Roadmap to R&I funding
A useful tool to define success R+D+I strategies
Conference
Format: Pecha Kucha
Topic: Proposal Development
Session: FOR2 - Pre-Award: 6 separate Pecha Kuchas
Thursday 5 May 11:45 a.m. - 12:45 p.m. (UTC)
Abstract
The Support Unit of European R&I projects is the operational structure allowing a systematic, effective and efficient maximization of participation in R&I European projects of researchers from the Rovira I Virgili University, and thus, of the Campus of International Excellence Southern Catalonia. The most important role the unit has in the pre-award process is facilitating project concept development and project drafting of the non-strictly scientific sections. The unit will coordinate meetings with researchers and technical staff to discuss guidelines, ideas, design options, and project scope. Roadmapping is a tool that allows us to guide the researchers towards interdisciplinary collaboration with the aim of diversifying the action fields of researchers and promoting talent attraction in emerging areas. • 1st step: create a Roadmap Market place of Research Groups by using the funding model canvas (standardised method to analyse current practices and support the development of new and competitive funding strategies for universities and research teams). Together with our researchers, we develop the funding canvas to ensure research and funding strategies are optimally aligned with the funding roadmaps of large funding bodies • 2nd Step: FIT High-ranking projects show a perfect fit between the proposals and call text. By using text mining techniques, a preselection of the keywords of the calls/topics was done and then these keywords are matched with the keywords of the research lines of our research groups. To optimise this fit, we assist in: Finding strong consortium partners - academic, industrial and other relevant stakeholders. Impact results will be achieved through 4 goals: • Align the strengths of the research lines of the Rovira i Virgili University with the Catalan Smart Specialisation Strategy • Enhance promotion and circulation of information on competitive funded calls • Improve the overall knowledge of the researchers and support technicians of the main financial tools for research funding. • Enhance the overall external funding of the research groups through competitive funding, mainly the Horizon Europe maximising external funding to nourish the proper functioning of the Unit in the form of human and material resources. First results of the Roadmaping too are very promising. Thus, during the first fifteen months of its application (from march 2020 to march 2021) the number of submitted H2020 proposals has increased up to a 12% and the overall external funding has increased up to a 53%.