fit4sec is supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the initiative “Deutsche Antragsteller fit für Europa”. The supportive action to “Building European Consortia for Security Research” serves as a community and technological-information sharing platform, specifically affording German participants necessary coping mechanisms to better support quality end-user orientation in European security research (Horizon 2020 “Secure Societies”). The goals of fit4sec are: to establish a Europe-wide network of end-users, industrial actors (especially SMEs), interdisciplinary academic institutions; to bundle existing competences in Germany for civil security research; as well as assisting in the formation of interdisciplinary research alliances that successfully face up to European competition.

The particular focus of BIGS is to enhance community and consortia building within the field of civil security research through the organization and implementation of workshops and webinars, in order to successfully form German-European research alliances together with academic partners and end-users. This also includes the strategic support of project ideas in their early phase in the context of the annual calls for proposals. In the course of the collaborative project, BIGS has also conducted a study on the “Management of larger research consortia”. A set of recommendations can be retrieved from the handout “Best Practices for German applicants”.

For receiving support and assistance in order to constitute new research consortia and to continue networking with German partners, we recommend to register as a fit4sec partner.

If you have any questions about the project, please contact Caroline von der Heyden.

Peters, Anna / Stuchtey, Tim (2019): Best-Practices für Antragssteller – Forschungskonsortien im Rahmen von Horizont 2020 – „Sichere Gesellschaften“, BIGS Handreichung.