The objective of MSCA-NET is to facilitate the transnational co-operation between National Contact Points (NCPs) for the MSCA in order to achieve a consistent and harmonized level of NCP support. Next to developing support for the facilitation of daily challenges for all NCPs, we put the focus on lowering the entry barriers for new NCPs and offer particular support services for Widening and Third Country NCPs. This will in turn simplify the access of potential MSCA applicants all over the world, in particular from Widening and Third Countries. We thus contribute to the decrease of the R&I gap between EU Member States/Associated Countries and Widening/Third Countries. We aim at a higher quality and quantity of applications from non EU-Member States/Associated Countries. We will achieve our goals by a wide array of measures: Career Development Support for NCPs in the form of Trainings, Twinnings and Mentoring; the development of a tool box for both NCPs and the scientific community; and strategic capacity development and the creation of synergies with and among MSCA stakeholders. This includes systematic outreach to the non-academic sector. The project is structured into 5 Work Packages and has 27 Beneficiaries and 4 Associated Partners from all levels of experience and among all Horizon Europe country groups. The baseline for our support services to NCPs is a benchmarking exercise whose results will be fed into the various relevant tasks. We ensure the expected project impact by strategical monitoring of the project actions and well planned communication, dissemination and exploitation measures such as the development of an innovative project dashboard. The project's outcomes will be fed back to policy developers and stakeholders within clearly defined processes in order to guarantee a sustainable impact on a wider level. MSCA-NET will run for 36 months and has an overall budget of 1'870'357 Euro. The action is under the coordination of Euresearch in Switzerland.

The NCP4HE project has been designed, on one hand, to bring together and support the needs of the NCP National Coordinators and Legal & Financial NCPs communities and, on the other, to boost a closer and more efficient coordination and cooperation among the different NCP configurations through the infrastructures inherited by the Bridge2HE project, namely the HE NCP Portal and the NCP Virtual Campus, which the project will continue maintaining and developing, enlarging them in content, functionalities and userbase. A large series of activities involving training events, e-learning courses, pre-meetings, meet and exchange workshops, coffee-talks, and mentoring activities, have been planned to provide horizontal support to the whole NPC community, improve mutual learning, and create a structured space for exchange, with a particular focus on newcomers. NCP4HE will also prepare the ground for NCPs in the transition from Horizon Europe to the next Framework Programme working closely with the European Commission and their agencies to ensure a proper interaction with NCPs during that preparatory process. NCP4HE brings together a wide and comprehensive consortium of 36 NCPs host organizations from 22 MS and 9 AS countries, spanning three continents. Additionally, 11 of the 15 widening member countries are represented in the consortium. The project includes a balance mix of NCPs from countries with extensive participation in Horizon 2020 with NCPs coming from countries with low level of participation. This wide spectrum of partners is there to ensure that the project activities and outputs serve as many NCPs as possible, but also that the whole community needs are taken into account when designing and implementing the planned actions.

CARE4BIO serves the needs for transnational cooperation between NCPs for Cluster 6 as well as for cross-cluster cooperation within Pillar 2, but also with other programme parts such as Widening Participation. We comprise a well-balanced network of 26 partners, including partners from the EU-13 and Associated Countries, combing all levels of relevant experience and expertise. Many of us fulfil multiple roles, for instance also working in NCP_WIDERA.NET, NCP Academy or EEN, different clusters and pillars, or appointed as programme coordinators. We are well set-up to deliver on our objectives, namely to (1) harmonise NCP services and increase their quality via transnational cooperation, (2) lower entry barriers for applicants, especially in less active member states and raise the quality of submitted proposals, (3) inform the European R&D community about cross-cutting synergies throughout Horizon Europe. To achieve this, we will cooperate with other (NCP) networks such as the ones mentioned above, to share knowledge and best practices, maximise efforts on informing NCPs, applicants and stakeholders, thereby raising the quality of proposals, breaking down silos, and encouraging trans-cluster collaboration. We will cooperate with the European Commission to assist in delivering upon political objectives such as the EU Green Deal, guiding applicants on policies, and providing feedback from our work as NCPs. We also offer concrete services for applicants, e.g., by organising yearly brokerage events to aid applicants in forming their own cooperation networks, and by supporting other matchmaking efforts. Our services will include training, learning resources, best practice manuals, policy briefings, and more. While our services will be available to whoever needs them, our focus is on NCPs and applicants from widening countries. Ultimately, our goal is to raise the general standard of support for potential applicants of Horizon Europe, contributing to increasing the quality

NCP4Missions is a networking project of National Contact Points (NCPs) for the five EU Missions, representing 19 Member States or Associated Countries (MS/AC). The project provides continuous capacity building measures for NCPs (e.g. E-learnings, Deep Dives, Meet&Share, Mission Updates) to support less experienced NCPs and to provide more consistent Mission NCP services to applicants. Adding to this, brokerages, workshops and digital tools are offered to potential Mission applicants. The project will establish important collaborations with all relevant Mission stakeholders (e.g. Mission Hubs, Mission Implementation Platforms, NCP networks) to detect synergies and to foster potential joint activities. The projects’ activities pursue the following objectives: • Improving and professionalizing NCP support services for the EU Mission Calls • Lowering entry barriers for applicants and raising the quality of proposals • Enhancing the visibility of the Mission NCPs and the cooperation with other relevant stakeholders and networks Long-term impacts can be expected in the fields of policy, science and society. As NCP4Missions will function as interface between the European Commission (EC), MS/AC and the NCPs, a better exchange of information on the EU Missions will be triggered. This will affect political decisions on EC and national level in support of the implementation of the Missions. The consistency of NCP support services in Europe and beyond will lead to more equal opportunities of applicants of different countries. Through an enhanced knowledge base on Missions in R&I organisations, higher participation rates and a better quality of Mission-tailored proposals can be expected, resulting in innovative projects. Awareness raising and civil engagement activities will impact the environmental awareness, health and well-being of citizens. The projects’ actions will generate an increased participation of civil actors and social innovations in the Mission proposals.

The overall aim of GREENET is to improve the professionalisation and skills of the Cluster 5 (CL5) National Contact Points (NCPs) across Europe, simplifying applicants’ access to Horizon Europe (HE) calls and raising the average quality of submitted proposals. Starting from the assumption that the NCP role is crucial in order to raise the participation in HE in terms of both quality and quantity, the GREENET overall concept is that the CL5 NCP community requires knowledge, skills, competences and a proven comprehensive suite of tools to convey a message in a multicultural and multi-disciplinary environment such as CL5 and to effectively support its broad based constituency. Therefore, the project is based on three pillars: (i) NCPs capacity building and competence development, (ii) development of targeted and high quality services (events and tools) for CL5 applicants and stakeholders , (iii) CL5 community building and general mainstreaming of CL5 NCPs in Horizon Europe.