Bilateral Fund

The project concerns the collaboration of the parties within the scope and objectives of Project “Nanoscopy-GR: Greek Nanoscopy Network” funded under the Bilateral Relations Fund of the European Economic Area/Norwegian Financial Mechanism (EEA FM) 2014-2021.

The project aims to strengthen the research and the medium/long-term coordination of research strategy between the Laboratory of Electron Microscopy and Structural Characterization of Materials (ElMicLab) of the Physics Department (PD) of AUTh, the Electron Microscopy and Nanomaterials Laboratory (EMNL) of the Institute of Nanoscience & Nanotechnology (INN), NCSR “D”, and the Center for Materials Science and Nanotechnology (SMN) of the University of Oslo (UiO) in the field of Electron Nanoscopy, by creating a node between the two most important Greek laboratories in the field and relating it to the corresponding Norwegian node NORTEM.

The specific aims of the project are:

(i) to develop an integrated nanoscopy-modeling methodology for conducting pilot studies of nanomaterials and nanostructures down to the atomic scale;

(ii) to upgrade and unify the capacities for the provision of innovative interdisciplinary services in Electron Nanoscopy;

(iii) to confront new challenges in the nanoscopic characterization of materials and devices, and

(iv) to co-develop Electron Nanoscopy in the two countries through synergies in research projects.

“Energy Governance for Sustainable Development” (ENERGO) aims at the advancement of scientific evidence-based mutual knowledge development. The project fosters bilateral relationships, research cooperation, and long-term strategic partnership between partners from the donor and the beneficiary states. ENERGO further supports capacity building and continuous collaboration by bringing together a multi-disciplinary team of experts, from Norway and Greece, to systematically analyze common challenges and solutions.

The project addresses challenges at a national and transnational level in an inter-disciplinary approach and it extracts useful policy recommendations with regards to sustainable and inclusive energy policies in Greece and Norway through:

✓ knowledge sharing and transfer of experiences from Norwegian to Greek actors and vice versa
✓ increased contact between professionals in the two countries, who will focus on supporting female experts and early-career researchers
✓ discussion and joint working out of strategies to solve common challenges
✓ capacity building
✓ understanding and bridging the priorities and incentives of different stakeholders (local communities, investors, policymakers, etc.).

The aim for the collaboration of Norway and Greece on this topic is in exploring how current hydrocarbon activities in Greece can be supplemented with green energy solutions, with a particular focus on the areas of: (a) carbon capture and storage, and (b) offshore wind energy.

This will involve a comprehensive review of the successful transformation of the Norwegian Oil and Gas sector in the last few years and the application of techniques and lessons learned in the Greek energy sector.

The aim of this specific proposal is to set up the mechanism based on which #GIL4W will become a flagship project for both countries acting as a knowledge transfer mechanism from Norway to Greece where members can share tools, lessons learned, business bases and rapidly push forward innovative practices. The key role of the Norwegian partners besides the identification of synergies with the relevant Greek actors will be to transfer through co-creation and frugal innovation concept the valuable Norwegian know-how and help the Post-COVID recovery and the negative impacts of the financial crisis on the Greek economy and the female workforce in the Greek labour market.

GIL4W will create a space where members can share tools, lessons learned, business bases, and rapidly push forward innovative practices. They are encouraged to set their own specific targets to:

1. Make a high-level corporate commitment to adopt a gender-responsive approach to innovation
2. Design innovations that include women as service and innovation providers as well as end-users
3. Adapt implementation approaches to ensure innovations meet the needs of women
4. Evaluate gender-responsive impacts by using a data-driven approach
5. Scaling of the innovations that provide sustainable solutions to meet the needs of women and girls and creating a Greek Community of Excellence for women innovators and STEM entrepreneurs bringing them to the forefront of the global innovation ecosystem.

Project Partners:

1. Athena RIC was founded in 2003 as the “IRIS – Integrated Research for the Information Society”

2. The European Centre for Women and Technology (ECWT) is a European meeting hub for public and private actors, academia, and NGOs from 26 European Union countries working together for measurable and significant results in terms of increasing the number of girls and women in the technology sector in general and ICT in particular.

3. The CTI Diophantus is a scientific body supervised by the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs, and Technical Advisor of the State for ICT issues, with facilities in Patras and Athens.

4. Demokritos National Center for Scientific Research was founded in July 1961 as a Research Centre for Nuclear Research, Demokritos is today the largest multidisciplinary Research Centre in Greece with approximately 180 Researchers in tenured and tenure-track positions and over 500 research personnel working on projects funded mainly by grants from State Funds, the European Union and private industries.

