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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The association of universities of science and technology in Europe CESAER has published a position paper calling for the adoption of a comprehensive and inclusive approach to research and technology infrastructures.
CESAER vice-president Jennifer Herek says universities use infrastructures across their entire mission, for scientific and technological excellence and development, education and training, innovation and services to society.
“We therefore promote the broader and more inclusive concept of S&T infrastructures, thus encouraging the convergence and linking of efforts around research and technological infrastructures,” said Herek.
The UK government has announced a new National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) to drive its science and technology strategy.
The government wants the council to deliver a plan on how science and technology can support economic growth and strengthen the UK’s position on the global stage.
The NSTC will be chaired by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster as deputy chair.
The new council is, legally speaking, an “interministerial” body with powers to advise the government but not make decisions itself, science minister Nusrat Ghani told a House of Commons committee October 12. That is a downgrade in authority from the prior, Cabinet-level status that its counterpart had in the prior government of Boris Johnson, THE reported.
The European Commission has launched two new calls for proposals for staff exchanges and co-funding doctoral and post-doctoral programmes under Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA).
The 2022 COFUND call has a total budget of €95 million and will remain open until 9 February 2023. The 2022 Staff Exchanges call has a budget of €77.5 million and will close on 8 March 2023.
The money will be spent on short-term international exchanges of research and innovation staff. These exchanges allow researchers and innovators to connect and prepare the ground for collaborative projects.
The COFUND programme allows companies, and regional or national authorities to create or consolidate their own doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships programmes and increase their research and innovation capacities by attracting international talent.
More information about the Staff Exchanges call is available here. More information about the COFUND call here.
The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) has announced the winners of the 9th EIT Awards.
Anna Vanderbruggen, Bernhard Adler, Christoph Berger, Catherine Schreiber, and Sabrina Maria Malpede have been awarded the top prizes for their innovations in the fields of raw materials, clean technology, energy efficiency and health.
The new Solar Photovoltaic Industry Alliance, endorsed by the European Commission today, will aim to scale up manufacturing technologies of innovative solar photovoltaic products and components to accelerate the development of solar power across the EU.
The alliance, to be set up by the end of the year, will bring together industry, research institutes, consumer associations and NGOs to deliver an action plan for the solar value chain in Europe. Topics to be explored include research and innovation, technology, raw materials, financing and international partnerships, among others. With the help of the alliance, the EU aims reach over 320 GW of newly installed solar photovoltaic capacity by 2025 and almost 600 GW by 2030.
The call for membership is set to be published in November. The Commission already runs similar alliances for batteries and clean hydrogen.
The EU innovation agency, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), today launched its Deep Tech Talent Initiative aiming to skill one million people in deep tech over the next three years.
The programme is part of the European Commission’s new innovation agenda, unveiled in July, which aims to put Europe at the forefront of deep tech innovation. The EIT, whose innovation support largely focuses on education and training, has been tasked with helping to plug the skills gap in the field.
The initiative will encompass all education level from secondary school to professionals, with a particular focus on skilling women and people in countries with lower innovation capacity.
The EIT is now asking public organisations, industry, education providers and investors to join the initiative by contributing to training provision, programme content development, financial support and dissemination.
As the European Commission prepares a revision of the EU pharmaceutical legislation, MEPs are drawing attention to the need for ‘a robust research engine’ to ensure the competitiveness of the EU’s pharmaceutical industry.
In a letter sent to EU’s health, research and internal market commissioners, MEPs call on the Commission to ensure the legislation creates a competitive R&D environment, reinforces the strategic autonomy of health research, and effectively ensures speedy and equal access to new medicines.
“We want to ensure that R&D is again carried out in the EU, that the revised legislation creates more jobs, strengthens the EU’s export position and global competeivness, and that we stimulate the pharmaceutical industry to develop the medicines we need,” the letter says.
The proposal for the revision of the EU pharmaceutical legislation is expected in December.
The European Innovation Council (EIC) has kicked off the Game Changers, a podcast series on how deep tech start-ups move successfully from the research lab to the market.
The first episode features EIC programme manager Stela Tkatchova and EIC grantees Lorenzo Tarabini Castellani and Gonzalo Sanchez Arriaga who talk about the technological challenges of removing space debris with innovative technologies.
The European Commission has approved a €292.5 million direct grant to help Italian microchip manufacturer STMicroelectronics build a wafer plant in Catania.
According to the Commission, the facility will be first-of-a-kind in Europe and will help the EU rely less on semiconductors developed and produced in China.
Earlier this year, the Commission proposed the Chips Act, a new legislative package that would mobilise €43 billion for research, development and manufacturing of semiconductors.
Nusrat Ghani has been named as UK new science minister three months after her successor George Freeman resigned in July alongside other ministers , in protest at prime minister Boris Johnson’s leadership.
Ghani is somewhat new to the world of science policy, having cut her ministerial teeth as a junior minister at the Department of Transport. She has sat on the select committee overseeing the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, where she will now be a minister, but has little experience of the research sector.
Ghani faces a long to-do list in her new role, including continuing the negotiations with Brussels over the UK’s access to the EU’s €95.5 billion Horizon Europe research programme. After a year and a half of talks, the UK is still locked out. With cuts to UK public spending expected to be announced in the next month, Ghani may also find herself fighting to keep hold of the £6.9 billion that was put aside to fund the UK’s participation in Horizon Europe. With Horizon Europe association looking increasingly unlikely, that money is supposed to fund an alternative Plan B national research programme.
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