volume 30 · no 1 EUROPEAN COUNCIL FOR HIGH ABILITY SPRING 2016 The First 16 Months of the European Talent Support Network: Great Progress and Eight Possible Misunderstandings PETER CSERMELY, HUNGARY I owe great thanks to all participants in CONTENT SPRING 2016 this process, who devoted their time and efforts as volunteers. The Network already The First 16 Months of the 16 months after the decision of the 2014 proved to be a self-correcting, learning European Talent Support Network 1 ECHA General Assembly to support, organization, where the help and guidance Editorial 4 regulate and guide the formation of the of ECHA was a key element of success. European Talent Support Network, the An important element of continuous Financial Report 4 development of this Network became self-correction is to avoid bureaucracy, 21st World Conference for Gifted a widely accepted, grass-root self- which may arise during the intensified and Talented Children 6 organization process. The European Talent cooperation process. Trust and personal ECHA Conference Vienna 7 Support Network now spans more than contacts proved to be crucial in network 25 European countries, and draws interest building. Sharing and giving, transparency, State of the Art – Educating Gifted from all other continents in the world. serving others, as well as establishing a and Talented Students in Denmark 8 The Network is a rich source of European joint identity, joint service and community The Dynamics of Gifted Students’ cultural diversity, providing a wonderful feeling were and remain the key values of Educational Provisions in Greece 11 resource of best practices to apply the European Talent Support Network. cutting edge scientific results in the field Gifted Education in Slovakia According to the Programme of high ability and to help highly able APROGEN 13 people in Europe. The Network started to form excellent joint actions – also First International Panel on Topics involving talented young people from >>> page 2 Related to Gifted Education 18 various European countries. After only 16 A New Learning Resource months this progress is rather remarkable. www.echa.info for the Gifted 25 Brief chronology of events after the decision of the 2014 ECHA General Assembly to support, regulate and guide the formation of the European Talent Support Network ECHA NEWS volume 30 · no 1 · SPRING 2016 Brief chronology of events after the decision of the 2014 ECHA General Assembly to support, regulate and guide the formation of the European Talent Support Network a.) 18 September 2014: The General Assembly of ECHA accepted education, culture, youth and sports, Robert-Jan Smits, the the proposal for the Development of a European Talent Director General of research & innovation, as well as several Support Network with no votes against and 4 abstentions members of the European Parliament (Kinga Gál/HU hosting and elected Lianne Hoogeveen as president, Christian Fischer the event, Sean Kelly/IE and Igor Soltes/SL). Representatives and Margaret Sutherland (2014-2018), Csilla Fuszek and Colm of all 14 European Talent Centres had their first meeting O'Reilly (2014-2016) as members of the ECHA Accreditation electing Lianne Hoogeveen as interim representative of the Committee by a secret ballot. Network, and Csilla Fuszek as interim coordinator of the b.) 20 September 2014: the Accreditation Committee had its first Network until 31 December 2016. Centre representatives meeting in Ljubljana. agreed a.) to continue their discussions on a regular basis; b.) c.) 17 October 2014: the Accreditation Committee had its second to issue a call for the registration of European Talent Points meeting in Dublin. and on the main guidelines of the registration process; c.) d.) 3 November 2014: answers to several frequently asked to apply for EU funds in Erasmus+, Creative Europe and questions on the European Talent Support network were Horizon2020 calls; d.) to establish a Youth Committee by published on the ECHA web-site (http://echa.info/110- delegating one young talented person per Centre; e.) to frequently-asked-questions-on-the-european-talent-support- consider the feasibility of the establishment of a European network). Talent Portal. Representatives welcomed the European Youth e.) 11 February 2015: a widely publicized open call for Summit (http://www.youthsummit.eu/) taking place in applications to be a European Talent Centre was published on parallel with the 2016 ECHA Conference in Vienna. the ECHA web-site (http://echa.info/121-call-for-application- j.) 12 November 2015: an open call for the application to to-be-a-european-talent-centre), and was sent (among become a European Talent Point was published on the ECHA others) to all ECHA members. web-site, and was widely publicized (http://echa.info/141- f.) 7 April 2015: 28 applications from 18 European countries call-for-application-to-be-a-european-talent-point). (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, k.) 31 January 2016: more than 200 applications to become a Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, European Talent Point from more than 20 European countries Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey) and were received. even one from Brazil were submitted (http://echa.info/125- l.) February 2016: preparation of a joint Erasmus+ application large-interest-for-the-establishment-of-a-european-talent- (coordinator Colm O'Reilly), Creative Europe application in support-network). 