Pre-award support

About

The USPIR, was created in February 2019, following the initiative by the Office of the Vice-Rector for Research and Scientific Planning to strengthen the participation of the research community in international programmes and especially in H2020 and, in the near future, Horizon Europe.

However, the origins of the unit go back to 2014, when URV was granted an "Europa Redes y Gestores" project for 3 years, named ICARO (International Cooperative and Innovation Alliances Office), which proposed, for the first time, the creation of a Pre-Award Office, with 2 officers working full time to increase the participation of the URV in international calls, with focus on H2020. This was office was a success, obtaining over 7 M€ in competitive funding from 30 European projects during the 3 years that it was in operation.

After the end of the ICARO project, the URV started the process of designing and creating its own Pre-Award Unit, efforts that culminated in February 2019, with the opening of the USPIR. At present, USPIR has 7 pre-award officers, 2 of whom are permanent staff at the URV and 5 who collaborate from external institutions, and it offers support for all 5 areas of research at URV: Arts and Humanities, Sciences, Health Sciences, Social and Legal Sciences and Engineering.

Strategy

The mission of the USPIR is to proactively support the URV community in obtaining international competitive funds for research and institution-related activities and to offer individualized professional support throughout the pre-award life cycle of each funded project. At such, it aims to:

• Generate knowledge within the URV by promoting, assessing and managing its participation in Research programmes.
• Become a highly effective and efficient user-oriented Customer Services Team.
• Offer the best service to our internal and external users.
• Communicate to research groups the significance of our work and the benefits of our activities.
• Provide researchers with greater support so that they can access competitive funds more easily.
• Provide the researchers with greater support so that they can increase the impact of their research results.

Goals

• To be recognized by 2020 for playing a leading international role and being the clear national leader in several thematic areas of research that address the major challenges  facing society in the 21st century.
• To be in a position to be proactive with the research portfolio.
• To promote the participation of research staff in research programmes, to provide them with advice regarding funding opportunities and to guide them on the best possible strategy to follow.
• To follow up and be well informed regarding the university's research lines and the scientific production of its research groups.
• To participate actively in writing proposals.
• To supplement the work of the European correspondents of partner institutions by offering several support tools for the preparation of projects in coordination with partner institutions.
• To offer advice to the academic and research staff and facilitate their participation in research programmes.
• To disseminate and promote calls for projects and employment opportunities published by the regional, national and European administrations and to act as the point of contact with the relevant funding bodies.
• To assess and coordinate the project agents within the framework of the research groups' ambit of operation by promoting synergy between these and the university's services.
• To encourage the URV's participation in large-scale institutional projects.
• To enable the achievement of ambitious strategic objectives in challenging circumstances through careful planning, excellent services and infrastructure, and sound governance and management.

USPIR was funded 173.488,00 € by the National Research Agency, within the National Plan of Scientific Technical Research and Innovation 2017-2020 (ECT2019-000424)

The Oficina Tarragona Regió del Coneixement, a contributor of the USPIR, is funded by the Diputació de Tarragona.