Matchmaking event – MEDIA, MIGRATION and EDUCATION – event summary!

Summary of the event!

The “MEDIA, MIGRATIONS and EDUCATION” match-making event took place on 20 November 2025 in Brussels and was an international meeting dedicated to upcoming calls under Cluster 2 of the Horizon Europe programme, with a particular focus on media, migration and education topics. The event was organised by the PolSCA PAN Office in cooperation with liaison offices gathered in the IGLO network, representing a total of 10 EU Member States, including Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Spain, with the participation of partners from the Netherlands. We had the pleasure of hosting almost 60 representatives of the European research and innovation community.

MEDIA, MIGRATION and EDUCATION – Cluster 2 Matchmaking event

The PolSCA office, in cooperation with the IGLO liaison offices in Brussels representing a total of 12 Member States: Austria, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Spain, with the possible participation of representatives from Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, is organising a matchmaking event for those interested in the upcoming calls for proposals to be published under the 2026-2027 Work Programme – Cluster 2. The event will take place in person in Brussels on 20 November 2025 and will focus on topics related to media, migration and education.

Diamond ERA: Fostering Openness in the European Research Area

Open event on 4 December 2025 | Brussels

The “Diamond ERA: Fostering Openness in the European Research Area” conference is a one-day policy-focused event that brings together key stakeholders to advance the conversation on Diamond Open Access (OA) in the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) across the European Research Area (ERA). Taking place on 4 December 2025 in Brussels at the Permanent Representation of Poland to the European Union, this open event aims to highlight and promote Diamond OA as a sustainable, equitable, and mission-driven model of scholarly publishing. It provides a platform for engagement between policymakers, researchers, publishers, research funders, and infrastructure providers to collaboratively identify pathways toward stronger support and integration of Diamond OA practices in the European science policy landscape.

Two days, ten different sessions, almost one hundred experts and…unicorns.

First Central and Eastern European Congress for Research Managers in Brussels comes to an end.

On a surprisingly warm Brussels morning, we opened the doors to something the region has been working toward for nearly ten years: a space where Central and Eastern European research managers could finally meet as equals, not just attendees. People showed up carrying real experience – small wins from finance departments and labs, hard lessons from proposals that almost worked, and a stubborn conviction that solid research ecosystems are built by the professionals who rarely get the spotlight. For two days, they had it.

PolSCA Masterclass: managing research projects with the PM² methodology. Event summary.

On 7 and 8 October 2025, a two-day workshop on the practical aspects of managing research projects using PM², the European Commission’s project management methodology, was held at the Institute of Fundamental Technological Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IPPT PAN). The event was organised by the PolSCA PAS Office in cooperation with IPPT PAN as a part of activities for the Horizon Europe Navigators network of research managers at PAN institutes. The sessions were led by Dr Justyna Małkuch-Świtalska – trainer and expert in project management and research careers, author of Projekty naukowe. Zarządzanie w praktyce (PWN, 2020) – who has delivered over 2,500 hours of training in Poland and abroad and works with Trener Nauki.

1st Central and Eastern European Congress for Research Managers – a new regional forum for the RMA community

4 &5 November 2025, Brussels –The first CEE Congress for Research Managers and Administrators will gather the region’s RMA community for two days of keynotes, panels, parallel workshops, focused sessions and networking. The programme walks through the full project lifecycle, i.e. from developing RMA talent, shaping proposals and budgets to implementation, impact and reporting.

INSPIRING ERA Exchange: Overcoming Barriers in Open Access Publishing – Towards a More Inclusive and Sustainable ERA

A workshop within the INSPIRING ERA project, organized jointly by the National Centre for Research and Development, the PolSCA PAS Office in Brussels and the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, will be an opportunity to discuss the barriers and future of open access to scientific publications in Europe.

The goal of the INSPIRING ERA Exchange on Open Access Publications is to jointly develop practical solutions that foster a more inclusive and sustainable Open Access (OA) publishing system across Europe. The event aims to assess the current state of OA policies, identify barriers and challenges faced by different stakeholders — including researchers, publishers, and funding institutions — and co-create recommendations to improve OA policies, funding mechanisms, and infrastructures within the European Research Area (ERA). It also seeks to amplify the voices of smaller publishers and representatives of the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH), ensuring their active participation in the European dialogue on Open Science.

More info about INSPIRING ERA EXCHANGE here.

Participants of the meeting will have the opportunity to:

• learn about the perspectives of the European Commission, research funding organizations, and OA initiatives;
• discuss issues of funding, infrastructure, accessibility, and research assessment;
• exchange experiences in interactive working groups;
• co-create recommendations for national and European policies.

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The workshop report “IGLO in Action: Workshop and Survey on Simplification — Summary Report”

On the 10th of October 2025, the report “IGLO in Action: Workshop and Survey on Simplification – Summary Report” was published, summarising the workshop in Brussels, which took place on the 4th and 5th of June 2025, and the accompanying survey.

