BROKERAGE EVENT FOR APPLICATIONS TO EU CENTRALISED CALLS

Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture, And Clean Environment For A Healthy Life

Networking is crucial for the development and realization of successful EU centralized projects. It facilitates the formation of important partnerships, the exchange of ideas, and the acquisition of valuable support. With this in mind, we have organized a networking event as part of the KRPAN project, bringing together researchers from academia and industry to discuss “Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Clean Environment for a Healthy Life.”

REASONS FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION

The networking event offers an excellent opportunity to showcase your projects, establish connections with researchers and institutions in the fields of food, bioeconomy, natural resources, agriculture, and a clean environment for healthy living, and potentially form consortia for upcoming international calls under the Horizon Europe program and other European centralized programs.

Participants will therefore have the chance to expand their network through “speed networking” and one-on-one meetings, allowing them to identify opportunities for collaboration and consortium building for project proposals under various centralized European programs (Horizon Europe, LIFE, etc.). Within the Horizon Europe program, the event is particularly focused on projects under Pillar III – EIC Pathfinder, EU Missions and Pillar II – Cluster 6, which addresses the following thematic areas:

Destination 1: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
Destination 2: Fair, Healthy, and Environment-Friendly Food Systems from Primary Production to Consumption
Destination 3: Circular Economy and Bioeconomy Sectors
Destination 4: Clean Environment and Zero Pollution
Destination 5: Land, Ocean, and Water for Climate Action
Destination 6: Resilient, Inclusive, Healthy, and Green Rural, Coastal, and Urban Communities

THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVE OF THE NETWORKING EVENT IS TO SERVE AS A BREEDING GROUND FOR NEW IDEAS FOR FUTURE EU PROJECTS. THIS INVOLVES PRESENTATIONS SHOWCASING POTENTIAL AND GROUNDBREAKING IDEAS FROM RESEARCHERS IN BOTH ACADEMIA AND INDUSTRY.

Concurrently, the objectives of the event are as follows:

facilitating networking among researchers from Slovenian research organizations (e.g. IJS, KI, etc.),
establishing connections with international companies and foreign universities and research organisations (e.g. EUTOPIA, The GUILD, The African Research Universities Alliance – ARUA, Utrecht Network, etc.),
forming new consortium partnerships,
fostering existing consortium partnerships.

THE PROGRAMME

The programme is designed to allow you to present your ideas and interact with other speakers and participants. Invited participants include professors, researchers from the University of Ljubljana and Slovenia, and representatives of companies interested in applying for Horizon Europe (especially Pillar II – Cluster 6; Pillar III – EIC Pathfinder and EU Missions) and other centralised EU programmes. This will enrich the programme with a wide range of interesting speakers, promising ideas and diverse participants. Take this opportunity to network with a community of researchers working in similar fields. Below you can see the programme of the event.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

The event is aimed at researchers and business representatives from Slovenia and Europe interested in applying for Horizon Europe and other centralised EU programmes.

JOIN US IN SHAPING THE FUTURE !

SPEAKERS

Prof. Nataša Poklar Ulrih

Professor Nataša Poklar Ulrih is a professor of biochemistry at the Biotechnical Faculty of the University of Ljubljana. She was a Dean of the Biotechnical Faculty (2020-2022), a Vice-Dean for Scientific Research (2018-2020), and a Vice-Dean for the Field of Food Science (2014-2018).

She has been the head of the Department of Biochemistry and Food Chemistry since 2009 and is the Chair of the Board of the Center of Excellence CIPKeBiP. She leads the research program “Biochemical and Biophysical-Chemical Characterization of Natural Substances” and several national and European projects. At the University of Ljubljana, she coordinates the EUTOPIA MOORE and EUTOPIA Health university network projects.

In 2024, she successfully obtained Horizon Europe funding for the ERA Chair project “Foodomics – Metabolomics in Food and Nutrition.” She has published 198 original scientific articles and 7 chapters in scientific monographs, holds 3 patents, and has an h-index of 38.

