​B-WISER: be a winner in elite sport and employment before and after athletic retirement  With the support from the Erasmus+ Sport Programme of t...

On 18th November Schuman Associates organised a cocktail reception in the European Parliament around the topic of “Sports and physical activity for active and healthy ageing - the Tai Chi example”. The event, co-hosted by MEPs Marian Harkin, Lambert Van Nistelrooij, Marc Tarabella, Heinz Becker and Alojz Peterle, was sponsored by AGE Platform Europe and the Italian Federation of Wushu Kung Fu (FIWUK). During the debate all MEPs recognized the key role physical activity can play in the current European ageing societies and stressed the importance of sport as a prevention tool. The event emphasized the need to support sport and physical activity as a full part of active and healthy ageing processes. The highlight of the event was a series of demonstrations of the art of Tai Chi showcased by professional coaches and teachers from FIWUK. All participants, including the MEPs, were invited to practice a few movements of this...

  Winter is being a very hot season for the digitalization of Europe, a revolution that could contribute €415 billion per year to our economy and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.  The Digital Single Market for Europe (DSM) gave an important step in the unification of rules to strengthen fundamental rights and the European Market in December 2015 with the agreement on the reform of the Data protection rules and the first EU wide cybersecurity legislation – the Network and Information Systems Directive. The months to come will bring us the results of several public consultations reflecting the pace of technology and hinting how the infrastructure’s development should evolve: ·         Public consultation: eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020 (closed 22/1/2016):  The new eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020 will address the needs and expectations of European citizens and businesses with respect to the delivery of efficient and user-friendly government services in the EU....

The interview with Mrs. Ruth Estrada, Partner at Schuman for the Official Chamber of Commerce of Spain in Belgium and Luxembourg explains how Schuman Associates works with a wide range of clients, from governments and large multinational corporations to business associations and NGOs, in major sectors such as ICT and security, energy and environment, trade and development, financial services, telecommunications, education and health in the area of EU funding and public affairs.

Schuman Associates is the leading consultancy in Brussels working on European funding and project financing. Delivering added-value and relevant content to our clients has always been a priority for us. 

We continue our monthly ‘Country Digest’ with EU facts & figures from the EU's youngest member state – Croatia. 

Within this year´s EU Regions Week , the Regional Development Agency Bucharest-Ilfov organized a workshop on Innovative technologies and partnerships in developing regions, in partnership with COCIR and our client Philips. The event, chaired by MEP Jan Olbrycht (EPP, PL) presented the benefits of public-private partnerships supported by EU Funds.

A year ago, Schuman Associates was selected to support the bid writing of a FET Flagship project on EU Cultural Heritage. This is one of those projects that only comes once in a decade. If you work with the H2020 programme, you will know that these are very big projects with expected large scale social and economic impacts and, of course, high competition. The key challenge is to build a solid business case around a visionary idea, leading to a coherent and ambitious research and innovation agenda for the EU and its Member states for the next 10 years.

Schuman Associates is the leading consultancy in Brussels working on European funding and project financing. Our experienced colleagues in Schuman local offices provide a hands-on support to local and international companies in accessing business opportunities arising from EU funding. We are delighted to continue our series of “Country Digest” with Spain, where we have local presence with an office in Madrid.

Leading up to the EU & Western Balkan Summit that will take place on 17 May 2018 in Sofia, Schuman Associates kicks off a special edition of its monthly 'Country Digest’ featuring Western Balkans countries. First one – Serbia.

By all accounts 2018 is the year of Enlargement policy. On 6 February 2018 the Commissions adopted a Strategy for 'A credible enlargement perspective for and enhanced EU engagement with the Western Balkans', and it announced six flagship initiatives – a set of concrete actions to be implemented in the next two years. To support the implementation of the new flagship initiatives, the Commission proposed to top up the 1.07 BEUR already foreseen for the region for 2018.  In this sense, more funding will be directed towards infrastructure investment in transport, energy & digital.

