The second Partnership Stakeholder Forum was organised by European Commission and ERA-LEARN and took place in Brussels, 5-6 December 2023. The event attracted more than 250 people that were able to take part in several workshops that addressed important topics namely, synergies between Partnerships and Missions, experiences, achievements and needs of the European partnerships based on the HE interim evaluation, the additionality and directionality of European Partnerships as well as openness and transparency and developing a coherent Partnership portfolio. At the same time, the future of partnerships was also discussed in detail both in terms of their selection process and their design under FP10 considering also their internationalisation and global links under the spectrum of strategic autonomy for the EU.
After an extended period of getting started and exploration that lasted more than 10 years, Partnerships need now to enter a maturity phase. Their orientation should be better balanced towards economic and societal goals. Partnerships need to escape the bureaucracy trap and set high goals and achieve the scale needed for global competition. It is also important to strike the right balance between openness and protection by cooperating with like-minded actors that respect the EU values and ensuring reciprocity.
The importance of evaluating the European Partnerships and assessing their impacts cannot be overstated. While the interim evaluation of Horizon Europe is underway, we need to stress that the additionality of partnerships does not include only public or private investments mobilised towards common EU priorities. It also refers to qualitative impacts, such as valuable networks and innovative ecosystems, international visibility, development of standards or regulations that give Europe a leading position in the world. While there are diverse approaches to directionality across countries, alignment of national and EU policies and definition of priorities at national level helps to increase the efficiency of the actions undertaken. At the same time, there is a need for not underestimating the importance of the Partnerships’ visibility in Europe and beyond and for developing a strong communication framework.
eupartnership_stakeholder_forum_2023_preliminary-results.pdf (era-learn.eu)
Partnership Stakeholder Forum 2023 – Results — ERA-LEARN
European Partnership Stakeholder Forum 2023 – from idea to impact — ERA-LEARN