Two trainings for ICT NCP Horizon2020 within EC project IDEALIST2014 were held on 10-11 December 2014 in Amsterdam, Netherlands:

a) Fast Track to Innovation
Fast Track to Innovation is a new, bottom-up driven logic testing a new approach for giving the development of innovations the last push needed before their introduction to the market. It is the only fully bottom-up measure in Horizon 2020 promoting close-to-market innovation activities for all types of participants. This workshop is aimed at more detailed in-sight into Fast Track to Innovation issues and analysis of the results for SME Instrument first call.

b) Consortium Agreements for Horizon 2020
This workshop explained the main features and options for consortium agreements for collaborative projects in Horizon 2020 (H2020). It will compare the DESCA, Digital Europe and EUCAR model consortium agreements and will cover the major terms of the EC grant agreement, which provides the context. The workshop was aimed at those negotiating consortium agreements: research managers, advisors and contracts staff. It is normally limited to 24 participants, to allow high levels of interaction and plenty of time for questions.
Director of R.I.T.A. Dr. Babayev participated in the trainings, which were useful for consulting Azerbaijani researchers in the issues of grant agreements for Horizon2020 in 2015.

11-14 November 2014 R.I.T.A. – Regional Innovative Technologies Academy hosted events organized by the European Commission – DG CONNECT, the International Relations Office of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, R.I.T.A. and the two EU-funded projects in Baku, Azerbaijan.
During 4 days the following meetings and workshops were held, including
• 11 November 2014: EECA-2-Horizon and East-Horizon projects meetings (cluster and separately ),
• 12 November 2014: The networking event which includes roundtables with representatives of European Technology Platforms and experts from the entire Eastern Europe and Central Asia countries, as well as face-2-face meetings among ICT actors from both regions;
• 13 November 2014: Horizon 2020 Eastern Partnership (EaP) Information Day “Research & Innovation in Information and Communication Technologies”;
• 14 November 2014: Evaluation of projects and Project Proposal Writing Training in the framework of EAST-HORIZON project.

The last day, Friday 14 November 2014, the training Event on the East-Horizon project took place at the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences. The training event was co-organised with the assistance of the EECA-2-HORIZON project. More than 15 experts from Industry and Research participated in the event.
The event envisaged presentations on such issues as future calls, how to participate in HORISON2020, write the right proposal and how proposals are evaluated by EC experts. Participants submitted their project ideas beforehand to be preliminary evaluated by EC experts and the East-Horizon coordinators.
Since most of the participants attended the InfoDay, the workshop focused on the discussion of the 12 proposals ideas submitted before the events.

On Thursday, 13 November Horizon 2020 Eastern Partnership (EaP) Information Day devoted to Research & Innovation in Information and Communication Technologies was held in Small Hall of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences.
The Information Day was opened with welcome speech of Dr. Gulam Babayev, Head of the Foreign Relations Department of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences.
More than 80 experts from Industry and Research participated in the event.
Following the detailed presentations of the HORIZON 2020 by the representatives of European Commission DG CNECT Mr. Morten Moller, Head of Unit F3, and Mr. Vassilis Kopanas, Unit D1 representative, an interesting panel session with both European and EECA representatives from Academia and Industry addressed the ways to further enhancing the cooperation between the EU and EECA.

http://www.eeca-ict.eu/usefull-information/events/icalrepeat.detail/2014/11/13/29/-/h2020-eastern-partnership-info-day

On 12 November more than 70 experts from Industry and Research participated to the event held in Kempinski hotel:
20 Europeans from Spain, Ireland, Poland Spain, Lithuania, Italy and France;
50 Experts from Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
After a short introduction of the cluster activities and the objective of the event, parallel workshops on each Technology Platform/Community were held.
A strong interest has been shown in all 3 areas.
27 experts participated in the NESSI workshop.
20 experts participated in the NEM workshop.
20 experts participated in the HPC workshop.

At the 3 workshops, the main technical aspects were analysed and the participants elaborated an action plan to further enhance the cooperation among the EU and the EECA.
This includes the creation of sub-groups, NEM-EAST and NESSI EAST and for HPC the organization of a workshop in the framework of the project and focusing mainly on HPC, with the keywords: education, end user, industry, platform infrastructure.

http://www.eeca-ict.eu/usefull-information/events/icalrepeat.detail/2014/11/12/28/-/networking-event-community-building