Florin Zubașcu

Association agreements will have broad provisions that are the same for all countries, but the process of concluding them is slow because each agreement needs to reflect differing political and economic relationships

This is the first call from the European Research Council under the new Horizon Europe research programme

The new government promises to increase R&D spending to 2% of GDP. Researchers say this needs to be accompanied by reforms. There should be more competitive calls and a new independent council to increase transparency and reduce political interference, they say

Its French co-inventor, Emmanuelle Charpentier won a Nobel prize last year. Now the European Commission says the EU should look to the ‘major advances’ CRISPR gene editing provides to boost yields and reduce the environmental footprint of agriculture

Excellence and impact will be the main criteria in evaluating proposals, but in case of a tie, gender balance in research groups will swing it. All institutions awarded grants must have published gender equality plans - and show they are implementing them

As the European Commission cranks up its work on the new European Research Area, regions are pushing for greater influence in the design process

European Commission calls in experts to help revamp the 20-year-old plan to coordinate national R&D policies and create a single market for research

New-look ‘Widening’ in Horizon Europe aims to help member states with weaker research systems undertake reforms and win more EU research grants

Chair of the Parliament research and industry committee calls on Commission to ignore legal niceties and get money from new research programme flowing as soon as possible. MEPs also want more effort to create synergies with other funding streams

Success in finding funding synergies between research and other EU programmes could be elusive. It depends on member states understanding the importance of investing in research and innovation