The overall mission of the Austrian EU Council Presidency conference on “Impact of Social Sciences and Humanities for a European Research Agenda - Valuation of SSH research in mission-oriented research” is to bring valuation (i.e. the provision of added value through SSH) and impact contributions of SSH research to transformative, mission- and challenges-oriented national and European research and innovation agendas to the forefront, to openly reflect and structurally discuss the topic in order to make it visible, debatable, verifiable and usable! In line with this mission, the objectives of the conference are 1. to provide a reflecting and forward-looking format to identify and appraise valuation pathways and impact generating processes within genuine SSH research and in inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary research activities that include SSH and arts-based research 2. to showcase, learn from and discuss structures and policies which are beneficial for an enhanced impact-orientation of SSH research at various level (e.g. project-level, institutional level [including measures and programmes], R&I policy-making level) 3. to make a contribution to tracing, assessing and measuring the use and impact of R&D activities from the field of SSH to the benefit of a transformative and mission-oriented European research and innovation agenda.

The project BrainTwin will enhance networking activities and strengthen the research collaboration in the field of Neuroengineering between leading research institutions in Romania, Germany and Spain with the support of knowledge transfer organisations from Austria and Germany. Neuroengineering is a discipline with high potential for the future that uses engineering techniques to study, restore, replace, or enhance neural systems. It comprises the application of engineering principles and techniques to the field of neuroscience. Bringing together research departments from medical sciences and engineering fields have the potential to achieve further significant progress e.g. in the comprehension and care of neurodegenerative diseases, as well as in the development of brain-connected prosthetics. The city of Iasi in the North-East of Romania is a strong research and higher education hotspot . The Technical University Gheorghe Asachi of Iasi (TUIASI) is an excellent university in engineering fields and is part of the North East Regional Innovative Cluster for Structural and Molecular Imaging (the only medical imaging cluster in Romania). For this reason, TUIASI have the strategy to develop a new centre for research and education in the field of Neuroengineering and will need the strong support of internationally-leading counterparts in Germany and Spain. This twinning exercise will enhance the scientific and technological capacity by knowledge exchange with a focus on early stage researchers, strengthen the research management skills and visibility of Romanian Neuroengineering Research in order to compete at international level and widen scientific excellence and innovation capacity of all the Partners. The development of an International Projects Support Centre for proposal preparation and project management/administration, as well as joint workshops and summer schools, short-term staff exchanges and expert twinning visits will permit to achieve these objectives.

The overall objective of the project is to unlock the untapped potentials of social innovations (SIs) to boost the EU Missions by promoting, activating, scaling and mainstreaming SIs and by engaging and advising SI funders, investors, social innovators and R&I policymakers at European, national and local level through a series of interconnected measures. To attain this objective, we will address four Key Actions: 1. Identify an evidence base of successful and - regarding the EU Missions - auspicious SIs and co-create suitable impact pathways and anchor points for the integration of SIs in future calls and topics of the EU Missions. 2. Provide training and advice through our Training and Scaling Lab about the opportunities provided by the EU Missions, by upgrading the skills of social innovators and support organisations for successful scaling and participation in calls of the EU and of private and public funders dealing with mission related themes. 3. Create a SI Funding and Investors’ Network to advise and engage private and public funding authorities in supporting, financing and scaling powerful SIs for the EU Missions’ purposes and by expanding the range of financial instruments with the help of a SI Investment Lab. 4. Establish a Community of Practice (CoP) to implement regular exchange and learning between EU Missions, the SI Funders and Investors’ Network and social innovators to meet demand and supply and to co-create a Research Agenda to make the best use of SI for the EU Missions. The Key Exploitable Results (KERs) of the project are a Catalogue of SI impact pathways (KER-1); Operational Training and Scaling Lab (KER-2); 30 credible scaling plans (KER-3); a committed funding network to support EU Missions established (KER-4); one financial Framework Partnership Agreement for a networked catalytic fund prepared (KER-5); A co-designed research agenda (KER-6) and >200 organisations engage in exchange and dialogue (KER-6).

TAIPI, Tools and Actions for Impact Assessment and Policy makers Information, is a CSA proposal to the “Policy environment for FET Flagships” topic of the call H2020-FETFLAG-2014. TAIPI addresses the scope of the this topic by undertaking actions related to: (i) Assessing the impacts of FET Flagship initiatives, including through metrics and indicators; (ii) Collection of information need for policy making, e.g. through consultation actions and surveys. The general objective of TAIPI is to support and strengthen the FET Flagship Initiative and the two selected Flagships. Specific objectives of TAIPI are: (i) To develop assessment methodologies along with the required toolkits which will be applied respectively to HBP and Graphene Flagships, (ii) To carry out the impact assessment of both Flagships and the Flagship policy by applying the specifically developed methodology and tools, (iii) To collect and provide information for policy makers and funding organizations participating to Flagships initiative, (iv) To transfer to the Flagships these developed toolkits, and to enable them to use these tools after the end of the CSA, thus ensuring the sustainability of the project activities. TAIPI is composed of 5 work packages: WP1 Management, WP2 Development of methodology, WP3 Impact assessment, WP4 Support to policy makers, WP5 Dissemination. TAIPI will assess the impacts of HBP and Graphene, enhance the flow of information from the Flagships towards policy makers, relevant stakeholders and wider public, improve the understanding of the impacts of the Flagships on science, technology, economy and society and contribute to create a stable and structured environment for the benefit of the FET Flagships. The environment created by TAIPI will thus benefit to the Flagships, allowing them to concentrate on the fields where they bring the highest added value to their stakeholders while they rely on up-to-date tools, developed by TAIPI, to monitor in real time their impacts.

The overarching goal of the NEUROTWIN proposal is to re-establish the Bogomoletz Institute of Physiology (BIPH) in Kiev, Ukraine as an international centre for excellence in Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience. This goal is set against a sound background of the existing infrastructure, intellectual traditions and the highly educated manpower. That is the adherence to modern procedures and international research environment which all have to be strengthened to achieve the European dimension and to integrate the Institute into European networks. We shall capitalise on the existing potential of international networking for excellence in Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience research, through knowledge transfer and exchange of best practice between BIPH and leading institutions from the UK, Austria, Portugal, Sweden and Germany. The specific objectives of the proposal target several key areas. They include implementing modern research approaches to scientific excellence and innovation capacity of BIPH via infrastructural changes, large scale knowledge transfer between partners, increasing competitiveness of the BIPH researchers in fundraising from international grant bodies. The quality of the scientific output of BIPH will be improved through continuous training of research staff in academic writing and boosting the quality of post-graduate education. NEUROTWIN will help to boost communication with the policy makers and relevant stakeholders in Ukraine to advocate the importance of neuroscience and neurology research for the improvement of public health and biomedical education. NEUROTWIN will step up and stimulate the scientific excellence and innovation capacity in the field of Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, as well as strengthening scientific collaboration and international standing of the partners involved.