What good is the best idea if it cannot be put into practice? This question arises time and again in research circles, particularly when convincing results have been achieved but there is a lack of follow-up funding to bring them to market in the form of an innovative product or a novel service. In such cases, it helps to integrate the transfer of knowledge as an integral part of project funding or to combine funds from different funding programmes.

Funding programmes that are mutually reinforcing

This is where synergies come into play – as a strategic approach to research and innovation. For example, researchers can implement their project ideas using funding from the EU’s Horizon Europe research framework programme – and additionally utilise regional structural funds for knowledge or technology transfer. The stated political objective of bringing innovations to market more quickly is all the more relevant in times of tight budgets: funding should be as effective as possible in practice.

Synergies can act as a lever in this process: on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR), DLR Projektträger has been running the Synergy Dialogue since 2014 – a unique European forum for exchange designed to embed synergies more firmly in funding policy. All federal and state ministries responsible for research, innovation and structural policy come together here to share information, coordinate funding programmes and resources, and further their knowledge on synergies.

Using synergies to tackle major challenges

Two examples illustrate that the topic is now high on the political agenda: firstly, in July 2022, the European Commission published its new guidelines for financial synergy instruments. Secondly, the Czech Republic made synergies a key focus of its EU Council Presidency in the second half of 2022: at the conference ‘Synergies in Research and Innovation Funding in Europe’ in Prague, DLR Projektträger was invited to present the Synergy Dialogue. Around 160 participants from numerous European countries discussed the important contribution that synergies can make – for example, to the ‘Green Deal’, the digital transformation or the ‘Recovery Programme for the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic’. However, this requires national governance structures that facilitate exchange, joint learning and the further development of framework conditions and instruments – vertically between the European, national and regional levels, and horizontally between initiatives, partnerships and projects.

This Synergy Dialogue – the first of its kind to date – has received a consistently positive response from participants and can serve as a model for similar initiatives to be established in other EU Member States. DLR Projektträger developed this exchange format in collaboration with the BMFTR and provided the Ministry with strategic and substantive advice. Our services relating to the Synergy Dialogue include the technical preparation and follow-up of the exchange between the two participating federal ministries – the former Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) – as well as the organisation, implementation and technical design of the working meetings with all participating ministries. This also involves coordinating the dissemination of information, the exchange of experience and networking between the federal and state governments. DLR Projektträger is currently further developing the Synergy Dialogue in collaboration with the BMFTR in order to harness strategic synergies in the implementation of European initiatives – for example, the ‘EU Missions’.