Beyond Horizon: Science and competitiveness brief

The EU Council and the European Parliament have reached a provisional agreement on the proposal to establish a new €115 million programme for rapid defence innovation, called Agile. 

The instrument is designed to help SMEs, start-ups and scale-ups working on innovative defence products to bridge the gap between development and deployment. 

It will allow the Commission to deliver grants within four months, and will also provide fast-track access to testing facilities. 

“In the current security environment, Europe must foster innovation faster and translate technological excellence into operational capability,” said Helen McEntee, Ireland’s minister of defence. 

See more here.

The European Processor Initiative, funded by the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking, has announced the conclusion of its second phase. 

The consortium held its final review on July 1 and 2, including the first demonstration of the Rhea1 chip developed by SiPearl, dedicated to supercomputing and AI, which began life as part of the initiative. 

“We have laid the technological foundations for a new generation of European HPC and AI processors and opened the path toward seeing a top-five supercomputer powered by European-designed chips in the near future,” said Etienne Walter, general manager of the second phase project. 

See more here.

The European Commission is on the lookout for security practitioners to evaluate research proposals under Horizon Europe’s cluster 3, ‘Civil security for society.’ 

It has put out a call for experts working in law enforcement, civil protection, emergency response, critical infrastructure management, public administration, border security, cybersecurity or related fields. 

Find out more here.

The European Commission is seeking stakeholder feedback on industrial research and innovation partnerships supported by Horizon Europe.  

The consultation does not cover all types of Horizon industrial partnerships, only focusing on joint undertakings, which are governed by a specific legal framework called the Single Basic Act. Under this framework, the EU and industry pay into the partnership, which is then managed by a dedicated agency.  

The Commission has identified a set of problems with the current iteration of joint undertakings that it wants the next legal framework, starting in 2028, to tackle. These include a lack of a strategic vision, low support for the uptake of new technologies by EU industry, insufficient private co-funding, a lack of knowledge dissemination among the partnerships, and too much administrative complexity.  

The consultation is the second step in the Commission's public consultation process, following a recent call for evidence. The proposal for the Single Basic Act is expected in the last quarter of 2026.  

Submit your feedback here by 16 October. 

UK Research and Innovation, the country’s national funding agency, has set out a five-year plan for investing £38.6 billion in science and innovation.  

The plan promises to boost breakthrough discoveries on strategic technologies, such as AI and quantum, as well as support more than 20,000 researchers in the country.  

Read more here. 

An open letter has called for a new funding instrument to support research and innovation in women’s health.

More than 200 signatories want a new line of funding introduced in the next EU research and innovation framework programme, set to start in 2028. 

“There are almost 10 million more women than men in the European Union, yet our research and innovation policy still treats women's health as a footnote rather than a priority,” said Lina Galvez, an MEP for the Socialists and Democrats group, in a statement. 

EU research commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva chaired a stakeholder dialogue on how to attract and retain research talent in Europe.  

“The EU now counts more than 2.2 million researchers, over 700,000 more than a decade ago. We have strong tools to attract and support them. Now, we need to hear directly from researchers themselves,” Zaharieva said in a statement. 

The meeting was part of the commissioner’s “implementation dialogues,” a series of high-level discussions with relevant stakeholders on topics related to European research and innovation. Two previous meetings have focused on Horizon Europe and on start-ups and scale-ups. 

Read more here.

The European Commission has appointed Maive Rute as deputy director-general of the Joint Research Centre (JRC), a post she previously held between 2016 and 2019. 

Rute is currently deputy director-general in the Commission’s directorate for internal market, industry, entrepreneurship and SMEs, also known as DG GROW. She will take up her new role on September 1. 

The JRC provides EU policymakers with independent scientific advice.

The European Commission is seeking guidance on drafting an EU guidebook on intellectual property licensing and spinoff creation. 

The scope of the survey includes researcher incentives, the creation of academic spinoffs and the licensing of academic IP to third parties.

The blueprint, expected to be published by the end of 2026, will provide operational guidance to universities, public research organisations and their knowledge transfer offices. 

The survey is open until August 16. Find it here.

The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) has elected Elena Hoffert as its new chair, due to start a two-year in January 2027.

Hoffert, an adviser on research infrastructures at the French ministry for research and innovation, will guide the forum, support the implementation of its roadmap and lobby for research infrastructures at the European level.

“As ESFRI chair, I will drive a holistic approach bridging research infrastructures, technology infrastructures, digital initiatives and industrial deployment to fuel Europe’s scientific excellence and innovation,” Hoffert said in a statement.

ESFRI is a group of national delegates that work together to establish the needs for, build and maintain major scientific facilities around Europe. The ESFRI roadmap is routinely update to identify the most promising and needed facilities for the coming years.