Throughout my work, I have developed and contributed to EU scale projects across education, creative industries, innovation, technology, and science. This experience has given me insight not only into these different fields, but also into the ways EU funded projects can strengthen collaboration across organizations, disciplines, and countries within Europe. I believe that especially within innovation and research, many of today’s challenges and opportunities require stronger shared understanding at EU scale, practical collaboration, and long term engagement between different actors and sectors. EU funding programmes create important opportunities for that through international networks, professional communities, knowledge exchange, and collaboration across cultures and fields.

At a time when Europe is facing complex technological, societal, and geopolitical challenges, stronger collaboration across countries and sectors becomes increasingly important for strengthening Europe’s long term innovation capacity and resilience.