HORIZON BLOG: European R&D policy newsbytes (Archived_01)

Canada has announced a $700 million top-up to its Global Innovation Clusters scheme aimed at building up the country’s global presence in key industries, such as advanced manufacturing and artificial intelligence.

The new funding will run through 2028, expanding the programme that as of December 2022 has supported more than 500 projects worth $2.37 billion. The projects have generated 855 patent applications, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets.

The five industries are advanced manufacturing (up to $177 million in top-up support), plant-based food and feed (up to $150 million), digital technologies (up to $125 million), AI (up to $125 million) and oceans (up to $125 million).

The European University Association (EUA) urges the higher education sector to start a dialogue on how emerging AI tools are impacting learning and teaching.

In a position paper, the group says any bans of tools such as ChatGPT would be futile and instead universities have to adapt to use them effectively – and calls on universities to ponder on their impact.

The European Commission has set out what counts as renewable hydrogen fuel, giving labs and companies in the emergent sector long-awaited guidance on what it considers renewable, a key definition when it comes to working out which projects are eligible for funding. 

Electrolysers that produce hydrogen will have to be connected to new renewable electricity production, the rules state, rather than simply sucking power from the existing grid. However, this requirement is only going to be phased in gradually during a transition phase that runs to 2028. 

The EU aims to produce 10 million tonnes of hydrogen and similar fuels by 2030, which the Commission estimates will make up 14% of the bloc's electricity consumption. The fuel is seen as essential to green hard to decarbonise sectors, like steel production and aviation. 

The UK's new secretary of state for science, innovation and technology has said the country will "go it alone" with an alternative scheme to Horizon Europe if not allowed to join the framework programme. 

Michelle Donelan, who was last week appointed head of the new department, said in a newspaper column on February 11 that UK scientists were "keen" to have certainty over whether the country was joining, and would "engage with the sector as my top priority and work closely with them I set out our position in the coming weeks". 

"If we cannot associate, we are more than ready to go it alone with our own global-facing alternative, working with science powerhouses such as the US, Switzerland and Japan to deliver international science collaborations," she wrote in the Daily Telegraph. 

The Commission is currently blocking UK association to the programme until a wider dispute over the Northern Ireland Protocol has been resolved, and in response, the UK has been creating a "Plan B" alternative. However, in recent weeks, Brussels and London have inched closer to a deal that would settle the protocol impasse. 

More than 500 universities want to join or deepen their involvement in EU-backed university network, according to the statistics on the latest call for proposals.

The 2023 call received 65 proposals from university networks, with 39 new alliances uniting 278 universities looking to secure Erasmus+ funding and another 26 existing alliances with 224 members seeking top up funding to intensify.

There’s a total of €384 million in the funding pot for the alliances aimed at strengthening systemic, structural and sustainable transnational higher education cooperation this year. The results of the call are expected in summer 2023.

EARTO, the European Association of Research and Technology Organisations, has released its response paper to the European Commission’s call for feedback on its research and innovation framework programmes. 

It highlights a number of issues, both generally and more specifically related to each pillar of the current framework programme, Horizon Europe. 

The association has simultaneously published a response to its members’ experiences with lump-sum projects under the framework programme.

The US needs to stump up $6.6 billion on upgrades to research facilities at the National Institute of Standards and Technology over the next 12 years to keep pace as a global leader in measurement science, a new report states. 

The estimate comes from a committee brought together by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which found issues such as leaks, floods, power outages and more at several of the institute’s facilities. 

One committee member, Kent Rochford, described some of the labs there that were “nearly uninhabitable”. 

Getting the funds required for the renovations could be tricky, though, with the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives unlikely to back increased federal spending. 

Several Hungarian government ministers have stepped down from their positions on boards of trustees of public trust foundations overseeing many of the country’s universities in an attempt to appease concerns from Brussels about rule of law breaches. 

It includes justice minister Judit Varga, foreign affairs minister Péter Szijjártó and five others. The decision was announced by Hungarian minister of the Prime Minister's Office, Gergely Gulyás following a three-day meeting of cabinet ministers. 

The move comes after the EU Council’s December decision to freeze access to Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe funds for Hungarian institutions controlled by public trust foundations. Twenty-one of the country’s universities are managed by these foundations. 

One of the concerns was the influence of the government over these funds, with several top government officials serving on them with a lifelong mandate. 

The resignation of the seven Hungarian ministers from the funds is a significant step from Budapest as the government attempts to demonstrate to Brussels that it is serious about addressing rule of law concerns. However, there is no certainty as yet that the move will be considered sufficient by Hungary’s fellow EU member states, who have the final say in unfreezing the funds. 

The director of Paris’ Science Po University, Mathias Vicherat, has been chosen by France Universités to head up a new mission to look into how to better protect academic freedom. 

The mission kicks off tomorrow with the expectation that the working group will present a a series of propositions to France Universités by the end of this year. 

The mission picks up on a wider movement in Europe to protect academic freedom and respond to attacks against science and researchers in several countries, according to France Universités, which groups the heads of universities and higher education institutions.

“Defending academic freedom is an absolute priority for me as director of Sciences Po,” Vicherat said. 

“When academic freedom is attacked, it is knowledge, democracy and peace that are threatened. With this joint work, I know that we will be able to formulate strong proposals to change the current situation and raise awareness of this major issue for society as a whole.”

European research commissioner Mariya Gabriel has met with Latvia’s minister for education and science, Anda Čakša, to formally begin a partnership between the Commission and Latvia under the Enhanced Dialogue’ initiative. 

Latvia is the sixth EU member state to opt into the initiative, which aims to help countries develop their research and innovation ecosystems by providing them with guidance and support. 

Technical discussions on Latvia’s involvement in the initiative will be held on 10 March.