She is a member of the editorial boards of several scientific journals and has been an invited speaker at numerous international scientific symposia. Professor Poklar Ulrih is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Fulbright Scholarship (2006-2007), the UL Gold Plaque (2016), BF Recognition Awards (2011, 2014), the Lapanje Award for Scientific Achievements in Biochemistry (2022), and the Jesenko Award for Lifetime Achievement (2023).

Dr. Uroš Novak

Dr. Uroš Novak is an experienced researcher with over 15 years of expertise and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering. He is the author of more than 50 scientific articles, with over 1900 citations, and has spoken at more than 200 events, including invitations to speak at high-level European Commission events as a project coordinator for the EU Mission: Restore Our Ocean and Waters initiative. He leads the research group for Bioplastics, Biocomposites, and Zero-waste technologies at the Department of Catalysis and Chemical Reaction Engineering at the National Institute of Chemistry, Slovenia.

Dr. Novak has received multiple national and international awards for scientific excellence, citizen science and communication, innovations, and inventions, both as a researcher and in connection with his start-ups.

He is the coordinator of the Horizon Europe Mission Ocean & Waters Lighthouse project REMEDIES and the Interreg IT-SI project BIOAPP. He is also the principal investigator in five other Horizon Europe projects (ESTELLA, RURALITIES, PROPLANET, SSbD4Chem, and UPSTREAM), as well as Interreg Central Europe (TeBiCe) and Interreg Adrion (PREVENT).

Passionate about transforming science into practical solutions, he was a finalist of the EU Social Innovation Challenge in 2019, which led to the creation of the 123zero start-up. He is also the co-founder of two other start-ups and the director of a non-profit NGO, in addition to mentoring start-up companies.

Dr. Letizia Maestroni

TBA

ASSt. prof. Draško Veselinovič

Asst. prof. Draško Veselinovič has been President of the Board of the Slovenian Business and Research Association (SBRA) in Brussels since 2014. Before that, he had many CEO positions in international financial institutions like Ljubljana Stock Exchange (its founder in 1989), Dezelna banka Slovenije, NLB, and KD Group.

Since 1986, he has been, besides his main job, a parallel researcher and professor of different financial subjects at the University of Ljubljana and Gea College. He has been a visiting professor at the Ghent University, London School of Economics, and Vienna University.

He has over 600 bibliographic items registered in his name, among others 6 books on foreign exchange markets, financial (capital) markets, stock exchanges and financial derivatives.

CALLS FOR PROPOSALS

The event will primarily address some of the Horizon Europe calls for Cluster 6 within Pillar II (Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Environment), the EIC Pathfinder from Pillar III, relevant EU Missions (A Soil Deal for Europe, and Restore our Ocean and Waters), and calls from other European programs, such as LIFE.

Travel and Accomodation

For our international guests, we would like to provide information on accessing Ljubljana through various international airports,

with the closest being Ljubljana Airport. However, we recommend considering the airports in Zagreb, Trieste, Venice, Treviso, and Klagenfurt for better connections. Transportation from these airports to Ljubljana and the hotel is available through airport transport shuttles such as GoOpti and Nomago.

For the accommodation the Hotel Four Points by Sheraton Ljubljana Mons is offering you a special discounted price (breakfast included), which is valid for reservations made until 27 January 2025. You need to use this link to get a conference discount.

Room prices:

Classic Queen / Single room: 83,00 EUR person/night (103,00 EUR for 2 people/night)
Classic Twin / Double room: 83,00 EUR person/night (103,00 EUR for 2 people/night)

MORE INFORMATION

Event venue: Hotel Four Points by Sheraton Ljubljana Mons

Contact: krpan@uni-lj.si / +386 1 2418 696

The event is organised in the framework of the KRPAN project “Strengthening Research Support and Activities to Advance European Research Projects”, co-funded by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation and the European Union – NextGenerationEU.