Science with and for Society has a vital role to play in bringing together a wide range of stakeholders in order to build capacities and develop innovative ways to connect science to society through Responsible Research and Innovation measures. This demands that the Science with and for Society National Contact Points (NCPs) are able to orientate in the wide area of policy behind the programme, its topics and research areas as well as in Horizon 2020 rules and regulations and in addition, they need to have extensive knowledge of the different groups of stakeholders, in order to be able to fulfil their job. The proposal focuses on identifying and sharing good practices and raising the standard of proposals by organising joint activities of NCPs. The consortium ensures a balance of experienced NCPs and newcomers in order to build on knowledge and enhance skills and competences of all NCPs within the programme. This will result in more consistent and improved NCP services which will enhance participation in Science with and for Society calls.

The WaterWorks2017 project is pooling resources from the 23 participating research programme owners / managers of 19 countries to implement a joint call for proposals, with EU co-funding in the area of closing the water cycle gap. It will support delivery of priorities identified in the Water Joint Programming Initiative (Water JPI) Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) in order to reconcile water supply and demand, both in terms of quantity and quality, and also in terms of space and time. It covers the following sub-themes: • Enabling Sustainable Management of Water Resources; • Strengthening Socio-economic Approaches to Water Management. WaterWorks2017 includes 8 organisations from associated and third countries in an effort to reinforce international cooperation. Additional Activities will also be carried out to further support the implementation and strategy of the Water JPI. The overall aims include: • Supporting the implementation and development of the Water JPI on priorities identified in its SRIA; • Pooling financial resources from participating national and regional research programmes and implementing a co-funded transnational and multi-disciplinary call for research and innovation proposals; • Pooling additional financial resources to implement a joint call for proposals resulting in grants to third parties without EU co-funding (through a Thematic Annual Programming action - TAP); • Overcoming the fragmentation of European water related research, development and innovation (RDI) activities while avoiding overlaps with ongoing actions co-funded by the European Commission and/or the Member States; • Improving the implementation of research and innovation programmes in these fields through exchange of good practices; • Contributing to the implementation of EU Water policies, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG 6 and SDG 13, as well as the conclusions of the COP21 Agreement; and • Seeking synergies with international research programmes beyond Europe.

ERA4Health Partnership Phase 2 is aimed to integrate new additional activities to the current ERA4Health Partnership. The main ambition of the partnership it is the contribution to the goal of Europe to be at the forefront of science and innovation in Health Research by 2050 and enhancing the biomedical research to provide a better health for citizens, not only in Europe but at international level. To be able to achieve this aim, ERA4Health Phase 2 will pursue the following specific objectives: SO1. Support relevant medical research including clinical fields and intervention areas (prevention, diagnosis, treatment) SO2. Improve the utilisation of existing health technologies in clinical practice SO3. Build capacity, in particular in conducting IICSs at European scale SO4. Implement and advance the practice of RRI across the breadth of the programme This Phase 2 of the Partnership will continue supporting relevant medical research and new knowledge generation in the research priority areas stablished in the ERA4Health long-term Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA), with a particular focus devoted to support and fund multi-country Investigator-Initiated Clinical Studies (IICS). The research priority areas included in the SRIA are: nutrition and life-style related diseases, prevention and public health strategies, cardiovascular diseases, nano and advanced technologies for disease prevention, diagnostic and therapy. ERA4Health will fund non-commercial multi-country IICS to enhance this impactful and added value clinical research. The additional activities in ERA4Health Phase 2 will serve to provide support and building capacity in conducting multi-country IICSs and to overcome the identified challenges and obstacles in these type of IICSs.

The WaterWorks2015 proposal responds to the Horizon 2020 (H2020) Societal Challenge 5 2015 Call topic Water-3 [2015]: Stepping up EU research and innovation cooperation in the water area. WaterWorks2015 aims at pooling resources from the 32 participating research programme owners / managers of 23 countries to implement a joint call for proposals, with EU co-funding in the area of sustainable water use in agriculture and forestry. It's a collaboration between the Joint Programming Initiatives (JPIs), Water JPI “Water Challenges for a Changing World” and FACCE JPI “Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change”. Achieving a “sustainable water use in agriculture, to increase water use efficiency and reduce soil and water pollution” is at the intersection of the two JPIs, contributing to the implementation of their respective Strategic Research Agendas. WaterWorks2015 includes 9 organisations from associated and third countries in an effort to reinforce international cooperation. Additional Activities will also be carried out to further support the implementation and strategy of the Water JPI. The overall aims include: • Increasing the value of relevant national and EU R&D funding by concerted and joint planning, implementation and evaluation of national research programmes; • Pooling financial resources from participating states towards the definition and implementation of a Co-funded transnational and multi-disciplinary Call for research and innovation proposals. The aim of the Call will be to support the implementation of initiatives and environmental policies, in particular those related to water and agriculture & forestry, as a way to increase water use efficiency and to reduce soil and water pollution; • Overcoming the fragmentation of European water and agriculture/forestry-related research and innovation activities; • Supporting the implementation and the development of the two Joint Programming Initiatives, seeking synergies in overlapping research issues.

Engineering and in general STEM (Science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education and practice is expensive, can drain precious resources (materials, energy etc.) and can be very time consuming (in setting up of physical experiments and different trial and error efforts). That is why numerical modelling is steadily gaining ground in a range of STEM related fields ranging from mechanical reliability of bridges to the design of medically implantable devices. Numerical modelling allows for quick and inexpensive testing without needing to build physical devices, gives insight and understanding into different phenomena, can be used to design products/solutions and can be used to optimize processes. Furthermore in order to create real world solutions and to transform the education, the technical training needs to be coupled with business training. PYTHAGORAS addresses those needs and will provide a total of 8 educational modules (physical and online) covering topics from numerical modelling and design to entrepreneurship and business skills. Those modules can stand alone and can be used to update and modernize existing curricula. The education will be applied for solving real life problems with (3 expected) case studies specified from Egypt and Tunisia and with the students presenting a business case on the solutions they developed. The training will be for the next generation of innovators: University graduate and undergraduate students and professionals (target is over 200) and for professors who will be shaping the next generation of students (target 20). The activities also include setting up of interconnected labs and engaging the labour market. The impact will be on increase of the skill set of the participants, improvement of employment prospects, development of an engineering innovation culture where modernized knowledge (based on advanced numerical and digital methods) is applied and taken to the market.