HORIZON BLOG: European R&D policy newsbytes (archived)

The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities wants EU member states and the European Commission to join efforts to enable comprehensive support across the bloc for students and researchers from Ukraine. 

With a statement published today, the Guild joins Christian Ehler, member of the European Parliament’s and its Horizon Europe rapporteur, in urging the EU to set up new tools to effectively help Ukrainian researchers, students and support staff fleeing war.  

The Guild has eight recommendations for the EU, including easing the rules for mobilising funds from the Erasmus+ education mobility programme and setting up a fund for researchers at risk. 

“Member states have already shown great flexibility in enabling universities respond to the war in Ukraine effectively. But we need more,” said Jan Palmowski, secretary general of the Guild. “Now is the time for bold action, coordinated at a European level, bringing together European states in solidarity.” 

The EU could set up a special scheme for Ukrainian students fleeing the war using the funds from the student mobility programme Erasmus+, Simon Harris, Ireland’s minister for higher education, suggested at an EU ministers’ meeting this week. 

“I know that the [European] Commission are looking at its own programmes such as Erasmus to see how it can assist in the support of Ukrainian students,” said Harris. “However, I would urge that we take an additional step – let us use the Erasmus programme to fund a dedicated European Scholarship Scheme, which will remove any financial and regulatory barriers for students and researchers wishing to continue with their studies.” 

Harris stressed the need for national systems to ensure a seamless and inclusive transition to education in the EU for Ukrainian pupils and students who arrive in the bloc and noted governments should not be reinventing the wheel but rethinking existing tools to help suit current needs. 

The seventh edition of the i-Nov competition run by the French government sees 73 start-up and SME-led projects winning €45.8 million in eight categories. 

There were four ‘green’ topics, including renewable energy, sustainable mobility, tackling green transition issues in industry and agriculture, and water and biodiversity. Another four topics covered deep tech, digital transformation of the cultural and creative industries, health, and proteins and ferments of the future. The winning companies will get up to 45% of expenses covered by grants and recoverable advances.  

The first six editions of the prize awarded 462 projects, including those carried out by leading French companies such as Treefrog Therapeutics, a leader in cellular therapies, Vitibot, maker of autonomous wine robots, Exotrail, which manufactures motors for small satellites, and Mascara, which develops industrial seawater desalination solutions. 

The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities says the EU should invest in the development of new techniques for animal testing instead of banning the use of animals in research. 

Last month, the European Commission rejected the European Parliament’s call for an action plan phasing out animal testing for research in the bloc. The Guild welcomed the Commission’s move and set out a list of recommendations for improving animal welfare in research instead. 

The Guild calls for coherent implementation of regulations protecting the animals used for research and urges investments into alternatives improving animal welfare, reducing the number of animals used and refining the techniques, among other recommendations.   

The country’s education and science minister, Simon Harris, announced a second national review of gender equality in the higher education sector to assess improvements and produce recommendations. 

The new edition will assess progress made since the first such review took place in 2016. The group of experts carrying it out are also expected to make five to ten recommendations on how universities could further enhance their equality policies and support. 

Ireland’s push for gender equality in higher education is part of EU-wide efforts to balance the scales. In the EU’s Horizon Europe research programme, applicants now must prove their university or research institute has a gender equality plan in place to be eligible. In case of a tie in the evaluation process, Horizon evaluators could even use gender equality criteria to pick the winner. 

The results of the latest Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowships call have been postponed and are now expected to be announced by the end of March.

The fellowship grants allow researchers holding a PhD to carry out research abroad and are a flagship MSCA initiative. The results of the 2021 call will be communicated by the end of the month by the European Commission’s Research Executive Agency, which manages Horizon Europe grants.

The next call for postdoctoral fellowships will open this spring.

The European Commission will be accepting nominations from the European research community for new members of the European Research Council’s (ERC) Scientific Council until 6 May. 

The Scientific Council is the EU’s fundamental research funder’s governing body. Its members are appointed for four year terms, renewable once. In the next year, the Commission is looking to replace almost a quarter of the member as their mandates draw to a close. 

Following the Commission’s last search, three new members were appointed last week. They are  Chryssa Kouveliotou, professor at the George Washington University in Washington D.C., László Lovász, professor emeritus at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, and Giovanni Sartor, professor at the University of Bologna and at the European University Institute in Florence. 

France is looking to nuclear to level up its carbon neutrality ambitions as it launches a €1 billion programme to develop novel nuclear fission and fusion reactors and integrate better waste management.  

The first €500 million call launched this week and looks to fund several projects at different stages of maturity.  

The announcement follows President Emmanuel Macron’s reveal of a €2 billion strategy for developing disruptive renewable and nuclear energy technologies. It aims to bring France closer to the EU-wide goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and enable the country’s nuclear systems to compete with other global leaders, such as United States, China, Russia, United Kingdom, Canada and Japan.  

While France bets on nuclear, not all EU countries agree that it is green and safe enough. After year-long discussions, Germany decided to shut down all of its nuclear power reactors by the end of 2022, prompted by the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011. It is unclear whether Berlin will try to revert that policy to protect its energy sector from the shock of a potential embargo on Russian gas.

The European Parliament’s Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA), which aids  policymaking with the help of independent assessments of new technologies, has selected Christian Ehler to be its new chair.

Ehler was the Parliament’s rapporteur for the Horizon Europe research programme. He replaces fellow MEP Eva Kaili as the chair and is joined by two new vice-chairs, MEPs Ivo Hristov and Ivars Ijabs.

STOA is currently looking into issues such as Horizon Europe’s move towards more widespread lump sum funding, AI in healthcare, genome editing in humans and crops, privacy and security of 5G, green tech, data governance, digital tools in the workplace, among many others.

The new expert group is looking into the negative impact the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdowns may have had on women researchers’ careers and productivity.

The investigation will feed into policy recommendations aimed at mitigating the negative consequences, set to be released in the beginning of 2023.