InFLAMES Flagship and MEP Ville Niinistö are organising a roundtable event on “Inflammation in Health and Disease” on 24 October from 13:30-15:00. The workshop will provide an opportunity to discuss between representatives of the European Institutions, researchers and stakeholders on inflammation and the lack of EU’s contributions to inflammation research, innovation and policies.

Immune responses play a key role in a wide spectrum of diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis, and more. InFLAMES is a collaborative ecosystem, consisting of over 300 researchers and dozens of industrial and public partners, aiming at understanding the normal and mistargeted inflammatory reactions in both health and disease. At this workshop we will have the opportunity to discuss between representatives of the European Institutions, researchers and stakeholders to discuss inflammation and the lack of EU’s contributions to inflammation research, innovation and policies.  

The event will take place at the European Parliament, room ASP 5E1. Sweet and savoury bites with coffee and tea are served to keep up the energy levels during the intriguing discussions. 

Short interventions will be given by

• Member of the European Parliament Ville Niinistö
• Director of InFLAMES Flagship, Academician, Academy Professor and Professor of Immunology Sirpa Jalkanen 
• Director of Turku PET Centre, Professor Juhani Knuuti 

InFLAMES is a joint effort of University of Turku, Åbo Akademi University and the associated ecosystem in Turku. It is an internationally recognised, top-level, immunological research and development cluster, supported by the Research Council of Finland.

To attend, please register here

Universities in South Sweden are hosting a networking event with UniLink, the leading Swedish network for university collaboration in academia on 19 October from 17:00-20:00. This will be an opportunity to meet and learn more about how academia in Sweden is collaborating with external stakeholders.

UniLink is a non-profit organisation that gathers Swedish universities with the purpose of strengthening mutual cooperation between science and society. This is primarily done through the exchange of experiences, training and development, international cooperation and the creation of mutual development projects. 

UniLink´s international focus is an outlook on how other countries work with and organise knowledge transfer between academia and industry. The association strives to cooperate with other organisations and networks in order to increase the exchange of experiences and cooperation between universities within the EU. 

The organisation aims to create international alliances with universities and other organisations in common areas of interest. UniLink organises international study visits to different countries and partners within the EU in order to exchange experiences regarding knowledge transfer systems and other ways of cooperation with the non-academic society. UniLink also invites organisations to Sweden for the same purpose.

This networking event will be an opportunity to learn more about Swedish universities' experiences with strategic partnerships, assignment training and impact plans.

This event is by invitation only: Please register by 16 October 2023 here.

On 8 November, the four Danish regional EU offices (South Denmark European Office, North Denmark EU Office, Central Denmark EU Office, Greater Copenhagen EU Office) are hosting an event highlighting products and good practices from Erasmus+ projects. It will take place at Avenue Palmerston 18 from 09:00-17:00.

Programme for the day:

• Network coffee & Welcome.
• Opening speech by Mrs. Pia Ahrenkilde-Hansen, Director General for DG Education, Youth, Sport and Culture.
• A series of good stories and workshop to try out tangible products and discuss good practices interrupted by a networking lunch.
• Panel discussion: Exploitation and uptake of tangible results and good practices from ERASMUS + projects what can we do better together?
• Networking drink.

Please register here.

For any questions please contact Henriette Hansen at hha@southdenmark.be or Louise Frilund at lfr@cphoffice.eu.

The Slovenian Business & Research Association (SBRA), in cooperation with Istanbul IT Valley, the Lithuanian RDI Liaison Office in Brussels (LINO), the NCBR Office in Brussels, Eötvös Loránd University and the National Research, Development, and Innovation Office in Hungary have the pleasure to invite you to Research & Innovation Transforming European Healthcare taking place in Brussels, Belgium.

The objectives of the conference are to:

• learn about current EU policies and programmes in healthcare research;
• gain knowledge of different research partnerships, associations, and other organisations (i.e., Swiss funding in research & innovation);
• promote research ideas, activities and achievements to the broader research & innovation audience in Brussels (EU representation offices of different national and regional research, innovation and business organisations);
• provide feedback to the European Commission and other speakers at the event.

The programme is available here.

Make sure to register here (deadline to register is 13 November 2023).

On 8 November, the four Danish regional EU offices (South Denmark European Office, North Denmark EU Office, Central Denmark EU Office, Greater Copenhagen EU Office) are hosting an event highlighting products and good practices from Erasmus+ projects. It will take place at Avenue Palmerston 18 from 09:00-17:00.

Programme for the day:

• Network coffee & Welcome.
• Opening speech by Mrs. Pia Ahrenkilde-Hansen, Director General for DG Education, Youth, Sport and Culture.
• A series of good stories and workshop to try out tangible products and discuss good practices interrupted by a networking lunch.
• Panel discussion: Exploitation and uptake of tangible results and good practices from ERASMUS + projects what can we do better together?
• Networking drink.

Please register here.

For any questions please contact Henriette Hansen at hha@southdenmark.be or Louise Frilund at lfr@cphoffice.eu.

On 10 October, a collaborative and interactive event was jointly hosted by ERRIN, MOSAIC and the European Commission during the European Week of Regions and Cities. This session brought together experts and stakeholders from across Europe to explore the significant role of multi-stakeholder engagement in advancing the journey towards climate neutrality for European cities. 

ERRIN has been actively involved in the EU Mission on Climate-neutral and Smart Cities, alongside other EU Missions, right from the beginning. The network has consistently advocated for a mission-driven approach, emphasising bottom-up and multi-stakeholders engagement, the promotion of multi-level governance and the creation of synergies with various other initiatives and projects. The event, which demonstrated the methodology used by the MOSAIC project, offered an opportunity to delve deeper into these essential features for the successful implementation of EU Missions. 

