Advisory services

Good advice is the key to success – from submission of the proposal to project implementation later on. Experienced and competent experts from various organisations provide advice and support on behalf of the public sector for (prospective) participants, starting with the preparation and submission of proposals to the implementation of research and innovation projects and their successful completion. All advice centres – both regional and national – make a valuable contribution, which Synergien.NRW supports in terms of how to dovetail funding programmes.

Regional support in North Rhine-Westphalia

Mandated by North Rhine-Westphalia’s regional government, the LeitmarktAgentur.NRW (NRW Lead Market Agency) is responsible for implementing regional innovation support financed from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). It supplies (prospective) participants with information and advice on the competition calls and processes the proposals submitted. It also plays an active role in designing the calls – from the selection procedure and project support to disbursement of funds. The regional clusters support the LeitmarktAgentur.NRW.

Similar services are provided by the district governments in North Rhine-Westphalia in the area of agriculture as well as North Rhine-Westphalia’s Chamber of Agriculture and the Gesellschaft für innovative Beschäftigungsförderung mbH (G.I.B. – Association for Innovative Employment Promotion) regarding the use of resources from other structural funds and EU sources for the labour market.

In the three innovation fields “Health”, “Food” and “Energy”, Synergien.NRW informs research and innovation stakeholders about the funding alternatives available in the thematically dovetailed support programmes and helps them make synergetic use of these possibilities for their research and innovation goals.

Horizon Europe (until 2021 Horizon 2020)

For advice on proposals within Horizon 2020, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, Germany and North Rhine-Westphalia have at their disposal a very dense, nuanced and above all competent network of advice centres:

• At regional level, the EU Officers at the universities, the EU specialists in the clusters and initiatives as well as the technology advisors of the chambers offer a broad portfolio of information and advice.
• In the context of NRW.Europa, the partners of the Enterprise Europe Network in North Rhine-Westphalia, among others ZENIT GmbH, also provide advice on funding opportunities within Horizon 2020. They supply information on call content, closing dates and participation rules, check project ideas in terms of their chances of funding and mediate contacts to the national and European contact points responsible for the programmes as well as to potential project partners.
• At national level, the network of National Contact Points advises proposers on all questions related to Horizon 2020 the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. The National Contact Points are officially appointed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and also make their specialist expertise available to the respective federal ministries.
• The European Liaison Office of the German Research Organisations (KoWi) is a joint service platform of an alliance of major German research organisations. It provides information and advice as well as training above all for researchers and decision-makers and the multipliers responsible for various research areas at universities and research institutions in Germany.

Synergien.NRW seeks to join forces with these advice centres and sensitises them towards the provision of cross-programme advisory services.