Promoting Research Excellence in the Baltic Sea Region: BSN_powerhouse project kick off

An extension of the Baltic Science Network (BSN) project was kicked off last week at the CBSS Secretariat. The meeting was chaired by the representatives from the Ministry of Science, Research and Equality of Hamburg and the CBSS. With representatives from 12 partner and 5 associated organisations from 8 different Member States in attendance, the new project and the future of Baltic Science Network as a sustainable platform for international research cooperation was taking shape.

Baltic Science Network has provided science ministries, governmental/funding agencies and university networks with a general platform to devise joint strategic approaches and to gain a better representation of macro-regional interests on EU level. To ensure the platform’s sustainability, BSN_Powerhouse will now go one step further to implementation.

BSN_Powerhouse will provide effective transnational funding and support instruments – tailor-made for the Baltic Sea Region – to increase the competitiveness of research infrastructures in the project’s previously identified priority research fields of Photon and Neutron Science, Life Sciences and Welfare State.

This will be achieved by practically implementing, testing and evaluating approaches to overcome the gap in research and innovation performance and to increase interconnectedness of research infrastructures in the region.

LaunchPad: RI_Connectors will be a support action to widen participation of research infrastructures in the field of proton and neutron research where small-scale infrastructures will be matched with large-scale infrastructures and supported to become dedicated partner facilities.

Baltic Sea Region Researcher’s Internship Mobility Programme in the three priority research fields will enhance brain circulation among research infrastructures within the region and promote long-lasting researcher networks.

The funding landscape for science and research is very heterogeneous and multi-level in the Baltic Sea Region which makes it difficult to negotiate a transnational fund among institutions with completely different governance levels and available budgets. BSN_powerhouse will test out a new decentralized and flexible funding mode that can serve as a model for multi-level governance and funding.