Horizon Europe is well underway, but the world of European R&D policy goes well beyond the confines of the €95.5 billion R&D programme. EU climate, digital, agriculture and regional policies all have significant research and innovation components. National governments often come up with new R&D policies, decide to fund new research avenues, and set up international cooperation deals. This blog aims to keep you informed on all of that and more.
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Pierre Delsaux is set to serve as director general of the European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), a new body within the European Commission which will coordinate EU response to health emergencies.
HERA, modelled on the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, will aim to improve Europe’s capacity to prevent, detect, and rapidly respond to cross-border health emergencies. The authority is due to launch next year with a budget of €6 billion for the first six years, including a €1.7 billion contribution from Horizon Europe for research into health emergencies.
Pierre Delsaux is currently deputy director general in DG SANTE, the Commission’s directorate for health and food safety, where he led the work on reinforcing the EU’s health agencies and contributed to the creation of the HERA incubator. Delsaux has also held deputy director general positions in the directorate for defence industry and space (DG DEFIS) as well as the directorate for internal market, industry, entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW).
The European Commission has announced a new Erasmus+ call for proposals to boost the the European Universities initiative.
With a total budget of €272 million, the 2022 Erasmus+ call on European Universities will close on 22 March 2022. The money is set to help higher education institutions to boost their performance and international competitiveness.
The European Universities initiatives kicked off with two pilot calls in 2019 and 2020. It helped set up a total of 41 transnational alliances involving 280 universities in the EU and Iceland, Norway, Serbia, Turkey and the UK.
The 2022 will help existing alliances boost their cooperation efforts, but higher education institutions can team up to create new European Universities.
There’s €297 million in the budget of the 2022 call for small teams of researchers working together on fundamental research projects, but only 33 projects out of 358 submitted will be able to secure funding from the EU’s fundamental research agency.
Low success rates have been haunting the ERC for several years now and were a central argument for more funding to be allocated to the agency during the fight for a bigger budget for the Horizon Europe research programme. The agency’s president at the time Jean-Pierre Bourguignon warned low chances of success may deter excellent researchers from spending their time applying for the grants, which will in turn hurt fundamental research in Europe. In the end, the ERC managed to secure a budget of €16 billion until 2027 but the programme still risks becoming oversubscribed.
This year, the call also received attention from researchers based in the UK despite remaining uncertainties of the country’s participation in Horizon Europe, with 147 principal investigators in submitted projects based in UK institutions.
The first international framework on open science aims to boost cross-border cooperation and make science more equitable and inclusive.
The recommendations call on all 193 United Nations member states to invest in open science infrastructures, set up targeted regional and international funding schemes and ensure all publicly funded research respects open science principles.
Today, around 70% of scientific publications are hidden behind paywalls, making them inaccessible to many of the world’s scientists that could be building on the knowledge to speed up research and innovation. The UNESCO guidelines hope to initiate a stronger shift towards using open science as a tool to further scientific progress and reduce inequalities.
Students and academics can now apply for the EU’s 2022 round of academic exchange programme worth €3.8 billion, the European Commission has announced.
The Erasmus+ programme will enable students and university staff to go abroad to study and learn new skills. “We want to give the opportunity to a greater number of people to take part and benefit from what Erasmus+ has to offer,” said Mariya Gabriel, EU commissioner for innovation, research, culture, education and youth.
In addition to the general call, the 2022 Erasmus+ work programme also includes other actions to be launched separately, such as the European Universities initiative.
New rules are set to apply starting next year to big cross-border innovation and infrastructure projects that aim to tackle European market failures.
Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEIs) will now have to be more transparent and inclusive to all EU member states, encourage the participation of small and medium sized enterprises, and align their objectives with current EU priorities.
IPCEIs are funded and defined by member states and operate under their own state aid rules allowing government subsidies in key sectors such as microelectronics, batteries and hydrogen.
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