Working Group 5

The main goal of this WG is to facilitate the identification of sustainable long-term collaboration opportunities and co-defining future R&I priorities.

Description of work: With the support of EU advisors linked to the participating organisations, the WG lead will coordinate scouting of the national and EU funding landscape (T5.1). This will particularly include an analysis of the Horizon Europe Work Programmes (e.g., Cluster 5), “Widening participation and spreading excellence”-sub-programme (e.g., Twinning-projects) and opportunities for infrastructure (e.g., EFRO). A list of relevant topics will be gathered. This list will be presented during online matchmaking events, where participants may express their interest in a topic. This WG will bring together research-oriented and private partners (T5.2), fostered via close intersectoral interaction and targeted matchmaking between COST Participants from different sectors. Available test infrastructure will particularly be engaged for this purpose. To ensure sustainable activities, an R&D roadmap for ocean tribology will be defined (T5.3) based on the reviews done in the technical WGs (WG1-WG4) and will be used as basis for broad dissemination, including policy-makers and channels for innovation(WG6). The established roadmap will also be the basis for proactively steering EU R&I activities and priorities (T5.4).

Tasks:

T5.1: Identification & matchmaking of R&I opportunities;

T5.2: Identification of collaboration opportunities with private partners;

T5.3: Definition of an R&D roadmap for ocean tribology challenges and priorities;

T5.4: Provide feedback to upcoming Horizon Europe Work Programme drafts and national schemes.