H2020 info meetings set for Middle East

A series of meetings will be held over the coming months in the Middle East and North Africa to encourage universities and enterprises to take part in Horizon 2020 by working with European partners. The events will take place as part of the EU’s Med-Dialogue initiative.

Thies Wittig, an IT expert who conducted a two-day event in Beirut, Lebanon, explained to AnsaMed that submitting proposals to join with European partners “will increase your scientific experience, because an intercultural experience is priceless”.

Presentations are scheduled to take place during May in Algiers, Algeria; Tunis, Tunisia; Fès, Morocco; Cairo, Egypt; and Ramallah, Palestine. The events will demonstrate how actors can benefit from the EU research and innovation framework programme.

Enterprises and universities will be able to take part in a call for proposals by joining a consortium including at least three European partners, each of which must be from a different EU member state. Unlike FP7, purely academic consortia will not be admitted; every consortium will need to include at least one enterprise, with a particular emphasis on SMEs.

Wittig added: “European enterprises want to come to this region, but they need partners.”