Europe is facing major economic challenges that require an ambitious economic policy for the 21st century. The EU has set out its vision for Europe's social market economy in the Europe 2020 strategy, which aims at confronting our structural weaknesses through progress in three mutually reinforcing priorities : • smart growth, based on knowledge and innovation, • sustainable growth, promoting a more resource efficient, greener and competitive economy, • inclusive growth, fostering a high employment economy delivering economic, social and territorial cohesion. MANUNET III, as a continuation of MANUNET II, is aligned with the European priorities and pretends to create a smart sustainable growth in the European manufacturing sector by coordinating the research and innovation efforts in the field of advanced manufacturing with a special focus in the key areas of new production processes, adaptive manufacturing systems and technologies for the factory of the future. The project will also reinforce the territorial cohesion through an extended collaboration network. The consortium pretends to respond to the actual economic crisis by promoting the transnational research, innovation and entrepreneurship in the industrial sector, especially in the SMEs, which are the backbone of Europe's economy. Through this strategic and integrated approach to innovation in advanced manufacturing, MANUNET III pretends to maximise European, national and regional research and innovation potential.

Our proposal is aimed at providing specialised services for building innovation management capacities in SMEs as well as supporting SME beneficiaries from H2020 funding through the KAM - Key Account manager - role in overseeing specialist coaching services after assessment on innovation weaknesses

ETNA2020 is a 60-month Coordination and Support Action with the overall aim of facilitating trans-national co-operation among NCPs for ‘Smart, Green and Integrated Transport’, identifying and sharing good practices, and raising the general standard of the support to programme applicants across the EU and globally. To reach the objective above, the project will develop five main activity axes, corresponding to the projects’ specific objectives: 1)raise understanding of EU Transport R&I landscape; 2)capacity building of NCPs; 3)upgrade the set of tools for NCP assistance; 4)strengthen the participation of relevant stakeholders to Horizon 2020 funding opportunities; 5)support networking opportunities within the ‘Smart, Green and Integrated Transport’ constituency. Cross-cutting activities of dissemination and communication will addup to this main set of activities, helping to enhance their impact. ETNA2020 is the continuation and evolution of the precedent network, ETNA Plus, whose results and lessons learnt have been taken into consideration with the logic of improving the future network and in order to valorize the network’s strengths. ETNA2020 will also take into account the paradigmatic change brought by Horizon 2020. This will be reflected in ETNA2020 activities, and, in particular, in a stronger attention of the network in terms of multidisciplinary competences, consideration of related societal challenges, and linkage with other EU relevant initiatives, funding programmes and policies. Finally, the network will seek further opening to a wider target of stakeholders and businesses in the Transport field. ETNA2020 consortium comprises 16 beneficiaries, with a good mix of well-experienced and less experienced NCPs coming from Member States and Associated Countries. Besides beneficiaries, the project services will be offered to all officially appointed H2020 Transport NCPs, who will be involved as “Associated partners”.

The NCP Academy is a continuation and expansion of the former NCP Academy support action (2014-June 2018) covering the period September 2018 to August 2020. The project brings together Horizon 2020 NCP Coordinators and Legal and Financial NCPs to implement training on cross-cutting issues for National Contact Points and address quality standards and good practice. It aims to build capacity measures tailor-made for the needs of the NCP community by implementation of a high-quality training programme and provision of opportunities for the exchange of experiences and of good practices. It maps NCP clients` needs and their satisfaction levels and provides central services to the stakeholders/users of the Legal and Financial NCP services. The NCP Academy consortium will cooperate closely with other NCP Networks to implement procedures that ensure a timely flow of information allowing collaboration. It will focus on removal of any duplication between networks and new routes to efficiencies of implementation. It supports the European Commission in providing feedback and analysis. Thus, this project serves as vehicle for building up and mobilising expertise, contributing to future developments. The project addresses the continuous concerns that the programme evolves during its lifetime (2018-2020), that lessons are learned, and that newcomers join the NCP network. It goes some way towards ensuring that adequately trained NCPs will be in place upfront for the next Framework Programme, Horizon Europe. The NCP Academy includes activities aimed at helping NCPs in those countries that have been participating at lower levels in the programme up to now, for example, training, mentoring, twinning and awareness raising actions aimed at increasing visibility of well-qualified potential applicant organisations in those countries.