Horizon Europe EU Funding: the 1st Webinar of the “Grant Workshop: from Idea to Implementation” by the Kharkiv IT Cluster

On November 5, the Kharkiv IT Cluster hosted a webinar dedicated to the European funding programmes Horizon Europe and Erasmus+. This was the first event in the series of webinars “Grant Workshop: From Idea to Implementation”. Representatives of Horizon Europe Office in Ukraine 2.0 took part in the event.

Igor Taranov, Head of Horizon Europe Office in Ukraine at the National Research Foundation of Ukraine, welcomed the participants. He emphasised the importance of organising events that raise awareness amongst Ukrainian researchers and innovators about EU funding opportunities. The Head of the Office 2.0 noted that events of this type contribute to increasing the success rate of applications submitted by domestic organisations and wished the participants success with their projects. Meanwhile, Liudmyla Lisova, Leading Officer of the Office 2.0, presented the EU’s flagship research and innovation programme, Horizon Europe.

Olga Shapoval, Executive Director of the Kharkiv IT Cluster, opened the webinar with welcome speech. Iryna Zolotaryova, Professor of the Department of Information Systems at the Semen Kuznets Kharkiv National University of Economics, who is also the Horizon Europe National Contact Point WIDERA, joined in with her welcome speech.

Other speakers who gave introductory speeches and presentations included:

• Svitlana Shytikova, Coordinator of the National Erasmus+ Office in Ukraine project, who outlined the structure of the Erasmus+ Programme to participants: the key actions KA1, KA2, KA3 and Jean Monnet; and the participation of partner countries and Ukraine;
• Dmytro Chumachenko, Associate Professor at the Department of Mathematical Modelling and AI at the National Aviation University Kharkiv Aviation Institute, Chair of the NGO Ukrainian Scientific and Educational IT Society, and Chair of the AI + Education and Science subcommittee, explained how a Ukrainian team can find their call and an international consortium using AI;
• Olha Levchenko, Programm Manager, Sigma Software University educational platform, analysed the risks faced by applicants to grant programmes and how to overcome them.

Generally, the webinar series “Grant Workshop: From Idea to Implementation” consists of four parts, each of them dedicated to different aspects of grant-related activities and designed to create a practical platform for exchanging experiences, developing project skills and establishing partnerships between representatives of the education institutions, civil society organisations, business and innovation sector. Three more webinars will take place on November 10, 13 and 17.

The target audience for the Grant Workshop are scientists, researchers and innovators who are new to grant-seeking, have ideas for international projects, but require practical knowledge on identifying calls, forming partnerships and preparing competitive applications; or who are already leaders or coordinators of international projects, grant programme managers and project management specialists seeking to enhance their skills in application preparation, consortium management, budgeting and reporting.

The organisers of the event are the Khariv IT Cluster in partnership with Horizon Europe Office in Ukraine 2.0, NRFU, Horizon Europe NCP WIDERA, the National Erasmus+ Office in Ukraine, the Ukrainian Scientific and Educational IT Society and Sigma Software University.