The Grant

The one thing that has the potential to fundamentally change the area of EU R&D funding for good is the development of Artificial Intelligence. ChatGPT broke through a year and a half ago and the development of this technology and available services – free as well as paid – are going at the speed of light.

In The Grant editor’s office I am of course following this closely. So, I have decided to makes a AI series where I dig into this in more detail. And of course I do this with some of the sharpest professionals on the topic: independent consultant and AI-Chat-guru Kristjan Zemljic and Senior Consultant and very pro-active AI-Chat-user Rita Gil Mata.

In this first episode we have a look at the most important different AI-chat tools available at the moment and what are the differences between them. We also shortly touch upon how my guests are using them.

Time codes:

00:01:37 Introduction

00:06:12 Fly in on AI Chatbots

00:26:29 Outline of the tools

00:44:35 Explaining how the tools they work

00:58:08 Practical examples

I start to have quite some research organisations that have passed through The Grant and it is always very interesting to dig into how they are working. It also means I can start to move into some more specific topics instead of a general conversation about how they work with EU funding.

One of my old colleagues from PNO now works for the French public research organisation INRAE. This organisation has chosen to develop sort of an internal grants consultancy unit. Not private in the sense that they are on the open market, but they are being ‘hired’, so to say, by some of the many many institutes under the INRAE umbrella.

I wanted to get an idea of how that set up works in all practicality and open up the window a little bit and get a peak view into one the largest R&D organisations in Europe.

I managed to get three nice INRAE people onboard to share to project’s idea way from the research lab to the consultant and towards project implementation. Yohan Lecuona, Louise Vaast and Karine Latouche share these insights with you all and me.

It became a long talk and therefore it has been divided into two episodes. Last week in the first half we dug into the specific organisational structure of INRAE in relation to EU R&D funding acquisition and we went through, step-by-step, the path from the idea pops up in a research team and to the submission of a proposal….and eventual project implementation. In this second half the panel unfolds a concrete project as an example of the approach.

Time codes:

00:02.41 BATMODEL project – introduction

00:16: 54 Collaboration process building project

00:30:33 Proposal preparation process

00:42:52 Submission and beyond

00:45:23 Learnings and experience

00:51:53 The toughest challenge

I start to have quite some research organisations that have passed through The Grant and it is always very interesting to dig into how they are working. It also means I can start to move into some more specific topics instead of a general conversation about how they work with EU funding.

One of my old colleagues from PNO now works for the French public research organisation INRAE. This organisation has chosen to develop sort of an internal grants consultancy unit. Not private in the sense that they are on the open market, but they are being ‘hired’, so to say, by some of the many many institutes under the INRAE umbrella.

I wanted to get an idea of how that set up works in all practicality and open up the window a little bit and get a peak view into one the largest R&D organisations in Europe.

I managed to get three nice INRAE people onboard to share to project’s idea way from the research lab to the consultant and towards project implementation. Yohan Lecuona, Louise Vaast and Karine Latouche share these insights with you all and me.

It became a long talk and there it has been divided into two episodes. In the first half we dig into the specific organisational structure of INRAE in relation to EU R&D funding acquisition and we go through, step-by-step, the path from the idea pops up in a research team and to the submission of a proposal….and eventual project implementation. Next week the panel unfolds a concrete project as an example of the approach.

Time codes:

00:02.18 Introduction

00:08:15 Fly in INRAE

00:28:49 INRAE and INRAE Transfert SAS

00:51:43 The chain from lab to consultant

This is the third of the three first episodes of The Grant Shorts. I zoom in on my time in the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation and you have just listened to the first two episodes with a general introduction to that work and resuming the things that National Contact Points can help you with.

Here in the last episode on my work in the agency I zoom in on the role as Programme Committee member under the EU R&D framework programme. I was in the programme committes for energy programme and for the former SMEs programme - now EIC.

I have divided into three short chapters explaining the main elements: the function of the Programme Committees, the working procedures and how to get your voice heard.

Time codes:

00:01:52 Introduction

00:03:13 Function of the Programme Committees

00:08:08 Working procedures

00:18:18 How to get your voice heard

This is the second of the three first episodes of The Grant Shorts. I zoom in on my time in the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation and you have just listened to a general introduction to that work. In this second episode I zoom in on my role as National Contact Point.

The episode focus on how you as a beneficiary can get support from the National Contact Points and it is divided into four short chapters explaining the main elements: Guidance in Horizon Europe, Intellectual Property Rights, Meetings you can request and the information activities.