The new report presents key findings and recommendations for simplifying the rules and procedures of the Horizon Europe program, based on the collective expertise of research managers and administrators from across Europe. Sixty-three participants from 14 countries took part in the survey. The workshop was attended by 22 research managers from public universities and research institutions in 12 European countries, as well as representatives of the European Commission, the Research Executive Agency, and the ERC Executive Agency.

The new report presents the main findings and recommendations for simplifying the rules and procedures of the Horizon Europe program, based on the collective expertise of research managers and administrators from across Europe. Sixty-three participants from 14 countries participated in the survey. The workshop was attended by 22 research managers from public universities and research institutions in 12 European countries, as well as representatives of the European Commission, the Research Executive Agency, and the ERC Executive Agency.

During the workshop in Brussels (4th and 5th of June 2025), participants discussed essential aspects of simplifying the rules and procedures of Horizon Europe, covering a wide range of topics: from lump sums and other simplified cost options, through the interpretation of rules and guidelines, the EU Funding & Tenders Portal, project proposal templates, time to award grants, to reporting, reimbursement of actual costs, financial audits, and the involvement of third parties.

Key recommendations include:

1) Staffing and cost simplifications

•    settlement of personnel costs based on actual costs

•    simplification of working time records

2) Eligibility rules and technical costs

•    Reimbursement of repair and maintenance costs

•    Reporting of total depreciation costs only once during the project

3) Contracting and contract amendments

•    Simplification of the contract amendment process

• Streamlining the process for making minor changes

4) Reporting

•    streamlining of reporting

•    extension of the reporting deadline

5) Audits and compliance

•    recognition of national audits

•    appropriate selection of auditors with a recommendation of knowledge of national law

•    raising the threshold for mandatory use of CFS

6) IT tools and document standardization

•    automatic transfer of data from an approved application to the SyGMa platform

•    introduction of templates for non-scientific parts of project applications

7) Support and communication with the grant provider

•    launch of a telephone hotline

The report emphasises the importance of clarity, credibility, and stability of funding rules, as well as the need for early and continuous involvement of practitioners in the development of new measures.

The report can be downloaded at: HERE

IGLO is an informal network of Brussels-based, non-profit R&D liaison offices whose objective is to facilitate and streamline interaction, information exchange, and cooperation between IGLO members, their national research systems, and EU institutions in the area of framework programs.

The PolSCA office is the only Polish representative actively involved in IGLO, representing the interests of Polish institutions, sharing implementation practices, and initiating the exchange of experiences.

One of the results of our activities was the co-financing of the participation of Joanna Kartasiewicz (ICTER – Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences) and Anna Demner (University of Warsaw) in the “Simplification” workshop.

•    Valorisation of knowledge (January 2025) KoWi published a summary and a short report on the event.

•    Lump sums (October 2023) — “IGLO in Action: Second IGLO Workshop on Lump Sum Funding — Summary Report.”

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants. Polish Scientists and Scholars in Europe – Legacy and the Present

Polish Academy of Sciences – Scientific Station in Paris, together with the foreign stations of the PAS in Brussels, Rome, Berlin, Vienna and Kyiv, invites to a unique event dedicated to Polish scholars whose achievements shaped and still influence the development of European science.

The meeting will combine reflection on inspiring figures of the past with a conversation about the challenges of contemporary researchers. The exhibition accompanying the event – prepared on the occasion of the Polish Presidency in the Council of the EU – will present the profiles of outstanding scholars and their successors, emphasizing the links of Polish science with the priorities of European research and development policies, including the Horizon Europe program.

The premiere of the exhibition took place during the conference “Transnational Science Cooperation: Fostering Collaborative Research in Europe and Poland,” organized by NAWA on 23–24 June 2025 in Brussels. See the coverage of the exhibition’s inauguration in Brussels here.

The event will be attended by distinguished representatives of the institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences, whose profiles were presented in the exhibition, including:

• Prof. Maciej Górny, Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, PAS
• Prof. Monika Kusiak, Institute of Geophysics, PAS
• Prof. Janusz Lewiński, Institute of Physical Chemistry, PAS
• Prof. Paweł Olko, Institute of Nuclear Physics, PAS

More details about the event are available on the website of the PAS Scientific Station in Paris here.

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Horizon Europe Navigators MeetUp: Granty na Eurogranty w PARP – part II

Continuing the June meeting within the Horizon Europe Navigators network, we invite you to the second edition of the webinar dedicated to national support mechanisms for participation in European programmes.

This time we will focus on the practical use of the instrument “Grants for Eurogrants”, offered by the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development under action FENG.02.12. Participants will learn, among other things, what the eligibility conditions are, how to effectively prepare an application, and will receive practical tips for the institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences preparing to participate in Horizon Europe calls.

The workshops are organized within the Horizon Europe Navigators network – an initiative of the PolSCA Office, launched in 2021 in synergy with the PASIFIC programme. The network brings together research managers from 62 institutes and several auxiliary units of the Polish Academy of Sciences, supporting the exchange of good practices and the development of competencies related to the Horizon Europe programme. Regular meetings and trainings within HE Navigators foster stronger participation of PAS institutes in European projects.

The programme will also include an interactive Q&A session and an exchange of experiences among PAS institutes.

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