#	Pagina
attuale pagina	/open-h2020/projects/197906/results.html

Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SoMoPro 3 (South Moravian Programme for Distinguished Researchers 3)

Teaser

Summary

SoMoPro 3 is the third generation of a regional fellowship programme established in 2009 after a successful application to the COFUND scheme. The programme incorporates main features of MSCA Individual Fellowships and offers incoming researchers attractive fellowship conditions and environment in Brno, the capital of South Moravian Region. Within this programme, 2 calls for proposals have been open and 18 research fellows have been funded.

What is the problem / issue being addressed?
The SoMoPro 3 programme was designed to meet the general objective of stimulation of the regional, programme to foster excellence in researchers\' training, mobility and career development and contribute to the Regional Innovative Strategy of the South Moravian Region (below as the RIS SMR) The S 3 programme has all features of the scheme, i.e. international, intersectoral and interdicisplinary research training, as well as transnational and mobility of researchers at all stages of their career, is open to researchers from all countries. Researchers to comply with the mobility rules of the MSCA under open and transparent recruitment, with vacancies widely publicised. In case of new research infrastructures in Brno there are synergies with structural funds and with expected impact on leverage funding.
The RIS is a fundamental strategic document of the South Moravian Region and the statutory city of Brno for implementing policy to support competiveness, founded in particular on innovation and maximizing the economic benefits of public investment into research and education.
The RIS SMR was established to create the conditions for competitive, knowledge-intensive development, in particular through investment in raising standards in education and research.

Since 2009 the SoMoPro I, SoMoPro II and SoMoPro 3 has contributed to the advancement of science at South Moravia Region. Without the generous support of EC/REA and the local regional government it would not be possible to attract highly qualified researchers from abroad / accommodate ex-pats in Brno.

Why is it important to society?
In todayâ€™s world, we are constantly adapting. We are constantly demanding new things and new ways to do things. Without research, our demands would go completely unrecognized. Research is what gets us as the human race farther.
We have created and in SoMoPro we have defined 5 research domains that correspond with the profile of region, its resource, current structure of regional business, configuration of academia and there is a hope that in these 5 domains (material research, information and communication technologies, electronics & photonics, advanced manufacturing technologies, biotechnology and biomedicine) we shall benefit from the regional conditions and settings and reach the highest level of scientific advancement.

What are the general objectives?
The reason for creating SoMoPro I, II and 3 programmes is not only the financial contribution obtained COFUND, which enables us to fund the fellows (as there is no such funding available on the Czech national level). It is also the fact that it increases international recognition of the SoMoPro programme and provides a well known mark of quality. Furthermore, the researchers benefit by becoming Marie SkÅ‚odowska-Curie fellows, the regional host institutions benefit from hosting high-quality researchers, and the region itself profits from interaction between high-quality researchers and key industrial players based in the region.

Work performed

Since the very beginning of the programme, both the programme coordinator and programme administrator took active steps to launch the programme. The beginning of the programme is identical with the start of the first call of SoMoPro 3 on September 1, 2015. However, before the commencement a preliminary phase was run - a steering committee was established and intensive campaign addressed to potential applicants was launched.

Steering committee - programme administrator nominated five members of the Steering Committee (SC) in accordance with the SoMoPro Program Management Agreement. Each member represents one specialization domain defined by the Regional Innovation Strategy of the South Moravian Region (RIS4). All are active researchers, three of them are active in the Czech Republic and two abroad, both in the academic and application sphere, they are males and females represented in SC.

Promotion campaing - The communication plan of the S3 programme builds on previous generations of SoMoPro promotion and focuses on the target groups, i.e. in particular potential applicants and person-in-charge and then the public. For the effective distribution of information, necessary information and promotional materials have been created, notably the modernized visual identity of the program or the new promotional leaflet.
Program information was disseminated through a number of channels, especially through cooperating organizations such as EURAXESS, ERRIN, CZELO, TAÄŒR-NCP or AVÄŒR, MU, BUT, MENDELU, CEITEC, etc. Specific examples of program promotion include the following - cooperation with Euraxess, Grants Week MU and REGON.

Calls - 2 calls were prepared in the reporting period:
Call No. 1 - September 1, 2015 - November 30, 2015 (in the consequtive numbering, this was the Call No. 5): project administrator obtained 56 submitted applications.
Call No. 2 - September 1, 2016 - November 30, 2016 (in the consequtive numbering, this was the Call No. 6): project administratoro obtained 60 submitted applications,

As of the cut-off date (August 31, 2017), there were 15 projects already running. The Euraxess service provided assistance to incoming researchers, namely those coming from non-European countries.

Final results

The initial 24 months of the programme do not provide sufficient information on how large and extensive will be the potential impacts including the socio-economical impact and wider societal implication. However, the successful starting phase (including the establishment of the Steering Committee, extensive promotion and preparation and organization of the two calls including their evaluation are necessary steps toward successful implementation of the whole programme.

The programme works well, we have had positive feedback from the researchers. The fellows established themselves in the hosting institutions and were assisted with working as well as non-working issues. The presence of a fellow at a department usually motivates other department fellows to switch from Czech to English to enable better communication, the fellows interact with undergradutate, graduate and post-graduate students, work jointly with other team members /research groups members and participate in outreach activities. Some of them have already produced papers based on their research.

As a positive feature of the programme we noticed that former SoMoPro fellows (e.g. Mr. Blazek, SoMoPro I fellow) act as persons-in-charge for SoMoPro III fellows. Similarly the SoMoPro II fellows (e.g. Mr. Foroutannejad) have motivated SoMoPro III fellows to apply for this programme. Networking is an important part of this scheme.