ERA-NETs are European consortia of national research funding organisations of the European Research Area (ERA). They are a mechanism for bringing together research funders and managers, policy-makers and practitioners to share experience and ideas and to develop joint transnational research programmes and activities. By working in partnership, participating organisations share knowledge and good practice and save money through improved economies of scale, and can therefore work more efficiently across Europe.
SNIFFER is in a good position to scan European research activity through its involvement in ERA-NETs. This gives SNIFFER the advantage of being able to benchmark its research activity across a range of topics of interest to SNIFFER’s partners, to identify potential European collaboration and to provide a new stage for work managed by SNIFFER.
SNIFFER is involved in 4 projects under the ERA-NET scheme. SNIFFER coordinates URBAN-NET (urban sustainability), leads a work package on IWRM-NET (integrated water resources management), and is a member on CRUE (flooding) and linked in to SNOWMAN (soil and groundwater pollution). This involvement gives SNIFFER reach into all European countries’ national research funding organisations. This offers the potential for European collaboration, sharing of good practice and access to databases of European research programmes and projects. These ERA-NETs have already opened calls for research proposals from participating countries, and SNIFFER coordinates its partners' interest to these.
All ERA-NETs go through 5 key stages in their project cycle;
1) Identifying the current status of research in the projects thematic remit
2) Collating research programme information and identifying gaps and priorities
3) Developing joint priorities for transnational research and collaboration
4) Developing joint activities between partner programmes
5) Launching joint calls for research proposals
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