Beyond Horizon: Science and competitiveness brief

The League of European Research Universities (LERU) has released a statement criticising the European Commission’s plans to mainstream simplified administrative processes in the next Horizon Europe programme.

One of the proposed simplifications is using an organisation-wide unit cost to calculate personnel costs rather than individually calculating each project participant’s contribution based on their salary. The association says using one average rate for calculating all salaries within an organisation will lead to underfunding.  

This is because any average rate will be calculated based on previous years’ salary data, ignoring inflation and thus costing organisations money. The association also points out that the staff involved in Horizon Europe projects are mostly researchers, which are highly educated and thus cost more than the organisation average.  

“Making such options mandatory could generate unintended effects, including distortions in staffing strategies and uneven impacts across the EU for many types of organisations,” the association warns.  

Read the full statement here.

London and Tokyo have agreed a series of technology partnerships, ranging from microchips to robotics to defence.

During a visit by Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi to the UK on June 14, the countries announced a series of commercial tie-ups. 

The UK Semiconductor Centre has inked a formal partnership with Rapidus, a Japanese chip manufacturing centre. The hope is that this will allow UK firms to make their own chips.

Cambridge Aerospace, a defence firm, signed a deal with Kawasaki Heavy Industries to build a factory in Japan to make counter-drone and missile interceptor technologies. 

The EU’s Clean Aviation joint undertaking has signed a memorandum of cooperation with the German states of Brandenburg and Saxony to strengthen collaboration on the development of disruptive aviation technologies. 

As part of the agreement, Brandenburg and Saxony will jointly provide more than €10 million by 2028 to support activities linked to a common technical roadmap. 

Since 2023, Clean Aviation has signed similar agreements with Portugal and with regional governments in Occitanie (France), Hamburg (Germany), Andalusia (Spain), Campania and Piemont (Italy). 

Read more here.

The EU and South Korea agreed to launch a new “competitiveness partnership” as leaders met for the 11th joint summit in Brussels on June 10. 

The partnership “will strengthen engagement on issues of strategic importance such as trade, investment, supply chains, digital, advanced technologies, energy, and innovation,” according to the European Commission’s announcement. 

Work under the partnership will be steered by a new high-level economic dialogue, which will strengthen cooperation on economic security, trade and industrial policy. 

“The partnership between the European Union and the Republic of Korea has never been more important,” said Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “We are working together to strengthen economic security and drive innovation.” 

Full details here.

28Digital, formerly EIT Digital, has launched its five-year plan for 2026-30, after becoming financially independent from the European Institute of Innovation and Technology in 2025. 

By 2030, it is aiming to train 2.5 million people, support 1,000 start-ups and scale-ups, create 500 new ventures, and mobilise €2 billion in investment. 

28Digital also wants to expand its international presence, with a focus on the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and the Western Balkans and EU candidate countries. 

See more details here.

Austria’s Centre for Social Innovation (ZSI) has announced the launch of Cusp, a project funded under Horizon Europe to consolidate science diplomacy across the EU. 

Launched on June 1, the project brings together 11 organisations aiming to deliver an AI-assisted mapping of European science diplomacy capabilities, build a science diplomacy hub, and train the next generation of Europe’s science diplomats.  

More details here. 

The EU is looking to mobilise up to €25 billion in investments by 2035 in a new push for renewable energy and clean technology cooperation with the countries in the Middle East and north Africa. 

The goal is to develop renewable energy, hydrogen and clean technology manufacturing as well as modern, integrated electricity networks across the Mediterranean region. 

To boost investment, the European Commission has made available more than €5 billion in guarantee capacity under the European Fund for Sustainable Development Plus, an EU investment fund for partner countries. 

The initiative, officially called the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy and Clean Tech Cooperation, is the EU’s biggest initiative under the Pact for the Mediterranean, a regional cooperation plan launched in November last year. 

Read more here. 

Australia is officially set to associate to Horizon Europe’s Pillar 2 for big collaborative research projects, after concluding negotiations with the EU today.

Australian researchers will be able to participate in collaborative Horizon Europe projects without contributing their own institutional financing starting in January 2027. Association will also allow Australian organisations to lead project consortia.

As a third country ineligible for most Horizon funding, Australia has so far participated in 239 projects since 2021. The country’s universities have argued that the association deal, tentatively agreed on last autumn, is a strategic necessity for them. 

The UK has set out a £1.1 billion AI Hardware Plan, a strategy for developing, demonstrating, deploying and scaling the chips and semiconductor technologies that underpin AI.  

The four-pillar plan encompasses innovation, skills, procurement and investment policy. New funding includes a £120 million investment programme for UK-based companies developing AI hardware innovation and a new £18 million hardware security research and development programme. 

“[The plan] marks an evolution in how government supports the UK semiconductor sector to harness its strengths in AI hardware, moving from a set of individually strong but fragmented activities to a more coherent, system-level strategy,” said Liz Kendall, UK secretary of state for science, innovation and technology. 

More about the plan here. 

European research support to Ukraine should shift from emergency help for displaced academics to a longer-term strengthening of the country’s scientific ecosystem, according to an event held in Warsaw.

On May 26, representatives from Ukraine and Allea, an umbrella body for European scientific academies, met to discuss next steps for assistance. 

An Allea-backed scheme, the European Fund for Displaced Scientists, has supported around 140 scholars since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

But now the focus is on offering researchers inside Ukraine long-term career prospects, and rebuilding labs and universities damaged by Russian attack, according to a report of the event released today. This could include joint funding schemes and research centres, and better ways to donate scientific equipment to Ukrainian institutions.