Transnational cooperation, knowledge sharing and networking. These were the keywords of the first edition of the ‘EURO-NORDIC NETWORK SUMMIT (ENN) 2023 – Shaping A Collaborative EuroNordic Grant Network’, an international conference held in Oslo on the 29th and 30th of June 2023.
The ENN – established upon an initiative of Niloufar Gharavi (ENN Founder) and Ajay Goyal (Founder & CEO ForestSAT) – set a twofold purpose from the very beginning: on one hand, promoting Norwegian and EU north organisations’ participation in European and international cooperation programmes; and on the other hand, fostering qualified networking for ongoing inspiration and design of highly innovative ideas and projects. 30 international speakers, more than 10 panels, 4 breakout rooms, more than one hundred participants from all over the world seem to give an explicit sign: the summit was a success.
The event was built around two working days. The first was kicked off with a warm welcome from the Mayor of Oslo, Ms Marianne Borgen, and followed with in-depth insights into Norwegian and Nordic grant schemes, thanks to contributions from specialised agencies such as the Norwegian Agency for Exchange Cooperation (Norec), the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) and Innovation Norway. Other panels covered the topics of grants VS private investments, the InvestEU Programme, Horizon Europe and Interreg Europe, ensuring quality inputs, practical experiences and tips to improve the design quality, thanks to the contribution of highly specialised organisations in each of the topics covered.
On the second day, a panel was held to encourage the development of future projects for Ukraine’s recovery, followed by a session on ‘Funding Social Impact’, by Leading Humanitarian Players discussing their role in driving innovation for social impact and how the grants could support that. The morning ended with a panel dedicated to the EEA & Norway Grants, where two successful projects were introduced: YOUTHShare, by Anne Hege Strand (FAFO – Norway), and Cowork4YOUTH, by Nicola Vita (Exeo Lab Srl – Italy). In addition to providing an overview of the actions implemented and the results achieved by each project, presentations also delivered an in-depth reading of the implementation dynamics, with particular emphasis on the interaction and exchange between experts and beneficiary partners. This latter feature, characteristic of the transnational cooperation projects selected under the EEA & Norway Grants, makes this funding scheme completely different from any other. Not by chance, the session was followed by a lively debate in which the organisations located in the Expert and Donor Countries participated actively and with great interest, as they were clearly keen to better understand the programme’s mechanisms and their possible contribution to future projects.
Later sessions focused on the Erasmus Plus programme and the role of artificial intelligence in supporting proposal writing and project management.
If it is true that ‘well begun is half done’, we can definitely say that the ENN is just at the beginning of its long and successful journey, given the extraordinary results in terms of participation and follow-up in this first edition. Now let’s warm up the engines for the second edition to be held in 2024! Read more about ENN on the official Congress website: https://euronordicnetwork.org/
