Our society faces major challenges related to climate, energy, societal development and possibilities to readjust. If we are to be able to solve these, it will be necessary to have special expertise, knowledge and new capital. Several of these issues need an interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral approach. This is a challenge and requires new forms of collaboration.

Horizon Vestland is a broad regional collaboration between Vestland County Municipality, the municipalities, business organizations, education, and research. The project will mobilize, lay the foundation for and support development of project applications for Horizon Europe for partners from Vestland county. Horizon Vestland will thus contribute to solving global societal challenges of great strategic importance to Vestland. The activities are anchored in the “Development Plan for Western Norway 2020-2024” and “Sustainable value creation - regional plan for innovation and business development 2021-2033”. Through project activities, we will define the most important innovation projects that can be attractive for EU funding under Horizon Europe, with a focus on topics that are strategically important for Western Norway. Examples are energy conversion, blue growth, circular economy, climate challenges, environmental and sustainability and emission reduction.

The impact of the corona crisis and megatrends revealed in the report Vestlandsscenarioa 2020 is also used as a basis. The project is organized as a network where partners work together to create and maintain the same innovation ecosystem for mobilization for quality application under Horizon Europe. Three working groups will work on topics that are strategically important for Western Norway. The project will build an open culture for sharing information and knowledge to play each other well. The goal is to increase the number of projects from Vestland, which are anchored in Vestland County Municipality's regional plans.

Project leader is Kate Clarke