net4society in a nutshell

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NET4SOCIETY in a nutshell

Are you a new SSH NCP and have recently joined NET4SOCIETY?

Here are the basics you need to know about the network:

Story of NET4SOCIETY

NET4SOCIETY started in 2008 as the first official network of SSH NCPs. We include allnominated SSH NCPs from currently more than 50 countries, including International Coop-eration Partner Countries (ICPC).

From the start on, the network has been growing, and the friendly atmosphere among the

networks members inspires us to share information and help each other.

Group photo of workshop in Athens, 2011

What does NET4SOCIETY offer to NCPs?

NET4SOCIETYs philosophy is to assist SSH NCPs in their daily work. We provide a networkto exchange knowledge and best practices, offer trainings and mentoring visits for new

NCPs, and have established an online Virtual Helpdesk for everyday questions related toNCP work. Our Best Practice Handbook is a helpful guideline for all aspects of an SSHNCPs daily work such as information events or proposal consultation.

What do we offer to researchers?

At the same time, we combine our knowledge to provide services to the research community,such as assistance in finding topics with SSH relevance in other research programmes, anonline partner search platform for research consortia, and an online Research Directory ofSSH key players. While the partner search service is always related to an open SSH call andhelps to find project partners in a specific topic, the Research Directory is an online database

for networking also without any preparation of projects in mind. All these services can befound in our website www.net4society.eu.
http://www.net4society.eu/http://www.net4society.eu/


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We provide assistance for ICPC and Third Country multipliers and carry out lobbying activi-ties for the inclusion of SSH aspects in European Research Framework Programmes, such

as a survey on SSH experiences with FP7 or an open letter to Research CommissionerMire Geoghegan-Quinn.

Each year, we organise a large international conference related to a specific area of re-search, such as the Challenge Social Innovation conference in Vienna (Sept 2011) and theActive Ageing conference in July 2012 in Dublin. This includes a brokerage session, fo-cusing on the SSH calls and helping researchers to find project partners in a matchmaking(or speed-dating) session. The next large event will focus on Horizon 2020 and is plannedfor early 2014 in Athens.

How to contact the network?

The whole network meets twice a year in the NET4SOCIETY workshops. In these, you canmeet your colleagues and discuss latest developments in SSH and the networks activities.

The coordinator's team is situated at DLR (German Aerospace Centre in Bonn, Germany)and includes Angela Schindler-Daniels, project coordinator; Nina Berweger, Christina Bitter-berg, Judith Krmke, Jutta Zimmermann, and Homa Heybati, the project management team.These will help you with any kind of question and can be contacted [email protected].

AngelaSchindler-Daniels

+49 228 3821-1641

NinaBerweger

-1648

ChristinaBitterberg

- 1711

JudithKrmke

-1710

JuttaZimmermann

-1589

Homa

Heybati

-1644

We also use mailing lists which can be used by all NCPs to share information and news:[email protected] reaches all SSH NCPs in the network.

Funding and legal basics

NET4SOCIETY is funded by the European Commission under FP7-SSH, as a Coordina-tion/Support Action.

We are now in the third round of funding, so the official acronyms are NET4SOCIETY(2008-2011), NET4SOCIETY2 (2011-2013), and NET4SOCIETY3 (2013-2014).

The main legal documents you should know if you are a beneficiary are the Grant Agree-ment, including the Annex 1 / Description of Work. This document describes the structureof the four Work Packages and their subtasks, and describes the project structure (e.g. the
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Project Management Board). In this document, you can check in which tasks your organisa-tion is actively involved. The second legal document is the Consortium Agreement which is

signed by all beneficiaries.NET4SOCIETY is open to all SSH NCPs, even if not all of them are official beneficiaries orthe project (i.e. signing the Grant Agreement). Only the very active partners sign the contract,in order to keep reporting duties at a minimum level.

However, all SSH NCPs benefit from the services of the network and have access to infor-mation and all events, and their travel costs are reimbursed by the project coordinator.

Where can I find further information?

Our central means of communication is our website www.net4society.eu, maintained by

DLR. The public website is targeted at the research community, and the internal website pro-vides information for SSH NCPs. All main documents, promotion material, links to NCP ser-vices and event announcements can be found on the internal website.

Screenshot public website Screenshot internal website

Next steps?

You will receive a password for the networks internal website from the coordinators office inDLR. Also, the task leaders for the Research Directory from Euresearch (CH) and for theVirtual Helpdesk from EKT NHRF (EL) are going to send you passwords and informationabout the Research Directory and the Virtual Helpdesk.

As a first check: please look up your own contact details under section MEMBERS in theinternal website and add whatever data are missing: this is the main list we rely upon to keepthe networks contact details up-to-date.

For all questions, you can contact the coordinators office, the Work Package leaders or theTask leaders and we will be happy to help!

Welcome to the network!
http://outbind//36/www.net4society.euhttp://outbind//36/www.net4society.eu

net4society in a nutshell

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