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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Thomas Skordas is set to take up the deputy director general position at the European Commission’s directorate for communication networks, content and technology (DG CONNECT).
As second-in-command at DG CONNECT, Skordas will help lead the development and implementation of EU’s digital policies.
He was first appointed acting deputy director general at the department last year, but the College of Commissioners has now voted for Skordas to take up the position permanently. In this role, he has been in charge of directorates covering artificial intelligence, digital excellence, science infrastructures, digital society and cybersecurity, among others.
Skordas is a seasoned bureaucrat with 27 years of experience at the Commission’s directorates for research and technology. In recent years, he managed the Commission’s bid in various science infrastructure projects, such as the Human Brain Project and Graphene.
Research and education have made their way into the 49 proposals for reforming EU policy and institutions as part of the two-year Conference on the Future of Europe, set to culminate next week.
When it comes to the environment, the proposals encourage more research into ensuring food security, including through precision farming and sustainable production, as well as microplastics pollution and alternatives for unsustainable packaging.
On health, there are calls to invest in research into the impact of the use of antibiotics as well as hormonal substances and endocrine disruptors. The need for a mental health research roadmap is also highlighted.
In digital, research is noted as one of the key variables in strengthening EU’s autonomy in strategic sectors such as semiconductors, medical products, digital innovations, and agriculture, among others.
When it comes to education, one of the 49 objectives is to establish a European Education Area by 2025 to ensure equal access to quality education and life-long learning.
The 49 final proposals were agreed on over a plenary session in Strasbourg last weekend.
The Conference was the European Commission and European Parliament’s bid to overhaul the way the EU is run, by asking citizens what changes should be made to its policies and institutions. The Conference is set to end on 9 May, when the final report will be delivered to EU policymakers and the European Commission, leaving it to them to assess and potentially implement the demands.
The Alliance of Science Organisations in Germany has taken a stance against harmonising research assessment across Europe.
In a statement published by this week, the alliance welcomed the European Commission’s push to reform research assessment across the EU as an opportunity to share best practices and deepen the common understanding of principles and values but fell short of endorsing the creation of a harmonised system.
“The Alliance’s vision for research assessment in a renewed [European Research Area] is to share best practice as to achieve functional interoperability of specific research assessment systems and a strengthened process of mutual learning, and not to create one general Europe-wide harmonised system,” the statement said.
The European Commission is pushing to make research evaluation more efficient, proposing to create a system based on qualitative judgement with peer-review, as opposed to the current one rewarding researchers for the number of papers published, citations and the prestige of the journals.
France, the current lead of the EU Council of member state, has endorsed the initiative, but German institutions have thus far been reluctant to embrace the plans. Two alliance members, the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Helmholtz Association have now joined the panel advising the research assessment reform.
This year, the European Research Council (ERC) received 1,647 proposals from experienced researchers for its estimated 223 Advanced grants, marking a 13.5% success rate, up from recent years.
This is the second year in a row success rates for ERC Advanced grants are above the average 12%. Since the 2021 launch of the new €95.5 billion EU research programme Horizon Europe, which has a bigger budget for fundamental research than its predecessor, the ERC has been able to award more scientists. The 2021 awardees were announced last week, with 14.6% of applicants receiving grants.
In the last two years of the previous Horizon 2020 research programme, which ended in 2020, success rates were especially low, hovering around 8 to 10%, which caused fears many excellent scientists may not be able to get EU funding.
This year’s call closed last week, clocking a 5% decrease in proposals compared to the 2021 call, when 1,735 applications were submitted. However, with a smaller provisional budget for the grants this year, €555 million, fewer researchers will be awarded.
The winners of the estimated 223 grants for fundamental research in any field are set to be announced in April next year.
EU’s leadership in the green transformation and technology depends on member states boosting cooperation on R&I policy to deliver systematic changes, new European Commission-led foresight report suggests.
The future gazing report charts five speculative scenarios as it looks to scope out the change the COVID-19 pandemic may bring to the EU, and suggests R&I cooperation will be key to delivering positive change to the bloc in the next 20 years.
The report also stresses the scenarios show a growing need for R&I to target socioeconomic and environmental challenges.
“All scenarios suggest the need for stepping up collective capability and willingness to actively engage in open and collaborative R&I relationships, both within Europe and with the world beyond Europe,” the report says.
The online information days on the updated Horizon Europe missions programme, which outlines calls for research, their budgets and scope, will take place on 17-18 May 2022.
The five missions aim to mobilise European regions and R&I community to beat cancer, save the world’s oceans and soils, and lead cities to climate neutrality and adaptation.
The updated work programme with new calls under the five missions is set to be published ahead of the event.
A new institute for interdisciplinary research at the interface of human health, animal health and the environment opened today in Greifswald, northeastern Germany.
The Helmholtz Institute for One Health, masterminded before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic as a centre for molecular infection science, is set up in a purpose-built site at the University of Greifswald.
The new building cost the national and local governments €23 million to build, with another €35 million dedicated to the initial set up of the institute.
The site is a branch of the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research (HZI), one of the 18 centres of Germany’s biggest research organisation, Helmholtz Institute.
EU regulations should be better suited to accelerating new technologies to market, according to a report by EuropaBio, a biotech industry association.
The report maps out recommendations for speeding up innovation and new product take up in the healthcare market and other industries.
In the healthcare sector, industry urges policymakers to adapt regulations to modern innovation processes, improve patient access to novel therapies, and review and improve state aid instruments, among other recommendations.
In other industries, such as those supporting Europe’s green transition, EuropaBio’s recommendations include ensuring sustainable innovation scale-up and easier market access.
Spain’s regions are set to invest €200 million, of which €116.5 million will be provided by the national government, in agri-food, astrophysics and high-energy physics, advanced materials and biodiversity research.
The funding is part of a new type of initiative supported by EU recovery funds that sees money flowing to strategic research areas. Last year, the first such projects saw investments in renewable energy and hydrogen, marine sciences, quantum communication and biotechnology. The total budget for the eight research areas is €444.8 million until 2025.
More than 200 research centres and universities will take part in the programme, with 1,000 new research and support staff expected to be hired to deliver the projects.
China’s foreign ministry has denied claims the country’s research organisations have paused cooperation with the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS).
On Thursday, Alexander Sergeev, president of RAS, said cooperation with Chinese partners had come to a standstill about a month ago, the Russian news agency, Tass, reported.
"If we talk about the southern or eastern directions, unfortunately, I can say directly that our Chinese scientific colleagues have also pressed the pause [button], and over the past month we have not been able to enter into serious discussions, despite the fact that we had excellent cooperation along with regular communication," Sergeev said during a conference in Moscow.
China’s foreign ministry has since denied the claim. "As far as we know, China and Russia continue to develop regular cooperation in the scientific field, this is an important component of Sino-Russian cooperation," a spokesman said in a press briefing on Friday, per Tass.
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