2016 (coordinator Csilla Fuszek), as well as a Horizon2020 g.) 14 April 2015: the Accreditation Committee had its third application in 2017 (coordinators: Albert Ziegler and Heidrun meeting in Nijmegen. Stöger) was intensified; preparation of a 2nd call for European h.) 4 July 2015: after a careful evaluation, 15 of these applications Talent Centres (now with the possibility of Associated (more than half) was judged by the ECHA Accreditation European Talent Centres) is ongoing, and with coordination Committee as passing the 70% scoring threshold of the of Javier Touron a thinking process started on a potential clearly worded selection criteria, which were published at the European Talent Space, which will be a 3D virtual world social time of the open call for applications including the scoring network for the highly able people in Europe. sheet of the applications; after notifying the applicants m.) 12 February 2016: the Accreditation/Qualification Committee the organization of the Estonian European Talent Centre had its fourth meeting in Budapest informed us that in the meantime there was a sudden n.) March 2016: the Qualification Committee had its fifth unfavourable change in the life of this organization, which meeting in Vienna made them unable to act as a European Talent Centre in the o.) 15 March 2016: the second call on European Talent Centres first round of the applications. This is how the final number of was published European Talent Centres in the first round of the application p.) 30 April 2016: deadline of the second call on European Talent process became 14 (http://echa.info/129-breaking-news-the- Centres first-14-european-talent-centres; http://echa.info/high-ability- q.) June 2016: the Qualification Committee will have its sixth in-europe/#). meeting in Vienna i.) 29 September 2015: the first 14 European Talent Centres were r.) 30 September 2016: planned deadline of the second call on inaugurated in the Brussels building of the European European Talent Points Parliament (http://echa.info/137-talent-support-map-of- s.) November 2016: election of the Council of the European europe-info-on-european-talent-centres-was-published) in Talent Support Network starting to operate from 1 January the presence of Tibor Navracsics, the EU Commissioner of 2017. 2 ECHA NEWS volume 30 · no 1 · SPRING 2016 The 16 months of the European Talent Misunderstanding 2: membership, multitude of experiences Support Network is an age when an infant The Network is directed from one reflecting the cultural diversity of Europe, starts to walk and speak. However, truly central headquarter and, last but not least, solid scientific understandably, the infant's very first Different versions of this statement never background gave an unprecedented movements and words are not always specify what is actually this "central unique help in the formation of the correct, and often contain slight errors and headquarter". The European Talent Centre European Talent Support Network. ECHA misunderstandings. This is very natural, in Budapest? We have 13 more European accepted the network building programme and actually very helpful, since it induces Talent Centres. Many of them have an in a very democratic process, where the self-correction, which is a key ingredient equally active role in Network building original plans were modified several times of progress. In the following part I will as the Budapest Centre. ECHA? ECHA (and they are still being modified as practice list eight misunderstandings about the does help and guide the formation of the and experience suggests), which already at European Talent Support Network, and European Talent Support Network and the very beginning made the structure and will try to formulate a hopefully close-to- offered help in formulating its regulation forms of the European Network completely consensus version of the related views. at the beginning of the organization different of the Hungarian Network. process. But this is an initial help, which Misunderstanding 1: is needed to use the unique expertise of Misunderstanding 4: The Network is an elite club of a few ECHA members to ensure the high quality The Network is only a bureaucratic key players declaring themselves to and cultural multiplicity of the resulting burden, which gives empty titles to its be elite by self-nomination and self- Network. As the Network grows and gains participants qualification experience, I guess around its "school Why is the participation in the European Four of the first 14 Centres (29%) are age", no direct help will be necessary Talent Support Network different from indeed from the organizations of the 5 for its further development.