5. The Institute of Communications and Computer Systems (ICCS) is a non-profit Academic Research Institute established in 1989 by the Greek Ministry of Education in order to carry out research and development activities in the area of telecommunication systems and techniques, computer systems, etc.

6. The Hellenic Pasteur Institute established in 1920, has a long tradition in translational biomedical research, particularly in the field of Infectious Diseases, and a commitment to Public Health Services in collaboration with the Ministry of Health.

Total budget: 62.001,00 euros

The proposed project “Winds of Change” aims to produce thorough analysis; initiate discussions and a constructive dialogue between key stakeholders; and build bridges of mutual trust and collaboration on green transition and the deployment of renewable energy (RE) sources, notably offshore wind energy, for a new energy model for Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean.

The proposal outlines a two-pronged approach: (a) a regional dimension of a connected RE production and distribution in Greece’s neighbourhood; (b) and a domestic dimension with a focused socio-economic impact on offshore wind energy power. Both strands of work will provide evidence and substantiated analysis. For the domestic Greek socio-economic impact study, it is timely in the context of the anticipated incoming regulatory framework for the transition of the energy model.

Focusing on alleviating national and local concerns of onshore wind farms in environmentally sensitive regions in Greece, the proposed socio-economic impact study will identify evidence and analysis on the introduction of offshore wind power in the energy mix for Greece. At the same time, whilst it creates evidence and analysis for offshore wind power production as part of the domestic energy mix, it enables Greece to lead an informed discussion with its neighbours on offshore wind power production for a regional RE model.

As the pandemic and the European Green Deal have shifted the focus from hydrocarbon to RE in the Eastern Mediterranean, this study aims to contribute to the identification of opportunities and risks for the successful development of a RE grid and offshore wind power farms in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The Action “GENDER-IN: Integrating Gender in interdisciplinary research” aims to promote bilateral activities between Greece and Norway by enhancing the mutual learning process between scientists and researchers in both countries on the integration of gender in research content. The activities that will take place will be online and live and will promote gender perspectives in science.

For the successful implementation of the project, the Hellenic Society of University Women (EL.E.GY.P.) as Project Promoter and, in the framework of developing bilateral cooperation, KILDEN- Knowledge Centre for Gender Balance and Gender Perspectives in Research, a National Information Centre for Gender Research in Norway, are cooperating. The project “GENDER- IN: Integrating Gender in interdisciplinary research” will build on Kilden’s expertise. Kilden has edited a publication entitled: “What is the gender dimension in research?” which contains case studies from a wide range of research fields with examples showing how the gender dimension is introduced in the respective fields. For its part, EL.E.GY.P. consists of female faculty members from all sciences, from almost all Universities in Greece. Therefore, it will be able to activate through its members the academic and research community towards the exploitation of the know-how.

In more detail, the Hellenic Society of Women University Professors (EL.E.G.Y.P.) is a nonprofit, scientific association whose main purpose is to improve the status and prestige of women in our country’s academic institutions and to highlight their scientific work and their social contribution. EL.E.G.Y.P. seeks to develop mechanisms to support women academics in their workplace, to ensure their equal participation in all bodies, committees, programmes and activities of the universities to which they belong, and to promote dialogue, teaching, and research on issues of gender, society, and science.

KILDEN– Knowledge Centre for Gender Balance and Gender Perspectives in Research is a national knowledge centre for gender perspectives and gender balance in research. It professionally independent unit administratively integrated as a part of the Research Council and operates autonomous in planning, organisation and completion of its responsibilities. Kilden promotes gender research and acts as a hub for gender researchers and all those interested in research on gender issues. It also works closely with the academic communities for gender studies in Norway and with other academic networks where gender research is carried out.

GENDER-IN will strengthen cooperation and knowledge exchange on gender mainstreaming in science between academics and researchers from Greece and Norway working in 6 different interdisciplinary research areas:

1. health, 2. culture, creativity and inclusive society, 3. civil security for society, 4. digital, industry and space, 5. climate, energy and mobility, 6. food, bioeconomy, natural resources, agriculture and environment.

These thematic areas are also divided within the Horizon-Europe funding programme, which is the EU’s main funding programme for research and innovation.

