On February 25, the AIDA4Edge Webinar on Project Proposal Preparation was successfully held, attracting over 40 participants and demonstrating a very high level of interest in European project funding schemes.

The webinar addressed two highly relevant topics within the Horizon Europe framework.

From 11:00 to 12:00 CET, Prof. Ivan Lanese (University of Bologna) delivered a lecture entitled “Preparing a Marie-Curie Doctoral Network proposal”. Drawing on his extensive experience as coordinator of the MSCA Doctoral Network E-CoRe (Energy-efficient Computing via Reversibility), Prof. Lanese provided valuable insights into structuring a competitive Marie Skłodowska-Curie proposal, highlighting key evaluation aspects, common challenges, and strategic considerations when building strong international research consortia.

Prof. Lanese is Associate Professor at the University of Bologna, with a distinguished academic career in formal methods for distributed systems. He has coordinated and contributed to numerous national and European projects, including COST and Marie Curie actions, and has an extensive publication record in the field.

From 12:00 to 13:30 CET, Dr. Linda Polastri (University of Ferrara) delivered a comprehensive session entitled “Writing a winning proposal in Horizon Europe: analysis of a topic”. Her lecture focused on practical strategies for interpreting call texts, understanding evaluation criteria, aligning project objectives with policy priorities, and structuring proposals to maximize impact and implementation credibility.

Dr. Polastri has extensive experience in scientific research in both academic and private-sector environments. She currently serves as Research Manager for several departments at the University of Ferrara, supporting researchers in identifying funding opportunities and preparing competitive project proposals.

The webinar provided participants with concrete guidance, practical examples, and first-hand experiences from successful European projects. The high attendance and active discussion that followed the presentations confirmed the strong interest of the research community in improving proposal-writing skills and increasing participation in competitive European funding programmes. The event was organized within the framework of the AIDA4Edge project, further contributing to strengthening research and innovation capacities through knowledge exchange and institutional development.