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As Brussels debates how to extract more economic value out of its investments in science and technology, this news tracker brings together the latest developments in EU and national R&I policies, as well as updates on how the worlds of research and industry are working together for a more prosperous Europe.
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The European Council have signed off €800 million of research funding for steel, and to help regions hit by the transition away from coal. The funding should amount to up to €120 million a year, and run until 2034.
The support will “continue to strengthen two critical sectors that are central to the EU’s industrial transformation,” said Nicodemos Damianou, Cyprus’s deputy minister of research, in a statement.
“While contributing to the green transition it will strengthen the competitiveness and sustainability of these industries that are essential for Europe’s resilience, economic strength, and strategic autonomy.”
A group of European research umbrella bodies have published an open letter warning against the use of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, the EU’s doctoral and postdoctoral training grants, to respond to immediate needs for training.
Currently, MSCA grant areas are suggested by scientists themselves. But last year, fears emerged that European Commission could direct priorities from above to hit policy goals, for example in artificial intelligence.
Now, research groups across Europe have reiterated that MSCA calls should be determined by academics, not officials.
“MSCA should not be used to address short-term labour market needs,” the statement says. “Its unique value lies in supporting excellent researchers and in strengthening Europe’s long-term research capacity on the basis of an open, bottom-up, and research-field agnostic approach that fosters scientific excellence, interdisciplinary collaboration, and unexpected breakthroughs.”
The European Innovation Council (EIC) Board is calling on more support to bring promising technologies to market, to strengthen Europe’s energy security in response to recent geopolitical shocks.
“The EIC Board considers that the pipeline of promising European deep tech innovations can deliver both short-term relief, medium-term transition and long-term resilience,” it says in a statement published on June 24.
It points to deep-tech solutions from clean energy generation and storage to grids, advanced materials and other enabling technologies.
Among its recommendations are clearer bridges between EU instruments, including the EIC, the new Scaleup Europe Fund, the Innovation Fund, and national and regional programmes, so that successful projects have easier access to follow-on funding.
It also calls for regulatory simplification, accelerated planning and permitting, more dialogue with investors and measures to stimulate demand.
German and UK universities are urging EU leaders to keep Horizon Europe open to trusted partners as negotiations continue over the shape of the programme post-2027.
“Europe does not succeed by restricting scientific cooperation, but by treating associated countries as equals and keeping thematic exclusions to a minimum,” Russell Group chair Chris Day and German U15 chair Michael Hoch wrote in a joint article published in German newspaper Die Zeit.
Germany and the UK should also deliver on the Kensington Treaty signed last year by expanding agreements between research funding agencies, establishing joint scholarships and increasing academic mobility, they said.
The call came on the final day of the International Science & Policy Symposium in Hannover, organised by the German U15 in cooperation with the Russell Group and the Volkswagen Foundation.
Read more here.
The German Research Foundation (DFG) has welcomed the European Parliament’s decision to approve a new legal framework for plants produced using new breeding techniques.
The legislation, which was adopted by MEPs on June 17 following approval by EU member states in April, simplifies rules for so-called NGT-1 plants that could also have been produced using conventional breeding methods. These plants will no longer have to comply with the strict authorisation requirements of the current rules on genetically modified organisms.
“From mid-2028, when the regulation comes into force, researchers will now be able to conduct field trials much more easily, for example to improve plants’ resilience to climate change and resistance to pests,” said DFG president Katja Becker.
“This will mean that new breeding techniques can become one of the tools for securing stable and increasing yields while reducing the use of pesticides.”
More details here.
he European Commission has appointed Martin Špolc as director for prosperity at its directorate-general for research and innovation (DG RTD).
The Czech national, who currently heads the unit for preparedness and adaptation to climate change in the directorate-general for climate action, will replace Maria Cristina Russo, who was promoted to the position of deputy director general at DG RTD in January.
More details here.
Nine out of ten participants in the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Networks find employment within one year after completing their degree, against just 12% for non-MSCA PhD holders, according to a study from the European Research Executive Agency.
The study also revealed that MSCA graduates were over three times more likely than their non-MSCA peers to land a job outside of academia, namely businesses, non-profit organisations or the public sector.
More details here.
The Industrial Accelerator Act, which is currently under public consultation, should be built on regional industrial ecosystems and innovation capacities, according to the European Regions Research and Innovation Network (ERRIN), which calls for a “place-based” act.
“Industrial acceleration cannot be achieved through regulatory simplification alone,” its statement reads. “Europe’s competitiveness is built on regional strengths, industrial clusters, research organisations, SMEs and local ecosystems that translate European ambitions into concrete industrial projects and investments.”
More details here.
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the UK’s public research funding body, has launched two artificial research labs for £60 million to help British researchers develop next-generation AI systems.
One lab will focus on creating open-source AI for widely available hardware, and the other will look into new approaches for AI to learn without vast centralised computing power.
Both will be led by University College London and the University of Oxford, and work in collaboration with partners including the universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh, and Imperial College London.
More details here.
The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities is calling for transparency on the budget allocation for the society component of Pillar 2, which covers collaborative research, in the next Horizon Europe.
“The current lack of clarity in the budget allocation within the Society component raises significant concerns,” it says in a statement, adding that the resources dedicated to social sciences and humanities-led collaborative research to address major societal challenges should be clearly specified.
More details here.
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