Researchers
- Home page
- Researchers
As a HEROES researcher, you gain access to a European hub that connects expertise from nine universities and their regions. Develop joint projects, co-publish with partners across disciplines, increase the visibility of your work, and open up funding and innovation opportunities that reach far beyond a single institution.
What’s in it for you as a researcher?
Networking sits at the heart of HEROES. Here you meet colleagues who approach the same challenges from different angles and work together to turn applied research into real regional impact. Each offering below opens its own door to these connections and shows how they pay off in practice. Help shape a research community focused on the resilience of people, businesses, and nature.
Examples of offerings for researchers via HEROES:
Research pods
HEROES brings researchers together in interinstitutional research pods across six thematic areas — agriculture and food, care and wellbeing, circular economy, digital transformation, education & learning, and regional development. By joining a pod, you connect with colleagues across the Alliance, share methods and results, and help build a shared challenge-based research agenda focused on the resilience of people, businesses, and nature.
Ask your research office or pod facilitator about joining a pod. [emails of the facilitators ]
Joint project & proposal development
HEROES gives you a platform to team up with partners across the Alliance and prepare new joint funding applications together. For example, a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) hosted in Vilnius in October 2026 brings researchers together to co-develop Horizon Europe proposals — and more opportunities of this kind are on the way.
See upcoming opportunities on the HEROES Virtual Campus →
Seed funding for collaboration
HEROES launches open calls for small seed funding to support new inter-institutional research collaborations, helping you cover the costs of seminars, conferences, or other creative activities that get a joint idea off the ground. Teams involving at least three HEROES partners or associated partners can apply.
Watch for upcoming calls here →
Shared research facilities & infrastructure
As a HEROES researcher you gain access to a growing network of shared research infrastructure across the Alliance — experience labs, maker spaces, lab facilities, nature facilities, and more — either remotely or on site, with staff mobility funding available to support your visit.
Ask your research office about the access protocol.
Staff training & career development
HEROES supports careers in applied research through staff training events of all kinds and through job-shadowing and mobility across the Alliance, where you can learn from how colleagues in other institutions work and share good practices.
Browse upcoming staff training events on the HEROES Virtual Campus →
For job-shadowing and mobility, ask your Erasmus coordinator at your institution.
Research Magazine
HEROES publishes a Research Magazine several times a year. It is not a peer-reviewed scientific journal, but an accessible way to share your findings with peers, professionals, and a wider audience across Europe — and to see what colleagues in other regions are working on.
If you wish to contribute, please contact our colleagues from Instituto Politécnico de Beja:
Sara Albino (sara.albino@ipbeja.pt) and Cristina Santos (cristina.santos@ipbeja.pt).
Research is structured through thematic Research PODs that bring together experts from nine institutions. Each POD focuses on real challenges faced by our regions — from agriculture and food to wellbeing, circular economy, digital transformation, education, inclusion, and regional development. These groups offer a simple way for researchers to connect, exchange insights, and collaborate on applied research.
The alliance currently works within several thematic PODs: Agriculture and Food, Care and Wellbeing, Circular Economy, Digital Transformation, Education, Learning and Inclusion, and Regional Development. These areas reflect real needs identified across partner regions.
By bringing together expertise from different countries and disciplines, PODs allow researchers to compare regional situations, identify shared challenges, and explore coordinated responses. This collaborative structure supports a broader understanding of issues that affect multiple regions.
Researchers will be able to join POD meetings, contribute expertise within their thematic area, and participate in exploring joint ideas or preparing collaborative projects. PODs also provide opportunities to work with external partners such as companies, public authorities, NGOs, and schools on regionally relevant topics.
Eva Brooks, Professor in Digital Learning at Halmstad University, is part of the HEROES Pod Learning, Education and Inclusion, where the focus is on identifying common ground for collaborative research projects and funding opportunities.
For Sanna Joensuu-Salo, Principal Lecturer (Research) at SEAMK, working within the HEROES alliance has expanded both the scope and impact of research by bringing together expertise from different countries, disciplines, and institutional contexts.
The HEROES Virtual Campus is currently under development. Access will be enabled here as soon as the platform goes live.
