All Horizon Europe Partnerships must formulate a reference monitoring framework, based on the general, specific, and operational objectives of their strategic agendas, allowing the progress to be tracked, towards achieving the specific Partnership goals.
Such monitoring frameworks focus on Partnership-specific objectives and indicators, while being comparable, in terms of standards and methodology. The proposed frameworks are meant to allow for a low-burden assessment of the community achievements and their impact, over time, as well as the potential need for corrective measures.
Progress towards EOSC-specific policy objectives and deliverables is tracked through a series of monitoring systems, including the Additional Activities planning and reporting and the monitoring of the EOSC Partnership’s key performance indicators (KPIs) as defined in the Monitoring Framework.
Additional Activities: Planning and reporting
According to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the Co-Programmed European Partnership for EOSC, Additional Activities are defined as the in-kind or financial contributions from EOSC Association members towards the objectives described by the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA). The contributions should cover only these activities which are not funded by the European Union (except for EC Structural funds as well as Recovery and Resilience Facility funds).
As the MoU highlights, contributions of EOSC Association Members to Additional Activities are subject to continuous monitoring and periodic reporting. The Association is committed to establish every year an “Additional Activities Plan” (AAP), which is subsequently approved by the Partnership Board, and to report annually on previously agreed and provided contributions.
Information obtained on the EOSC-A Members’ in-kind financial contributions to Additional Activities is essential to shape data-driven policy and to demonstrate that the Members of the Association are progressing towards the objectives set out by the SRIA.
Additional Activity Plan 2024
AAP 2024 Training Materials
AAP Activity 2021-2023
Additional Activities Plan 2023
The results of the survey have been validated, assessed, and consolidated into a draft document that was submitted to the European Commission. The final Additional Activities Plan 2023 of a total value of €383 million, was approved during the 4th Partnership Board meeting on 19 December 2022. An overview of the in-kind and financial contributions of the EOSC-A Members foreseen in the Additional Activities Plan 2023 is available in the AAP 2023 reporting template.
AAP 2023 Survey
The 2023 AAP survey ran from 12 September to 2 October. In order to guide its Members through the AAP 2023 questionnaire, the EOSC Association held three consecutive webinars on 6, 7 and 8 September.
Guidance materials:
14:55 – 15:25 | Discussion
15:25 – 15:30 | Closing remarks, Karel Luyben, President of the EOSC Association
AAP 2023: Workshops on lessons learnt from AAP 2022
In order to prepare for the 2023 AAP survey, to be launched in the autumn, the EOSC Association organised an online webinar for EOSC-A Members and Mandated Organisations on Tuesday, 5 July 2022.
This dedicated webinar collected the EOSC-A Members’ views on the process of gathering the information for the Additional Activities 2022 and provided support to the Members for the upcoming exercise. The workshop served as a platform for sharing information, lessons learnt and best practices, among the Members of the Association.
Agenda:
14:00 – 14:05 | Welcome and introduction, Karel Luyben, President of the EOSC Association
14:05 – 14:45 | AAP 2022 survey: EOSC-A Members’ perspective
14:45 – 14:55 | Towards AAP 2023: lessons learnt & way forward
Additional Activities Plan 2022
The results of the survey have been validated, assessed, and consolidated into a draft document that was submitted to the European Commission. The final Additional Activities Plan 2022 of a total value of €312 million, was approved during the 3rd Partnership Board meeting on 7 April 2022. In-kind and financial contributions of the EOSC-A Members foreseen in the Additional Activities Plan 2022 are presented below:
Please note that the AAP 2022 presents only aggregated data, therefore the values of contributions provided by individual EOSC-A Members are not disclosed in the approved document.
AAP 2022 Survey
The first AAP survey ran between 24 January and 11 February 2022. The objective of this exercise was to estimate budget provisions by EOSC Association Members for Additional Activities in 2022, as well as to monitor the actual spending of 2021. The survey was addressed to all EOSC-A Members, except for Section III on reporting, which was only available to the subset of Mandated Organisations who have contributed to the AAP 2021.
To support Member compliance with the monitoring and reporting of their Additional Activities and guide them through the questionnaire, the Association organised three dedicated training workshops between 25-27 January 2022 that were attended by more than 115 participants. All training materials – available below – have been distributed among the Members:
Timely input on Additional Activities has been provided by 90 member organisation representing 25 countries (with the German Mandated Organisation reporting on behalf of all German Members). The largest number of responses (n=42) came from Research Performing Organisations, followed by Service Providing Organisations (n=26), Research Funding Organisations (n=12) and Other (n=10). These numbers correspond very well to the representation of these categories in the Association Member base. Other overall statistics can be found here: EOSC Association Members from 25 countries contribute to the establishment of the 2022 Additional Activities Plan (AAP)
AAP 2021 reporting
Agreed and provided contributions to Additional Activities, both in 2021 and 2022, are planned to be reported by the Association in the first quarter of 2023.
The Additional Activities Reporting Tool common to all HE Partnerships will be used for reporting. The tool is expected to be available in January 2023, with provisions for confidential information. The reported contributions of EOSC-A Members will not be subject to Commission auditing in the future.
In line with the EC requirements for all Co-Programmed European Partnerships, EOSC Members’ Additional Activities need to be monitored, reported, and presented in nine categories:
Support to additional R&I
Scale up of technologies
Demonstrators
Creating new business opportunities
Training & skills development
Contribution to the development of new standards, regulations and policies
Supporting ecosystem development
Communication, dissemination, awareness raising, citizen engagement
Other
KPI Monitoring
A monitoring framework of the KPIs for the EOSC Partnership was pre-defined in the EOSC Partnership’s Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) and committed to in the EOSC Partnership’s Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). This initial monitoring framework was further refined through iterations between the Association and the EC.
The official EOSC Partnership’s Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (MF) was adopted on 7 April 2022, during the 3rd EOSC Partnership Board meeting. The MF addresses three General Objectives, nine Specific Objectives and 14 Operational Objectives from those pre-defined in the SRIA 2021 and committed to in the MoU.
KPIs
In the MF, each operational and strategic objective is accompanied and to be monitored by a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), against KPI-specific targets. In total, there are 15 KPIs related to the Specific Objectives and 19 KPIs associated with the Operational Objectives. Each KPI is also accompanied by the description of the identifiable sources of information, as well as of the potential information provider/s. Each table thus identifies a data stream, from data source to data collection, including data reporting responsibilities.
The MF also includes the EOSC Partnership Glossary.
Implementation
The implementation of the Monitoring Framework will progress during the coming months, with the aim to establish the baseline for all its indicators for the year 2022. This will begin with a consultation with the EOSC Task Forces and other stakeholders, until June 2022, and continue with the alignment of the different indicators with KPI-specific respondent groups. Data collections would begin in early autumn, until November 2022. The first report of the monitoring framework baselines is planned to be available in early spring 2023.
For any questions regarding the EOSC Partnership’s Additional Activities and Monitoring Framework, please contact our Monitoring Team.