HORIZON BLOG: European R&D policy newsbytes (Archived_02)

A new call has been launched to support Ukrainian research and researchers through cooperation with partners in the US, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The IMPRESS-U call, which stands for International Multilateral Partnerships for Resilient Education and Science System in Ukraine, is being led by the American National Science Foundation.

The Polish partner, the National Science Centre, has set aside PLN 10 million (approx. €2.2 million) for the call. 

The call is aimed at supporting high-quality research projects with Ukrainian partners, helping Ukrainian researchers integrate into the international science community and helping rebuild the country’s research potential. 

“In NCN grant programmes to date, such opportunities have been few and far between and usually restricted to specific research areas,” Justyna Woźniakowska, head of the international cooperation department at the NCN, said. “This call facilitates cooperation in all the disciplines.”

The European Commission has warned that academic freedom in Hong Kong has come under further pressure this year, with political science departments at some universities closing down. 

In its annual report on the Chinese special administrative region, the Commission warned that local media have "singled out academics and criticised their research work based on their perceived political stances, forcing some of them to leave their positions".

The Chinese Communist Party has tightened its grip over the former British colony during the past decade, clamping down on political protest and dissent in a city that once had a relatively free academic culture, press and judiciary. 

Political science researchers have postponed sensitive research, the Commission report warns, while a foreign researcher was denied a visa without explanation by the Hong Kong authorities. 

Meanwhile, the number of students and researchers from the EU in Hong Kong has declined, it adds. 

EIT Digital and the European Business Angels Network (EBAN) have announced a partnership that they hope will allow more European digital technology start-ups to get access to early stage capital. 

The hope is that angel investors - who typically provide small amounts of funding for companies that are just starting out - will be able to use information from EIT Digital to find firms they want to back.

"With an ecosystem full of start-ups and a host of programmes to support them, EIT Digital can now represent a new source of deal flow for members of EBAN," EIT Digital said in an announcement today. 

EIT Digital is the digital technology branch of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology. 

EU governments are upping their investments in R&D, with a recorded 5% increase in 2022 compared with the previous year. 

The increase follows a trend of rising investment in R&D over the past decade. Compared with 2012 spending, EU member states invested 49.2% more in R&D in 2022. This amounted to €117 368 million, equivalent to 0.74% of the EU GDP.  

Luxembourg leads the charts with the highest investments in R&D at €661.6 per person, compared with the EU average of €262.7 per person. Denmark and Germany are also putting a fair share of their money in finances, around €520 per person each. Romania, Bulgaria and Latvia, meanwhile, are at the bottom of the chart with investments as low as €17.6 per person in Romania. 

A new scientific advisory board will be set up to advise United Nations’ leaders on harnessing the benefits and mitigating risks of future breakthroughs in science and technology.  

The board will be made up of seven eminent scholars, chief scientists of UN’s various bodies, the secretary-general’s envoy on technology and the rector of the UN University. 

“Scientific and technological progress can support efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals — but they are also giving rise to ethical, legal and political concerns that require multilateral solutions,” said António Guterres, UN secretary general, who announced the creation of the board. 

“My Scientific Advisory Board will strengthen the role of the United Nations as a reliable source of data and evidence and provide advice to me and my senior management team,” he added.  

Ten to fifteen research team in Ukraine will be able to access a forecasted $1 million to advance their research under the a new US-backed project IMPRESS-U. 

US’ National Academy of Sciences (NAS) intends to raise the money from private donors and foundations. The project is run in partnership with eight other US and EU based public research agencies. 

The programme is looking for projects that are creative in enhancing international partnerships, prepare an internationally engaged research workforce, and contribute to building a modern research, innovation and education system in Ukraine. 

More details here.  

Start-ups will have an extra two weeks to submit their full second stage proposals for the next European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator call in October. 

The deadline was moved from 4 October to 19 October to give applicants more time to adjust to the disruptions caused by the unexpected shut down of the custom EIC Accelerator submissions platform in early June.  

After the platform was unexpectedly shut down, submissions for stage two proposals were moved to the regular Horizon Europe submissions platform, while the submission of short stage one proposals was halted for a month until 3 July.  

The EIC Accelerator offers high-risk European start-ups grant and equity funding. With a €7 billion seven-year budget, it’s the EU innovation fund’s largest programme. 

The European Commission has picked 159 higher education projects from across the world for funding as part of the Erasmus+ programme's capacity-building efforts. 

The EU will dish out €115.3 million to various schemes, including projects to professionalise maths in central Africa, create curricula for a sustainable ocean economy in the southern Mediterranean, and give women in central Asia entrepreneurship skills. 

It also plans to give €5 million to help Ukrainian universities build a digital platform to help students who have had to flee the country or are internally displaced. 

"Capacity building in higher education beyond our borders is a particularly important strand of Erasmus+," said Margaritis Schinas, vice president for Promoting our European Way of Life. "We all gain from these exchanges and cooperation with our partners across the globe."

Twenty-three members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have officially become limited partners in the alliance's €1 billion NATO Innovation Fund (NIF). 

The goal of what NATO describes as the world’s first multi-sovereign venture capital fund is to invest in start-ups and deep tech to address defence and security challenges. Investments will be made into businesses located in any of the 23 partner nations, while indirect investments will also be made into deep tech funds with a “trans-Atlantic impact”. The fund was first launched in June 2022 and is due to make its first investments later this year. 

Sweden, which is close to finalising its membership to NATO, has also expressed an interest in joining the NIF, which will boost the €1 billion budget. 

The 23 limited partners of the fund are: Belgium; Bulgaria; Czechia; Denmark; Estonia; Finland; Germany; Greece; Hungary; Iceland; Italy; Latvia; Lithuania; Luxembourg; Netherlands; Norway; Poland; Portugal; Romania; Slovakia; Spain; Türkiye; United Kingdom. 

The European Innovation Council (EIC) has set a goal of increasing the participation of the 15 Widening countries to 15% across all EIC instruments, up from the current 8%. Widening countries are those that generally perform weaker in research and innovation. 

The EIC has published a series of recommendations to help achieve this goal, including improving information about the EIC, offering specialised training, addressing biases and requiring at least 30% of the evaluators and jury members to be from Widening countries. 

The EIC, funded through Horizon Europe, aims to support and fund innovation projects and has a budget of €10 billion. 

Read the EIC’s full statement here.