Time codes:

00:01:51 Introduction

00:04:15 Guidance on Horizon Europe

00:10:16 Intellectual Property Rights

00:13:03 Meetings with beneficiaries

00:15:14 Information activities

I have decided to make a short format to offer more concentrated episodes, but still with the same elements you already: Insights – Help – Support – Guidance – Advice – Reflections…and a few laughs along the way

Once per month I will release episodes in this format and I will start out with batches of three episodes per release. In the first months I will zoom in on my career and the different roles that I have had and share with you the insights I have acquired over my 15 years career.

Here in the first three episodes I zoom in on my time in the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation. The first short episode is a general introduction, the second zoom in on my role as national contact point and the last third episode digs into my work as Programme Committee member in the framework programme.

Time codes:

00:01:53 Introduction

00:03:24 Introduction to National Contact Point work

00:12:47 Introduction to Programme Committee work

Building up an EU funding approach from scratch in a research institute can seem like a monumental task. And it is. Especially if you are more or less one person to start it off. How do you attack that? How do you get the research teams involved? How do you secure some sort of results coming in not to late? And how do you build up the international and - not least – the Brussels network?

Stephanie Harfensteller, EU-Research Coordinator at the ICT research institute FIR an der RWTH Aachen, did exactly this. She had the idea to get the institute rolling with EU funding and the management agreed. She is a good old contact of mine and of course I had to invite her in to share this great story. Because great it is! After a decade the institute is now very comfortable in its work with EU R&D funding and the research teams are now reaping the fruits of sticking its neck out and investing resources in moving into this area.

This episode offers lots of insights and advice on how to work with EU funding in a research institute and not least on how to build it up.

Time codes:

00:03:08 Introduction

00:08:22 Fly in on FIR an der RWTH Aachen

00:12:35 Motivation for starting

00:22:40 How did you do it? Internally

00:45:39 How did you do it? Externally

01:!3:20 Do's and don't's

01:15:22 The toughest challenge

Startups and EU funding is unfortunately not a very successful match. Both sides struggle a lot to meet the other one, but the meeting most often results in frustration, anger and misunderstanding.

This episode’s guest, entrepreneur and startup founder, Violetta Bonenkamp, wrote a blogpost about the horrors of getting involved in EU R&D funding. And she slams both the proposal phase, the evaluation regime and the project implementation. It was heart-breaking to read, but also relieving that someone said it out loud.

The Grant is here to give these kind of people a voice and of course I invited Violetta into the virtual podcast studio. And it became a wonderful talk about the conditions of startups, the incapacities of EU R&D funding system to grab the concept of startups and not least some advice for other startups on what to do if you insist on approaching EU funding.

This is a priceless episode that Violetta and I really hope that EU Commission representatives also tune into…

Time codes:

00:01:55 Introduction

00:06:35 Resume of blogpost

00:33:35 EU funding - door breaker or treacherous sea

01:19:55 Advice and the toughest challenge

I have an endless amount of contacts from my many years working within this field. And they all have interesting things to share. One of my dear old contacts is Blaz Likozar from the National Research Institute for Chemistry in Slovenia. I dragged him into several of my proposals in the past and he became a much appreciated contact of mine.

Of course I have invited him into The Grant to share how they work with EU funding in their institute. Why? Because this organisation has managed to professionally build up their EU funding approach and pushing themselves into the European R&D networks doing exactly what many research organisations in the former communist countries are striving for.

We have a talk about how they have built up the approach and how the EU funding has lifted their research level, capacities and man power.

This episode offers nice insights on how to build up EU funding capacities in your research organisation with a limited amount of resources.

Time codes:

00:01:46 Introduction

00:05:25 Fly in on the research institute

00:07:37 Funding strategy

00:17:27 Communist legacy

00:24:10 Key research tracks and Horizon Europe

00:29:45 Concrete projects

00:35:35 Collaborative synergies

00:40:39 The toughest challenge

Some of the contacts I have acquired over the years are of big interest for many of you. This episode’s guest is surely one of them. He is the godfather of the brokerage concept. Thomas Roeblreiter, Consultant, FFG in Austria developed together with a contact the well-known company b2match which almost monopolized the market for brokerage and matchmaking event services.

I used to work on a proposal with Thomas and decided to drag him into the studio for a talk about how he and his business partner developed the business concept and then we have a good nice talk about the Enterprise Europe Network initiative that is supporting innovative SMEs also with internationalization and EU funding.

In this episode you have lots of information about the possibilities for SMEs in the Enterprise Europe Network and of course on what brokerage events they are and how you can use them.

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