BLACK SEA HORIZON

The Black Sea Horizon is S&T cooperation project under the Horizon 2020 that generally support the EU’s external relations with the target region by significantly contributing to ongoing bi-regional and regional science, technology and innovation (STI) policy dialogues and cooperation. The project consortium consists of 19 partners from Black Sea countries, EU Member States and Associated Countries.

The three main objectives of the BLACK SEA HORIZON are:

to support the EU’s external relations with the target region by significantly contributing to ongoing bi-regional and regional STI policy dialogues, and by increasing the knowledge base about the EU’s external environment,
to stimulate bi-regional STI cooperation and to strengthen the EU’s economic competitiveness
to contribute to the establishment of supportive framework conditions by facilitating the pooling of resources and by identifying challenging thematic areas for mutual STI cooperation.

In terms of policy dialogue, BSH aims to address all the relevant policy dialogue fora from the beginning of the project in order to establish a two-way communication: to inform the policy makers about the objectives, results and achievements of the project and, vice-versa, to receive guidance and support for a successful implementation and/or follow-up of its actions.

In terms of concrete actions (the ‘operational level’), the project implements a series of activities requested by the call (and beyond):

BSH promotes the participation in HORIZON 2020 (identification of topics for cooperation, implementing grants to increase networking, promoting participation in co-fund schemes, etc.);
BSH promotes innovation (cluster policies, business contacts among clusters, other forms of innovation).

Moreover, BSH is to build on the achievements of the BS-ERANET that successfully launched a joint call in the region, by paving the ground for a Regional Funding Platform able to sustainably implement joint research funding activities in the Black Sea region.

Ultimately and as a result and synthesis of all its activities and achievements, the BSH project will develop a sustainable “EU-Black Sea Cooperation Programme in STI (BSCP)” to be presented to the afore-mentioned policy dialogue fora for endorsement and support. In that respect the project aims to constitute a good practice example and to contribute towards the direction of an ‘EU Strategy for the Black Sea region’.

The partnership consisting of 19 partners is also involved in other currently ongoing cooperation and support actions targeting the countries covered by BSH, a fact that stimulates cooperation and synergies with the parallel running initiatives and projects.

Black Sea Horizon project consortium:

Participant No.	Participant organisation name	Country
1 (Coordinator)	ZSI – Centre for Social Innovation	Austria
2	DLR - German Aerospace Center, Project Management Agency	Germany
3	CERISS - Centre for Regional and International STI Studies and Support	Greece
4	TUBITAK - The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey	Turkey
5	RCISD - Regional Centre for Information and Scientific Development Ltd.	Hungary
6	ARC Fund - Applied Research and Communications Fund	Bulgaria
7	inno - inno TSD	France
8	ICBSS - International Centre for Black Sea Studies	Greece
9	CIP - Center of International Projects	Republic of Moldova
10	IPPT-PAN - Institute of Fundamental Technological Research Polish Academy of Sciences	Poland
11	SPI - Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação, Consultadoria Empresarial e Fomento da Inovação, S.A.	Portugal
12	UEFISCDI - Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding	Romania
13	NAS-RA - National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia	Armenia
14	RFBR - Russian Foundation for Basic Research	Russia
15	HSE - Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education National Research University “Higher School of Economics”	Russia
16	IEF - Institute for Economics and Forecasting of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine	Ukraine
17	ESIDG - Association European Studies for Innovative Development of Georgia	Georgia
18	SRNSF - Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation	Georgia
19	SDF-AZE – Science Development Foundation	Azerbaijan