Dear Expert,

The European Commission, DG RTD is happy and honoured to inform you that the FIRST WIDENING DAY will be held in Brussels on Wednesday 08 November 2017 (09:30am – 17:30pm). This is the first time that all THREE WIDENING ACTIONS will meet in Brussels and we count on your presence! This dedicated day to WIDENING will gather coordinators from ERA CHAIRS (FP7 and Horizon 2020), TWINNING and TEAMING (phase 2) from all over Europe in the aim to create a WIDENING COMMUNITY.

This day will be for you to exchange your best practices, discuss your challenges and learn how other overcame them, get acquainted with all three actions, meet new coordinators and create new links. The idea is to build on the experiences made until now to develop a Widening Community able to raise visibility and reputation of the organisations involved, creating recognised branding for the actions. For the success of the projects, it is important to engage all stakeholders directly or indirectly involved in the project and share experiences with other similar projects and, widely communicating on the achievements.

We ask you to please save that day in your calendar!

Some hints on the WIDENING DAY

First part: The morning will gather all representatives from the three actions together. After the welcome and introductory session by the European Commission (RTD), the participants will separate in three groups to discuss amongst projects under the same action (ERA Chairs, Twinning and Teaming

Second part: In the afternoon, we will gather altogether again this time for a moment of exchange between projects belonging to different actions. We will identify the lessons learned and define the way forward.

A reception will conclude the day to which you are invited.

Agenda

The draft agenda will follow soon, but please let us know your intention to participate as soon as possible.

Budget cover

Your Widening projects’ budget was negotiated as to accommodate trips to Brussels. You are therefore allowed to cover this trip and accommodation to this one-day meeting through your project budget.

Representatives limitation

For reasons of space limitation, we would expect only the following project's representatives to attend:

• For ERA CHAIRS: the coordinator and the ERA Chair holder;
• For TWINNING: the  coordinator and one representative from the advanced partners (please, kindly let us know asap the name and email of the advanced partner who plans to attend and we should inform about the event)
• For TEAMING 2: the coordinator, one representative from the advanced partner and one representative from the regional/national funding authority[1] (please, kindly let us know asap the names and emails of both the advanced partner and the funding body available to attend that we should inform about the event).

[1] The representative from the regional/national funding authority will not be reimbursed by the project's budget and will pay for his/her accommodation and travel to the conference

Important information

Security: Please, send your credentials to this email: RTD-SECRETARIAT-B5@ec.europa.eu  in cc in order to have the authorisation to get in the building. The e-pass due to security reasons requests: full names, date of birth, number of passport and email.

Questions: If you have any questions regarding the content of the conference, please send your questions to this email : Adeline.Kroll@ec.europa.eu.

WE HOPE TO SEE YOU IN BRUSSELS TO THE FIRST WIDENING DAY, PLEASE LET US KNOW QUICKLY IF YOU PLAN TO ATTEND!

Best wishes,

On behalf of Magda De Carli (European Commission, Head of Unit RTD.B5)