Project Establishment Support - Framework Grant H2020

The research community at Høgskolen i Gjøvik (HiG) is active and driven; it works in a cross-disciplinary manner, collaborating with partners from academia and research institutions, the industry and SMEs. In 2014 HiG counted 67 PhD students conducting research, and Cristin preliminary report has HiG with R&D 112 publications and 73.96 points. The research carried out at HiG is well aligned with H2020 pillars in areas of Cyber- & Information Security, Colour Informatics & Media Technology, Applied Computer Science, Interaction Design, Health, Community Care & Advanced Clinical Nursing; Electrical Engineering, Geomatics, Sustainable Manufacturing and Additive Manufacturing. Research funding for university colleges is very limited. The costs involved in the process of proposals preparation can be burdensome for HiG's budget. HiG's fixed budget makes it difficult to cover costs of travels, hosting and participating in preparatory meetings, time/effort in recruiting research partners, consulting fees for assisting proposal writing, project coordination and management. This shortage of funds can discourage researchers and threaten their capacity to maintain and increase the number and quality of research, since they have to engage in fund raising for the preparation of proposals. The objective of this application is obtaining financing to cover costs for the development of H2020 project proposals through 2015. Securing this funding would allow HiG's researchers to concentrate efforts in preparing and submitting high quality successful applications, thus increasing the quantity and quality of their research activity. This objective would be achieved through the funding of costs involved in the process of proposal writing, including travel costs, time/effort of project coordination/research support staff; internal training and contracting consulting services to support proposals writing and to assist in identifying researchpartners; to host and participate in meetings.