French stakeholder info session on the new Horizon Europe blue funding calls
On 23 May 2025, WestMED’s National Hub France, together with Pole Mer Mediterranée, organised a national stakeholder event in Mottpellier, to inform and discuss EC funding opportunities. Thirtyfive people joined in-person and online for this event that mirrored a previously organised similar national event for the Atlantic Strategy on May 13 in Brest.
This event in Montpellier was primarily dedicated to the funding call related to Horizon Europe cluster 6 on Fisheries, Aquaculture and Blue Biotechnologies. However, cluster 1: Health, was also briefly discussed.
On behalf of the the French ministry in charge of research with its national Horizon Europe focus (Ministere de l’enseignement supérieur et de la recherche), Fatiha Fort presented the open, ongoing Horizon Europe calls. She also pointed to the existence of specific hubs, serving as as accelerators, such as the EIC that supports start-ups and SMEs to develop and scale-up innovations. This was followed by a presentation by Salomé La Ragione, from Pôle Mer Méditerranée, who provided an overview of the countries eligible for the Horizon Europe calls.
Frédérick Herpers and Colin Ruel from WestMED’s French National Hub showcased the added value of the WestMED initiative with its Assistance Mechanism, offering different forms of support to national stakeholders; not only through WestMED’s French national hub but also through the Atlantic Strategy’s French National Hub, as France borders both sea basins.
The support offered by these hubs is twofold. On the one hand, it allows helping organisations with projects or project-ideas that strengthen the sustainable blue economy, find relevant project funding and/or suitable project-partners to form (often required) international consortia while also helping in the funding application process. On the other hand, the national hubs support the alignment of sustainable blue economy policy frameworks at local, national and regional (Western Mediterranean) level. This also includes exploring synergies with the other sea basins strategies such as the Atlantic, the Black Sea and the emerging North Sea (the Greater North Sea Basin Initiative) – thus allowing for an extensive network that can be tapped.
Clémence Le Corff, from Pôle Mer Méditerranée highlighted the strong link between the WestMED National Hub France and Pole Mer Mediterranée, showcasing the robustness and wide range of support available for project development, capitalizing on its strong experience in supporting organisations with EU funded projects.
Frédérick Herpers, French National Hub for the WestMED and the Atlantic and Philippe Dubois from Innofluence gave an example of how Expertise France also supports projects with capacity building on the Southern shore of the Western Mediterranean. The (EU supported) Blue Economy Program for Algeria allowed for the specific training of Algerian researchers related to EU project submission (for funding) and using the National Hub’s networks for helping to find project partners. It underscored the point that challenges are common for all countries bordering the Mediterranean sea basin and that cooperation and sharing practices across both shores are pivotal.
In this respect the event was also an opportunity to present the different WestMED National Hubs with networks that directly cover 10 countries in total. Some Tunisian, Morrocan and Algerian stakeholders attended online, underlining the importance and involvement of southern shore countries.
This event’s objectives to inform and discuss funding opportunities under Horizon 2025 were met thanks to the presentations and exchanges with the audience while demonstrating the existence and the readiness of the Assistance Mechanism (National Hub) to support.
Views and experiences were shared related to project submission, and participants were invited to consider project leadership and/ or partnership to apply for the new batch of funding opportunities under Horizon Europe.
The location of the event in Montpellier (Cité des métiers de demain) was strategic in order to engage stakeholder from Occitanie and regional authorities.
Visit the event announcement page (incl. agenda)
