Spreading excellence

The CHANSE Programme developed its strategy on spreading excellence through a set of actions aiming at supporting participation of the Widening Countries both on the programme and the project level. Almost 50% of the CHANSE funding organisations, 13 out of 27, represent Widening Countries, i.e. Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
The list of Widening Countries is defined by the European Commission as member states with the Composite Index of Research Excellence less than 70% of the average value of this indicator for all EU countries. The idea derives from the objective of the actions introduced in Horizon 2020, aimed at increasing the participation of the Widening Countries in international research activities.

The CHANSE Programme uses the best practices, including recommendations from ERA-LEARN, in order to support participation of Widening Countries in submitted applications and funded projects. When developing and implementing the CHANSE Co-funded Call, the consortium adopted a set of actions Widening actions.

Number of teams from Widening and non-Widening countries involved in the CHANSE projects

These actions included:

  • Development of the Partner Search Tool, supporting a match-making process for potential collaborations, also facilitating the process of building partnerships with Widening Countries;
  • National call dissemination events and webinars organized to encourage communities from Widening Countries;
  • Encouraging applicants to build consortia composed of at least 4 partners from 4 different countries and involve partners from Widening Countries in their projects;
  • Selection criteria promoting researchers from Widening Countries: if at a given rank in the final ranking list not all ex aequo proposals can be funded, priority is given to projects with Widening Countries;