Patrick Child, EU Mission on Climate-neutral and Smart Cities Manager, opened the session by stressing three fundamental pillars in the journey towards climate neutrality: 

• The crucial role of the Cities Mission in fostering collaboration and synergy between various stakeholders and regions. Co-design and co-implementation of innovative solutions were identified as crucial elements for the success of the Cities Mission. 

• The importance of leaving no one behind in the pursuit of climate neutrality, ensuring strong connections between the EU, national and regional level. 

• The Climate City Contracts as an essential tool to make concrete investment strategies and the role of the City Advisors to assess the maturity and completeness of these strategies. 

The workshop showcased the innovative approaches of four Mission Cities, including ERRIN members and cities from MOSAIC project, in which ERRIN is a partner. Representatives from Cluj-Napoca, Dijon, Gothenburg, Milan, offered tangible examples of impact that multi-stakeholder engagement can generate to achieving climate neutrality. 

A dynamic fishbowl discussion enabled policymakers, citizens, researchers and representatives from various EU projects working on the EU Missions to share their perspectives and ideas concerning climate neutrality and co-creation. This interactive format created a dynamic and inclusive dialogue that underscored the importance of engaging a wide spectrum of stakeholders in the collective effort to make cities climate neutral. 

Finally, Philippe Froissard, Head of Clean Planet Directorate, DG RTD, European Commission, closed the session by underlining that multi-stakeholder engagement is essential for the success of cities’ strategies to climate neutrality, as shown by the examples and lessons learned in MOSAIC and NetZeroCities. 

Learn more about ERRIN’s engagement in the Mission on 100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities, MOSAIC and NetZeroCities projects. 

Voices of Culture (VoC) – the structured dialogue between the European Commission and the cultural sector – has published a Brainstorming Report on the Culture and Creative Sectors and Industries, the green transition and the energy crisis.

Culture and creativity offer a source of innovation for climate change mitigation, hold the key to reshaping behaviours and living practices meaningfully and at scale, and are a source of principles and behaviours for societal resilience in the face of climate change effects. The Report reveals a wealth of European initiatives (among which the recently published study Greening the Creative Europe programme and its Good Environmental Practices Guide) to support the greening of the cultural and creative sectors and industries and presents recommendations to build on and extend the effectiveness of those initiatives.

The VoC Report is aimed at both cultural practitioners on local, national and EU levels, and policy makers, providing them with useful tools and recommendations for their work. It will also inform the discussions of the upcoming Open Method of Coordination Group on the same topic – which is supposed to start its work in 2024, in line with the EU Work Plan for Culture 2023-2026. Voices of Culture is funded by the European Commission and implemented by Goethe-Institut.

The ICT Working Group is calling for regional examples of digital and cybersecurity skills for their upcoming working group meeting on 15 November. 

In the last decade, the digital transformation of our societies has underlined the critical need for digital skills and competences at all levels. This is particularly true in the field of cybersecurity, where experts from the European Union agency for cybersecurity (ENISA) evaluated that the EU’s cybersecurity workforce is lacking around 900,000 professionals.

The meeting will feature updates from the Commission on the latest initiatives in this area, as well as reflections from current projects. 

The ICT WG is looking for 2 regional examples to showcase during the meeting. Please send your contributions to rodolphe.doite@errin.eu and lucy.hammond@errin.eu by Tuesday 24 October. The e-mail should include a short description of the proposed example – a brief description of the activity/project and its goals and the actors involved in it.

In view of the annual strategy workshops that we will organise with all the Working Group (WG) and Task Force (TF) leaders in the second half of November, all members are invited to provide input on priorities, topics, and activities that should be addressed in 2024. This survey will focus on collecting your views on your overall R&I priorities, proposed activities for our 13 Working Group and two Task Forces as well as suggestions on how we could better tailor our support services.   

We advise each member to submit one input form per member organisation. Please consult your regional stakeholders and submit one form on behalf of the entire regional ecosystem, offering your ideas and feedback on priorities, topics, and activities for ERRIN in 2024. Your replies will help the Working Group and Task Force leaders and the Secretariat to prepare the network’s activities and services in a way that brings the most value to ERRIN members. 

Please provide your input through the form here.

The information collected will be shared with the WG and TF leaders and discussed during the strategy workshops. There will of course be additional opportunities to provide input throughout the year, and you are always welcome to contact WG  and TF leaders and the facilitators from the secretariat, but this is a key moment to influence the network’s strategic priorities for the year to come. 

The first conference of the series “Copernicus Dialogues” will take place on 27 October at the Polish Academy of Sciences – Scientific Centre in Rome. The focus of the first event will be Polish-Italian cooperation in the field of biomedicine. The conference is co-organised by the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) and the Research Council of Italy (CNR) with a strategic partnership of one of PAN research institutes. Participants of the event will discuss topics such as chronic pain and its treatment, pharmacology of brain diseases, protein corona and other areas of biomedicine important for our daily well-being. All stakeholders interested in the field of life sciences, health and biomedicine are welcome to join.

Please find attached a full agenda of the meeting, including speakers. You may register to participate via the registration form: https://forms.office.com/e/d9zjf5ngGY

The meeting will be an occasion to meet researchers from Poland and Italy, discuss relevant scientific questions as well as possibly engage in future collaborative research. PolSCA Office in Brussels will be there too, providing concise information on joint research funding opportunities of the Horizon Europe.