The objectives of the project are: (a) to enhance cooperation and knowledge exchange between academics and researchers from Greece and Norway, (b) to open cross-cultural discussions between academics, policymakers, and stakeholders on emerging issues of gender relations in the academic community of Universities and Research Centres, (c) to propose possible ways of integrating gender in interdisciplinary fields of science.

Total budget: 62.460,00€

Initiative proposed on the basis of experience from previous period and the recognized need for an available and flexible budget line, in order to fund timely and without administration burdens individual activities, such as business trips or a small scale event. If, in the future,emerges a need for an initiative implemented by the NFP on a specific targeted activity, which requires a budget more than 60.000€, then a separate distinct initiative will be proposed.

The project is in the field of culture and arts, focusing in music. With its actions such as university exchanges, sound art residencies, community and schools’ art projects, devised production and public art programs it aims to enhance bilateral collaboration of artists, university music departments, and other entities’ related to music and art scene.

The difficulties of young people and women to access the labour market in Greece deprive the country’s economy of the labour potential of some of the most dynamic segments of Greek society. Given the urgent need to address the output gap produced by the crisis and to reform the national growth model towards innovation and extroversion, mobilization of and investment on Greece’s human capital is of paramount importance for Greece’s economic future.

In this context, the aim of the proposed initiative is twofold:
(a) document and analyse the conditions of the Greek labour market and examine the main barriers that constrain access for the young people, placing an emphasis on gender aspects of such barriers; and
(b) formulate appropriate policy proposals on how to facilitate the access of young people to the Greek labour market, including specific recommendations on how to overcome gender related barriers.

The project will seek to benefit from and utilize knowledge transfer, experience and good practices from Norway as well as other Nordic countries.

To develop a partnership between Greek and Norwegian actors that concretely collaborate to produce a comparative analysis of regulatory frameworks for floating offshore wind and, based on this, prepare draft input to a legal documentation for offshore floating wind in Greece, with all the critical adjustments/modifications of Greek legislation to occur, so as to facilitate the development of offshore wind projects in Greece.

The initiative will attract international offshore wind energy players to invest in Greece and allow the competent Authorities to issue the necessary licenses for offshore wind projects.

HEAD to HEAD is a bilateral exhibition project connecting the two unique, dynamic, and ever-expanding artist-run visual art scenes of Athens, Greece, and Reykjavik, Iceland. The project aims to establish an energetic connection between Greek and Icelandic artists and spaces and boost peripheral European cultural collaboration. The execution of the project will be based on an exchange and pairing of Greek and Icelandic artists resulting in exhibitions in both places. The Icelandic exhibition committee has proposed a selection of Icelandic artists to each of the collaborating exhibition spaces. The proprietors of each space then propose a Greek artist, pairing the two together to create an exhibition. During a research trip in Athens last September 2019 the curatorial team met with several artist-run initiatives and institutions and confirmed their participation. They are beside A-DASH are KEIV, Hyle, Backspace, Pet Projects, Snehta, Space52, Zoetrope, Sunday Narratives, PS: Communitism, MEME and Stoa 42. This process will then be mirrored in Reykjavik, Iceland and the following artist-run initiatives and institutions have confirmed their participation in 2022; Kling & Bang, The Living Art Museum, Museum of Perceptive Art, Open, Gallery Port, Midpunkt, Reykjavik Association of Sculptors/ Reykjavik Sculpture Garden.

ProGender aims to promote bilateral activities between Iceland, Greece, and Norway by creating a digital hub devoted to gender perspectives of COVID-19 and its aftermath. The activities that will be carried out within the hub will be online and will promote gender perspectives, analyses, and policy responses to the COVID-19 crisis through a set of actions and initiatives that enhance cooperation and exchange between Greek, Icelandic and Norwegian institutions. Globally, while the mortality rate of the Covid-19 illness seems to be more severe among the male population, the socio-economic impacts of the coronavirus crisis have serious consequences for the female population: women represent 70% of global health care personnel and are hereby extremely exposed to the risk of the virus. Women, who are also highly exposed to domestic violence and work-life imbalances, are expected to be affected more severely by unemployment and the loss of livelihoods. Although there are common gender challenges across the globe, there are countries, like Iceland and Norway, that are currently best positioned to deal with the crisis in gender-sensitive ways not only because they have female-led governments, but also because they have better gender equality infrastructures, policies and legislation in place.

ProGender will create a hub which will make it possible to transfer of knowledge and best practices and perspectives from the North to the South, it will not be based on a one-way process as the scope of the hub will be to construct and support a framework within which productive and creative interactions benefiting participants from all three countries would take place.