The goal of the EURAXESS Georgia Network Startup (hereinafter referred to asEuGeNeS) project is to start up EURAXESS Georgia, which will operate in harmony with pan-European EURAXESS and support research mobility, career development and international scientific cooperation at a national level. The primary objectives of the EuGeNeS are: 1. To establish the EURAXESS Service Centre at Georgian bridgehead organization with a leading role in coordination of the EURAXESS network at national level and representing Georgia at European level; 2. To set up and make fully operational EURAXESS Georgia network composed by the Georgian bridgehead organization (BHO), EURAXESS Service Centre (ESC) at BHO, and EURAXESS Contact Points (ECP) providing comprehensive information and personalized assistance for mobile and non-mobile researchers in their career development according to European quality standards; 3. To develop a fully operational Georgian national EURAXESS website integrated in the European EURAXESS portal. The website will cover 6 categories of information: (i) Jobs & Funding, (ii) Information & Assistance, (iii) Georgian network; (iv) Career development, (v) Partnering, (vi) News & Events. 4. To make Georgian national EURAXESS portal and network well adopted, popular and preferred source of information and support services for research mobility, career development, international for academic and scientific society, especially for outgoing, incoming or non-mobile professional researchers, as well as for research oriented institutions. 5. To implement and institutionalize good practices of information and service delivery to the non-mobile and mobile researchers and their families; facilitate operational sustainability of the EURAXESS Georgia network and safeguard viability of the Georgian national EURAXESS organization after the project completion on free of charge basis for the researchers in motion.

SCIENCE IS THE CAPTAIN project has the ambition to bring truly European style of celebrating science in the Eastern frontier of the European continent, by holding large-scale simultaneous events in 6 cities of Georgia, designed to - increase awareness among the general public of the importance of research by attracting people from different regions of Georgia, regardless of the level of their scientific background, as to contributing to creation of more favourable attitude towards Research and Innovation public funding and improve their understanding about the invisible role of research in bettering their daily lives and economic development of the country at individual, family and society level. - reduce the stereotypes about researchers and their profession by creating the open free platform for face-to-face interaction with researchers and engaging with pupils and students across the country in different entertaining and cognitive activities, fostering to bust the deeply held unfavourable perceptions about science career; - encourage young people taking up research careers by illustrating them the potential of science to accomplish a positive and sustainable change to the benefits of the country and the world; - Raise awareness and visibility of the work done by the European Union among the general public by disseminating the information and delivering key massages about EU policies, MSCA, Horizon 2020 and highlighting the EU’s role in education, culture and research within Europe and beyond. This will be achieved by carrying out a panoply of science communication and engagement pre-event and European Researchers’ NIGHT activities, spanning from classrooms to Open Labs and Museums, from Wine to Science, from Football Stadium to Shopping mall, from meeting with real Scientists to copycatting the image of Marie Sklodowska-Curie, from Medieval Castle to Astrophysical Observatory in order to show the unlimited potential and omnipresence of science.

Georgia, EU candidate country and one of the Widening countries in Horizon Europe Programme, needs urgent improvements in its Research and Innovation (R&I) system to cope with the fast pace of Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution and to become a valuable contributor to the European AI strategy implementation. The FORGE-AI project aims to significantly improve the innovation potential of the Georgia’s R&I system and provide a sustainable conditions for boosting research careers of young researchers across sectors, especially in the area of AI, by (1) strengthening innovation-related capacities of leading young AI researchers and research managers (“Talents”); (2) introducing and demonstrating the added value of cross-sectoral mobility & knowledge circulation, and (3) modernizing the national innovation supporting funding mechanisms to incorporate career-boosting principles. The innovation training component will involve at least 20% of all AI R&I talents of Georgia plus representative from neighbouring Armenia in the comprehensive blended learning innovation and entrepreneurship programme, thus equipping the young talents with competences for successful cross-sector careers. The secondment programme will allow 25 talents to spend, in total, 234 months on cross-sector cross-border secondments contributing to their employability and career prospects. The experiences collected through the project activities will compose a basis for national practices and policies in the field of research training improvements. The participation of major R&I funders, leading AI research performers, AI startups and NGOs from Georgia plus AI research company from Armenia, as well as leading European AI research centre, German University innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem and large European entrepreneurship and innovation network provides the critical mass of expertise.

The CALIPER project aims at driving a structural change process and implementing Gender Equality Plans in 7 Research Performing and 2 Research Funding organizations, involving the highest and middle management levels since the beginning to impact the whole institution. The project goal is to make research organizations more gender equal by increasing the number of female researchers in STEM, improving their careers prospects and integrating a gender dimension in research. CALIPER is featured by a broad geographic focus and an innovative approach based on engaging national and regional innovation ecosystems in the partners’ countries with a quadruple helix approach: the project will trigger and make internal changes and gender equality policies sustainable by orchestrating the core inward auditing/internal assessment and GEPs design with outward actions engaging external stakeholders to activate synergies at all different junctions of the ‘education-research- transfer to market of STEM research results’ chain. CALIPER will adopt an intersectional approach to gender equality issues, paying attention to the ways gender inequalities are linked to and intersected with other discriminations. CALIPER will ensure its successful implementation by adopting a holistic methodology featured by capacity building support to build and sustain internal gender knowledge and expertise, mutual learning among partners, a participatory co-design of GEPs as well as 2 iteration levels for implementing and refining GEPs and a thorough monitoring and evaluation mechanism, leading to durable institutional changes. Thanks to the presence of a pan- European Professional association in the consortium and further dissemination actions such as the Caliper Charter and Code and awareness raising sessions on gender in research open to external stakeholders and other RPOs/RFOs , Caliper results have strong potentials to be multiplied both nationally and in other EU28 countries.