HORIZON BLOG: European R&D policy newsbytes

Digital research infrastructure for neuroscience EBRAINS has launched a call for contributions to a roadmap that will define its scientific, clinical and technological priorities from 2026 through to 2036. 

“We seek visionary yet concrete proposals that define science that cannot be done elsewhere – projects, capabilities, or collaborations uniquely enabled by EBRAINS’ data, models, compute, and federated ecosystem,” EBRAINS says. 

The roadmap process will officially be launched at the EBRAINS Summit 2025 on December 10, and the deadline for submitting contributions close on March 1. A synthesis of the roadmap is expected in the fourth quarter of 2026 and its adoption in the first quarter of 2027. 

More details here. 

Supernovas, a European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) community which aims to increase female presence in the entrepreneurship ecosystem, has launched with the Esade Center for Social Impact and Equinox Equality (ECSI) a tool designed to identify and reduce gender bias in early-stage investments. 

The tool accompanied a report on gender equality progress in early-stage venture capital. 

“While many venture capital firms are increasingly aware of gender bias, the research shows that women founders still face systemic challenges in visibility, evaluation and deal flow. Across Europe, fewer than one in four deep tech start-ups have a woman in the founding team, and all-women founding teams attract barely 2 percent of early-stage venture capital funding,” the report says. 

Read the full report here. 

The European Commission will grant €105.6 million to fund 31 projects under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) 2025 call for COFUND, which provides funding for training and career development, including 14 doctoral training programmes and 17 post-doctoral fellowship programmes. 

According to MSCA, 136 applications were submitted, of which 134 were eligible and evaluated, bringing the success rate to 23%. 

More details here. 

The Sustainable Urban Net Zero Network for Ukraine (SUN4Ukraine), an EU-funded initiative which aims to guide Ukrainian cities towards climate neutrality, has announced the partnerships of 12 cities with European ones that are part of the EU Mission on climate-neutral and smart cities. 

“Through these unique partnerships, the EU Cities Mission will help Ukrainian Flagship Municipalities embed climate neutrality in their reconstruction strategies,” the European Commission says. 

For example, Kyiv will be paired with Leipzig, Chernihiv with Amsterdam, and Vinnytsia with Dijon. Munich and Oslo are set to serve as advisory cities. 

More details here. 

The European Commission has opened the Erasmus+ 2026 call with €145,6 million to support for two years higher education institutions consortia engaged in an already existing transnational cooperation at institutional level. 

“The call objective is to enable bridge funding for European Universities alliances until the start of the next EU Multiannual Financing Framework,” the Commission says. 

More details here. 

The European Commission has selected eight companies to receive a combined €171 million of equity investments through the European Innovation Council (EIC) Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) Scale Up call. 

Our of 51 submissions, eight met the criteria to be put forward for investment decisions by the EIC Fund, including France’s Aldoria, which optimises and secures space operations and German next-generation solar wafer manufacturer Nexwafe. 

More details here. 

The European Commission has opened a call for nominations for the European Research Council (ERC) Identification Committee, a group of reputable scientists tasked to scout for new members of the ERC’s Scientific Council. 

The Scientific Council is the ERC’s governing body in charge of setting the strategy of the EU’s basic science funder. The deadline for submitting nominations is November 30. 

More details here. 

The European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) has opened a call for European start-ups working on integrated hardware-software quantum computing solutions. 

The call will be divided into two phases. With an indicative budget of €4 million, Phase 1 will fund quantum start-ups over four months through Horizon Europe, while Phase 2 will invite the most promising projects to submit proposals to the European Investment Bank. 

“Priority will be given to start-ups integrating their quantum solutions into European supercomputing centres, ensuring interoperability within the European Union’s HPC infrastructure,” EuroHPC says. 

The call for Phase 1 is set to close on January 8. 

More details here. 

The European Parliament and EU governments have reached a provisional agreement that will increase the 2026 budget for Horizon Europe by €20 million and for Erasmus+ by €3 million. 

In total, an additional €372.7 million in funding was secured under this deal, part of which will also go to the EU’s environment and climate action instrument and the EU4Health programme. Meanwhile, military mobility and border management will both get an extra €10 million. 

More details here. 

Funding for European University Alliances must remain focused on education and pedagogical innovation, according to the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities. 

“Where alliances wish to invest in research or societal engagement, they should be free to do so, but not at the expense of education,” the lobby group said in a statement. 

The Guild also advises the EU to continue to encourage mobility and collaboration, facilitate alignment at the EU level on administrative procedures, and support and reward participation. 

More details here.