The WaterWorks2017 project is pooling resources from the 23 participating research programme owners / managers of 19 countries to implement a joint call for proposals, with EU co-funding in the area of closing the water cycle gap. It will support delivery of priorities identified in the Water Joint Programming Initiative (Water JPI) Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) in order to reconcile water supply and demand, both in terms of quantity and quality, and also in terms of space and time. It covers the following sub-themes: • Enabling Sustainable Management of Water Resources; • Strengthening Socio-economic Approaches to Water Management. WaterWorks2017 includes 8 organisations from associated and third countries in an effort to reinforce international cooperation. Additional Activities will also be carried out to further support the implementation and strategy of the Water JPI. The overall aims include: • Supporting the implementation and development of the Water JPI on priorities identified in its SRIA; • Pooling financial resources from participating national and regional research programmes and implementing a co-funded transnational and multi-disciplinary call for research and innovation proposals; • Pooling additional financial resources to implement a joint call for proposals resulting in grants to third parties without EU co-funding (through a Thematic Annual Programming action - TAP); • Overcoming the fragmentation of European water related research, development and innovation (RDI) activities while avoiding overlaps with ongoing actions co-funded by the European Commission and/or the Member States; • Improving the implementation of research and innovation programmes in these fields through exchange of good practices; • Contributing to the implementation of EU Water policies, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG 6 and SDG 13, as well as the conclusions of the COP21 Agreement; and • Seeking synergies with international research programmes beyond Europe.

Excellent EU programs push health R&I but are not sufficient. Synergy with strategic initiatives in MS and a new model for impactful collaborations are needed to address the challenges for health. ERA4Health brings the opportunity to increase EU transnational collaborative research funding by creating a funding body for joint programming in priority areas addressing EU Public Health Needs, with total duration of 7 years. ERA4Health focuses on tackling diseases and reducing disease burden and the following challenges: 1) the increasing demand for a better quality of life and a better care of patients, 2) the need to transform public health care systems in more effective, efficient, equitable, accessible, and resilient ones and 3) the need to strengthen disease prevention and health promotion. In this view, ERA4Health objectives are: .SO1- Support relevant medical research including clinical fields and intervention areas (prevention, diagnosis, treatment) .SO2- Improve the utilisation of existing health technologies in clinical practice .SO3- Build capacity, in particular in conducting Investigator Initiated Clinical Studies at EU scale .SO4- Implement and advance the practice of RRI across the breadth of the programme ERA4Heatlth will be implemented in 2 phases: . Phase 1 (2 years) will implement joint calls focused on nutrition and lifestyle-related diseases, cardiovascular diseases and nanomedicine (4 in two years). In parallel, it will establish a supporting framework to overcome the challenges in launching international IICSs joint calls. . Phase 2, if the EC approves it: additional multinational calls for IICSs and joint calls for other priority areas will be launched in accordance with the decision of the Health Programme Committee taken at the end of previous Phase 34 partners (20 from EU, 3 Third Countries associated to HE and 2 non-associated, non EU), will commit 90,510,000€, during the 3 first years, as financial support to third parties.

The National Contact Points (NCPs) play an important role in assisting potential applicants and project beneficiaries during their journey through the Horizon 2020 instruments. According to the EC Guide on the NCPs principles, they are responsible for raising awareness about available funding opportunities; advising and training potential applicants in the preparation, submission and follow-up of their grant proposals; providing support during the project execution as well as giving feedback on difficulties in the programme implementation. Thus, the NCPs constitute the main interface between the Programme and the R&I community in Europe and beyond, as well as between them and the EC. Basing on such a position, Net4Mobility+ aims at strengthening the consistency and professionalism of the NCPs for Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions – part of H2020 supporting international and intersectoral mobility and researchers’ career development. The consortium of 19 beneficiaries and 6 associated partners representing the Member States, Associated and Third countries will execute a set of activities tailored to the nature of MSCA and to priorities and capacity of the entire NCPs network, including needs of the “widening countries”. The focus on sharing expertise and good practices, transfer of knowledge to less experienced NCPs, joint support provided on a daily basis, enhancing knowledge and skills, broadening tools and methodology will facilitate the improvement of the overall professionalism of NCP services across and outside Europe. Outcomes of project events (training, twinning, seminars), jointly developed materials (guides, recommendations) and communication and dissemination platform (website, social media) will result in lowering entry barriers for newcomers, simplifying access to MSCA calls and raising the quality of applications. For reaching the project objectives and ensuring the impact, the consortium will work closely, keeping high management and quality standards.