ACCESS4EU:NZ

This ACCESS4EU:NZ project seeked to establish a platform to increase awareness within the EU of opportunities for European researchers and organisations to participate in New Zealand’s (NZ’s) publicly-funded research and innovation programmes. The platform aimed to reduce impediments to European researchers seeking to participate in NZ’s research and innovation programmes through providing information on available opportunities and the identification of prospective partners in New Zealand.

Overview

Project title: Opportunities for access of European Researchers to the New Zealand Research System
Funding from the EU: Grant agreement no.: 244463
Project start: January 2010
Duration: 36 months
Project coordinator: Professor Martin Holland; University of Canterbury, UC (NCRE), New Zealand
Contact at the IB: Dr Gerd Rücker / Frauke Lindert

Partners

University of Canterbury, UC (NCRE), New Zealand
Royal Society of New Zealand, RSNZ, New Zealand
International Bureau of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) (IB), Germany
Sigma Orionis, SIGMA, France

Aims

The overall objectives of ACCESS4EU:NZ activity were two-fold:

To increase awareness and dissemination of access opportunities for Europe in New Zealand’s national research and innovation programmes
To provide outputs useful in the context of the JSTC meetings and the STC agreement.

Project activities were divided into 5 Work Packages (WP):

WP1 – “Mapping of access and opportunities for European Researchers”

An overview of programmes that can or could allow European participation
Specific rules for European participation
Issues relating to collaboration structure
Identification of NZ capability, and any capability gap
Possibilities and conditions for funding of European researchers
Identification of any specific costs related to compliance, e.g., audit costs, corporate structures, taxation.

WP2 – “Dissemination of information on access and opportunities for European researchers in NZ´s research and innovation programmes”

Developing a website for Access4EU:NZ
Developing a standard training package for European multiplieers

WP3 – “Building EU – NZ researcher connections”

A series of thematically based workshops, to be held in Europe, will allow intense discussions by groups of stakeholders from both NZ and the EU
Organising researcher networking and brokerage events

WP4 – “Monitoring and feedback”

Identification of European researchers already participating in New Zealand funds
A review of European participation in NZ schemes will be carried out to evaluate overall success rates, and number of proposals/projects including European researchers, as well as identify their areas of expertise.
A qualitative survey of European participation in NZ schemes will be conducted to determine perceived benefits to collaboration, and potential or actual barriers to participation in the NZ schemes.

WP5 – „Project Management“

Project implementation management and coordination of the project

Activities

29.04.10: The kick-off meeting was held as a web conference
May 2010: Official launch of the ACCESS4EU web portal with its RTDI data base on funding programmes open to European researchers and launch of the integrated NZ project microsite
08.06.2010: First meeting of all Access4EU coordinators for preparing a common dissemination strategy
27.-29.09.2010: Project promotion at the ICT 2010 in Brussels, proceeded by a brokerage event