From the 9th of October to the 11th 2024, the BioSense Institute in Novi Sad, Serbia, hosted the 3rd Teaming Club Conference. This event brought together members from the different Centers of Excellence (CoE) established within the Horizon 2020 “Teaming for Excellence” programme from all across Europe. The Conference aimed to provide a forum for participants to share knowledge and experiences, laying the groundwork for effective collaborations that enhance European science, economy, and society.
During the first day, after the Welcome Address by Vesna Bengin, ANTARES project coordinator, and Vladimir Crnojevic, director of BioSense Institute, the representatives of the projects were divided in 5 parallel sessions based on the topics of: 1. Health, 2. Culture, education and business, 3. Agriculture, environment and Biotech, 4. Digital and quantum, 5. Materials and physics. During these sessions the representatives had the opportunity of presenting their center and project, highlighting their mission and objectives, how they are organized and their available resources. Rodrigo Ortiz, project manager at the center, did a presentation about the CTGCT during the health session showcasing the CTGCT’s role in addressing healthcare challenges and how we intend to bridge the gaps in translation of research related to rare diseases and cancer to useful therapies for the patients’ benefit.
In addition to networking sessions during days 2 and 3 there were panel discussions about spreading and sustaining excellence, research infrastructure, harmonization with financial regulations and what is beyond the teaming projects for the CoEs. Additionally, we had the privilege of listening to a lecture by Vladimir Bulović, director of MITnano center at the MIT about funding a center that is focused in fostering collaboration between researchers from different disciplines to enable synergies that could benefit the translation of said research into products useful for society, or basically how to accelerate innovation. The main conclusion from this lecture was that sometimes the innovation does not come only from an invention, but on how to make this invention more accessible and attractive to the final user.
To summarize, the event served as a great platform to learn more about the projects and research performed in other CoE and help find future collaborators from all across Europe. It also hosted great discussions about fostering EU collaborations for the sustainability of these projects. During the wrap up and conclusion session it was announced that the next Teaming Conference in 2025 will be hosted in Porto, Portugal by the CIBIO center. We thank everyone at the BioSense institute to help organize such a useful and nice event and we look forward to learn more next year from other CoE and gain new collaborators. This annual gathering has become an essential forum for advancing European research excellence and promoting sustainable scientific partnerships.