thinking and strengthen values of solidarity and democracy.

The exchange would need to be run by two or more from different countries within and outside the European Union. They can last from 5 – 21 days.

The EU would fund approximately €80 Euros per person for travel and €40 per person for paying for implementation of the exchange.

The following deadlines are 17 March, 30 April and 1 October, with projects starting three months after each deadline.

Structured dialogue meetings between young people and policy makers

This programme focuses on better involve young people in democratic processes with decision makers on youth policy so that they can influence policy making. The young people would not only decide what topics they want to discuss, but design the project.

The types of events can include national or transnational activities, such as debates, seminars, workshops, simulations. These could run from 3-24 months and need to involve a minimum of 30 young people. The EU would fund approximately €80 Euros per person for travel and €40 per person for paying for implementation of the exchange.

The deadline is 30 April to apply.

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More than one proposal

[noelito], there is no reason why we should not make several proposals, as different people take the lead on different proposals. The “structured dialogue” thing is very much in sync with the whole Egderyders history (in LOTE2 we tried something called “The Policy Hero Challenge” and got a pretty deep and frank discussion with people at the European Commission. I can’t search for links now as I am on the road, but I am sure you’ll find them). Trying it out under the Egderyders banner might work well, given the strong community and ER’s Euro-lineage. 

So here is my idea: if you would like to pursue this as Edgeryders LBG, I think (subject to what other directors say) we are game. The deal would be the usual: you are recognized as an Edgeryders LBG representative for this project. You write the application and the budget; budget your own fee into the project. If you get it (that means Edgeryders gets it) Edgeryders hires you to run the structured dialogue. 

I would suggest casting your Structured Dialogue event as… LOTE4. We have the LOTE series of events (another strong point) and baking this thing into the new LOTE would give us an anchor, some people would be funded to travel to it, and this would make everyone’s life much easier in making LOTE4 happen. [Dorotea] is following this, and of course she would need to sign off to it, but I don’t see why she should not. What say you, Dorotea?

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good idea

yes, I think in general it’s a good idea,

I will just have to take a closer look at it (the formal part)

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LOTE4

That sounds good @alberto. @noemi, @k11 and myself put in an application for LOTE under predecessor to Erasmus Plus (see Recycling Bin). @dorotea, let me know if we can add LOTE4 method into Structured Dialogue proposal and we can go from there.

Regarding youth exchanges, if we can find three partners from three different countries which have distinct methods of informal learning that help young people develop skills, we’ve got a project. A few youth organisations I’m working with under #foundgeneration could provide this for UK side, would unMonastery be up for hosting young people and immersing them in unMon environment (@ben / @ilariadauria?)

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ER representative

Quick thought: We’ll need to submit the application to a national agency. If these things are run similarly to the Youth in Action which I suspect they are (by looking at the application form) this means the person signing it off on behalf of Edgeryders needs to be a UK resident.

This was in fact not specified back in the YiA, but apparently the fact that I was not residing in the UK was not ok and part of the application dismissal:

" from an organisational point of view there must be a UK contact person  and any grant must be paid into a UK bank account. There are rules in the programme requiring participants representing a particular country to be resident in that country, I presume this applies for organisational staff as well."

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yes

@ [noelito] I think the answer is yes,

what should I do on my part ?

how can I help ?

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Thanks @dorotea, it would be good to get a description of what LOTE4 would like to achieve and the types of activities envisaged (in particular that might be different to LOTE3). Thanks!

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ok

@ [neolito]

ok , when should I prepare it for ?

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So deadline is 30 April for the funding, so I would suggest 1 April. Suggest we organise a #formstorm in next fortnight to craft application form on youth exchange and one for structured dialogue. How about 2nd March?

Who’s in?

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Issues to solve before working on the actual application.

Hey, just saw this. I can’t join you guys as I’m away from the city during this weekend… But can definitely help as I’ve been through this before.

Alberto is right, we can use a lot of content from our Policy Hero Challenge Application, and here are some points I drew from reading the Programme Guide (see p.143 for eligibility and allocation of funds):

  • Number of participating organisations: For international meetings, the activity must involve at least two participating organisations from at least two different countries
  • Venue: The project must take place in the country of the applicant organisation.
  • Eligible participants: Young participants: young people aged between 13 and 30 from the countries involved in the project. Decision-makers: if the project foresees the participation of decision-makers or experts in the youth policy field, these participants can be involved regardless of their age and geographical provenance.
  • Minimum 30 young participants must be involved in the project.
  • Maximum Grant Awarded: 50000 EURO
  • Travel grants for participants are given based on the distance - example: For travel distances between 100 and 499 KM: 80 EUR per participant ; For travel distances between 500 and 1999 KM: 170 EUR per participant 

It almost duplicates the structure for Youth in Action, and the main issue that I see: We need to make sure we have at least 2 partners in every country we suspect Edgeryders joining Lote4 would come from! This was an issue in our former application, and it is now too because you need to decide in advance how many ERs in each country, so you are in fact limiting funded participation and highly restricts the variety of people joining. The more countries and nationalities you include, the more partners: :-(

Guess what: It’s also the British Council in the UK who is managing the application process as a National Agency:

It seems they require the applicant to be registered at the European Commission Authentication Service (ECAS) http://www.erasmusplus.org.uk/how-to-apply

Also need to mention that we need to get the partners well in advance. If their procedure will be same as last year, the person running the application on behalf of Edgeryders (a resident in UK who can sign the application and be the contact person!! not sure Noel can sign an Edgeryders application?) needs to collect all signed partnership agreements in original. They don’t accept scanned copies!

So my suggestion is that we first make sure we can meet all of these conditions and have someone to coordinate this, participate in the British Council webinars or send inquiries with list of questions we might have. Then rephrase the application we had based on input about Lote4 - which by the way will need to happen in the UK (Edgeryders LBG registered there + see bullet point #2 above).  I can’t coordinate this as I can’t sign for ER, being based in Romania, but will help as much as possible!

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ECAS == done

Edgeryders is already registered with ECAS.

What Noemi says about needing two organizations per country is, if true, complete idiocy. I really hope she is interpreting in too rigid a way the regulation. Anyway, her plan is sound, especially in the part about getting firsthand info from the British Council. [noelito], if you want to go ahead with this probably it’s best to start a wiki and collect a list of questions to ask.

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unfortunately it is…

… as per the email i received post Policy Hero application: Two partners for each country where you expect participants in the event will come from

So are we doing this…? If a yes then I can help organize the call/ form storm where we could, in 1 hour, put down all questions, inventory all our network and prepare partner invitation emails.

I do recommend that at the time of the call we all get the reading checked, otherwise we’ll get stuck in technicalities. [Dorotea], [Noelito]?

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We’ll you’ve got European Alternatives & Edgeryders from the UK, Cluj Hub (and Start Focus if I recall) as our previous partners from Romania? EA Warsaw are also on board as per the previous application and potentially EA Lublin from Poland. I think we can do this. I’m in.

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This is gone, right?

It is March 27th; the deadline is March 31st, so I guess this is gone unless someone did a lot of preparatory work I am not aware of. Shame.