SEREN3 is a 36-month Coordination and Support Action with the overall aim of facilitating trans-national co-operation among NCPs for Secure Societies, identifying and sharing good practices, and raising the general standard of the support to programme applicants across the EU, Associated and Third countries. To reach the objective above, the project will develop three main activity axes, corresponding to the projects’ specific objectives: 1) capacity building of NCPs; 2) strengthening the participation of relevant stakeholders to Horizon 2020 funding opportunities; 3) and supporting networking opportunities within the Secure Societies constituency. Cross-cutting activities of dissemination and communication will addup to this main set of activities, helping to enhance their impact. SEREN3 is the continuation and evolution of the precedent network, SEREN2, whose results and lessons learnt have been taken into consideration with the logic of improving the future network and in order to valorize the network’s strengths. SEREN3 will also take into account the paradigmatic change brought by Horizon 2020. This will be reflected in particular in a stronger attention of the network in terms of multidisciplinary competences, consideration of related societal challenges, and linkage with other EU relevant initiatives, funding programmes and policies. Finally, the network will seek further opening to a wider target of stakeholders and businesses in the Secure Societies field. SEREN3 consortium comprises 17 beneficiaries, with a good mix of well-experienced and less experienced NCPs, and representing Member States, Associated Countries and Third Countries. Besides beneficiaries, the project services will be offered to all officially appointed H2020 Secure Societies NCPs, who will be involved as “associated partners”.

Joint Programming is a process combining a strategic framework, a bottom-up approach and high-level commitment from the Member States (MS). It builds on the experience gained from existing schemes, coordinating national programmes by contributing to the reduction in fragmentation of research efforts of MS, stepping up the mobilisation of skills, knowledge and resources, advancing research and innovation in the specific field. The JPI in "Cultural Heritage and Global Change: a new Challenge for Europe" - JPICH - was approved by the Council was launched in January 2010. The JPICH has defined the Vision Document, the Terms of Reference, the Strategic Research Agenda (SRA), an Action Programme and a monitoring and evaluation procedure. The experience gained over the past 4 years in JPICH development and implementation has been achieved through the active participation of 17 EU MS and AC and 8 Countries participating with the role of Observers. The present CSA JHEP2 Proposal intends to support the implementation of the Strategic Research Agenda following the recommendations emerging from the High level Group for joint programming (GPC) in the Biennial Report 2014 and in the Report on "Alignment in the context of Joint Programming", which specifically address the recommendation to develop alignment of national research and innovation programmes and activities and application of qualitative and quantitative Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).The main objectives addressed within the present proposal are: - Develop effective and efficient governance of the alignment of the national research and innovation programmes. - Reinforce common activities on cultural heritage. - Apply quantitative and qualitative KPIs for monitoring an assessing the JPICH alignment process. The support to the JPICH with the present JHEP2 Proposal will be essential for achieving the above-mentioned objectives and proceed with the integration of the research area on Cultural Heritage.

NET4SOCIETY4 will be the transnational network of National Contact Points (NCPs) for Societal Challenge 6 (SC6) “Inclusive, innovative, and reflective societies” in Horizon 2020. NCPs are set up to guide researchers in their quest for securing EU funding. NET4SOCIETY4 will further develop the current NET4SOCIETY network of SC6 NCPs (former NCPs for Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities), which was first established in 2008 and includes currently around 80 SC6 NCPs from Europe and beyond. NET4SOCIETY4 will ensure that all SC6 NCPs have the relevant knowledge and skills for their work and can offer professional, high-quality and tailor-made services to applicants. All nominated SC6 NCPs (also non-beneficiaries) will have access to information and capacity building tools such as workshops, NCP Info days, trainings, webinars, factsheets or newsletters. NET4SOCIETY4 foresees targeted activities to support applicants in SC6. The project will facilitate interdisciplinary and international consortium building through the organisation of brokerage events, through a dedicated partner search service and through a research directory of SC6 key players. In addition, NET4SOCIETY4 will organise expert meetings e.g. on “impact” of SC6 research and disseminate the meetings’ results to NCPs and applicants. To support the successful implementation of “embedding” Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in all parts of Horizon 2020, NET4SOCIETY4 will carry out surveys on the integration of SSH in Horizon 2020. The project will publish success stories and factsheets on “embedding”, as well as a document listing funding opportunities for SSH in all of Horizon 2020. NET4SOCIETY4 will organise two large conferences in the thematic area of SC6 to provide visibility to the funding programme and the possibility to discuss future research needs. Various promotion activities enhancing the visibility of NET4SOCIETY4 services and the SC6 in Horizon 2020 will underline these efforts.