The Maritime and Innovation Brokerage Event 2015 gathered over 100 people from all over Europe who were there to find partners for Horizon 2020 projects.

The event was opened by René Berkvens, CEO of Damen Shipyard groups, and followed by presentations and discussions about the Horizon 2020 work programmes. New for this year’s programmes are the two-step approach, which allows the consortiums to send in only 10 pages in the first step of the application process. First opportunity to send in an application is 26 January. Selected applications will be able to continue for a full application in September.

All work programmes can be found on Horizon 2020 web page and several opportunities exist that might be of interest for the maritime sector, for instance:

MG – 2.1 Innovations for energy efficacy and emission control in waterborne transport

MG 2.4 Complex and value added specialized vessels

MG 3.3 Safer Waterborne transport and maritime operations

MG 2-3 New and improved transport concepts in waterborne transport.

B-G-02 High value-added specialized vessel concepts enabling more efficient servicing of emerging coastal and offshore activities

MG-2.2 Development, production and use of high performance and lightweight materials for vessels and equipment

MG-7.3 The port of the future

BG-04 Multi-use of the oceans marine space, offshore and neat-shore: enabling technologies

The audience were given several advices when applying for the Horizon 2020 calls:

• Focus on the challenge that the call is trying to solve
• Show the impact the project might have
• Take your project idea and try to find a consortium

Actors that already have a project idea but lacks a consortium might be able to find partners on the Enterprise Europe Network web site, or by registering their profile on the online partner profile for Horizon 2020 projects.

Text: Carolina Kihlström