On 23 May 2025, a focused training workshop on Horizon Europe proposal writing was held as part of the BALTIC-FIT Summer School 2025, hosted at TalTech Estonian Maritime Academy. The session was the second in a series of capacity-building activities planned within the BALTIC-FIT project to support proposal development and strengthen institutional readiness for EU-funded research.
The training was delivered by Anna Zmiievska, EU funding expert and founder of Anromind. The session brought together 23 participants, including PhD candidates, young researchers, and administrative staff from TalTech, as well as representatives from VTT and the RISE Research Institutes of Sweden.
The training was structured into thematic blocks:
- How Grants Work – outlining the full project lifecycle from call publication to grant signature;
- Horizon Europe Structure & Instruments – navigating Horizon Europe’s architecture and project types;
- Relevance for Green Maritime Topics – aligning proposals with Cluster 5 and the European Green Deal;
- Shaping a Project Idea – hands-on work with call texts, policy links, and the CORDIS database;
- Consortium Building and Partner Roles – practical tools for forming diverse, impact-driven partnerships;
- Proposal Writing Timeline – realistic workload estimates and a step-by-step sequence for writing tasks;
Interactive tools like Mentimeter were used throughout the workshop to tailor the discussion to the group’s experience level.
The training directly supports the BALTIC-FIT objective of enabling stakeholders in the maritime sector to engage more actively in EU research and innovation programmes – particularly in addressing the challenges of shipping decarbonisation through operational measures.