The European Commission’s proposal on the next 2021-2027 EU Budget starts a dynamic debate on the future of Europe, but also of EU Funding to its Member States and regions.

Despite a 5% cut in each of the Cohesion and Agricultural policies, the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) remain the most powerful investment tool of the European Union. They account for more than a half of the proposed 7-year EU Budget (Cohesion Policy - 374 billion EUR and Common Agriculture Policy - 371 billion EUR, including direct payments).

We continue with the special edition of our monthly 'Country Digest’ featuring Western Balkans countries. This time we look at Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), a country that has been a candidate country since 2005 and benefits from 664.2 MEUR from IPA II funding 2014-2020. 

Schuman Associates is the leading consultancy in Brussels working on European funding and project financing. Delivering added-value and relevant content to our clients has always been a priority for us. To strengthen our local presence and strategy we have embarked on a new wave of local recruits in Romania, Poland and the Czech Republic. Our new colleagues will bring valuable experience to our local offices and support them in providing a hands on support to local and international companies in accessing business opportunities arising from EU funding. Schuman Associates has just launched its monthly ‘Country Digest’ to capture facts and other EU funding and relevant highlights. We are delighted to continue the series with Poland.

The special edition of our monthly ‘Country Digest’ featuring Western Balkans continues. This time in the spotlight is Albania.

May 2018 marked a renewed momentum in the EU-Western Balkans relations. The Sofia EU-Western Balkan Summit reinforced a mutual commitment to the European perspective of the region and set outconcrete measures to boost cooperation both with the EU and within the region. The EU also agreed to step up its support both in terms of funding and technical assistance.

The European Commission unveiled last week its proposal on Horizon Europe, the €100 billion research and innovation programme that will succeed the current Horizon 2020. The new programme will build on the achievements and success of Horizon 2020 and will continue the simplification process already started in the previous programme.

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Last week, Schuman Associates was delighted to participate in the latest ‘Future of EU Communications’ event hosted by Indiepics. We moderated the event which looked at how European social and visual communications are changing, what the latest trends are and how we can get the most out of our communication budgets.

The first post-Brexit budget focuses on innovation, digitization, climate change, support for young people, but also on security and migration.

Schuman Associates was invited this week to present its main elements and its impact for Spain at a breakfast-conference organized by the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Brussels. 

This new budget contains several novelties with respect to current financial framework. One example is the effort towards simplification moving from current fifty-eight funding programs to thirty-seven, multiplying the investment in digitalization, Erasmus program and security and defense programs, as well as border control.

In a few days, Bulgaria will be passing on the Presidency of the European Union to Austria. We take this opportunity to look back at some of the key issues that the Bulgarian Presidency has put forward in these 6 months and to present our office in Sofia.

At the helm of the EU for the first time, 10 years after the accession to the European Union, the Bulgarian Presidency  placed particular emphasis on strengthening the stability and security in Europe with the Western Balkans and the relations with Turkey..

Security has become of the main topics for EU policy makers, ranking high on the list of concern of EU citizens. During the Bulgarian Presidency, the European PNR rules became applicable and an informal agreement was reached with the European Parliament on three regulations on the use of the Schengen Information System in the fields of:

(1) police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters;

(2) border checks and

(3) return of illegally staying third-country nationals.

The motto for the EU presidency is 'A Europe that protects'.

On 1^st July 2018, Austria has assumed the Presidency of the Council of the EU for the third time. The Austrian Presidency will put emphasis on three areas where the EU has a particular protective role: Security and fight against illegal migration; securing prosperity and competitiveness through digitalisation and stability in the neighbourhood – rapprochement of the Western Balkans/South-Eastern Europe to the EU.

The fifth edition of the Berlin Process Summit was held on 9-10 July in London (UK), gathering heads and ministers of governments of the Western Balkans six (WB6) as well as several EU Member States with high interest in fostering further cooperation with the region.

The focus of the Summit in London was on economic development and connectivity, cooperation in security matters and good neighbourly relations.