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

The Council for At-Risk Academics (Cara), a UK charity that places threatened academics at UK universities, has said that it has rescued more scholars than at any time since the 1930s, when it was established to help researchers flee the Nazis. 

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, more than 210 Ukrainian academics have been placed at over 60 UK universities, said Cara. 

40 Afghan researchers and their families fleeing the Taliban have also come to UK institutions. 

“In our 90th year, we are now receiving more requests for help than at any time since we were founded in the 1930s," said Stephen Wordsworth, Cara's executive director. 

The European Investment Fund (EIF) is investing €40 million, with support from the InvestEU programme, into the European climate tech growth equity fund Blume Equity.

EIF joins an investor base that includes the Swedish National Pension Plan, Visa Foundation, US fund-of-funds programme Impact Engine, and other institutional investors who see the opportunity to invest into the next generation of European climate tech companies.

This is one of the largest investments EIF has made into a first-time growth-stage fund.

The investment is part of the EIF's mission to support high-growth and innovative Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) across Europe, as well as to ensure at least 25% of its activity is in climate and environment-related projects by 2024.

The proposals put forward by the European Commission on 13 July to improve working conditions for young researchers in the European Research Area (ERA) do not go far enough, according to the League of European Research Universities (LERU).

In a statement published on 20 September, the network of universities welcomed the measures, which include the creation of an observatory to monitor research careers and a new European competence framework for researchers.

But it also noted several deficiencies, including a lack of recommendations addressing national barriers to mobility. Bert Overlaet, chair of the LERU careers of researchers and HR policy group said: “We need a much stronger coordination effort at the European level to overcome structural barriers hindering research careers in Europe.”

While the Commission recommends limiting the number of fixed-term contracts for researchers, the LERU says these contracts are a “direct consequence of the precariousness of funding”.

The full statement is available here.

The world’s five largest science and technology (S&T) clusters are now located in East-Asia, according to the 2023 edition of the Global Innovation Index (GII) from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Tokyo-Yokohama is the largest S&T cluster, followed by Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou, Seoul, Beijing, and Shanghai-Suzhou clusters. The San Jose-San Francisco cluster came in sixth position.

The ranking was revealed ahead of the release of the full GII 2023 findings on 27 September. The WIPO identifies S&T clusters by analysing patent-filing activity and scientific article publication.

WIPO director general Daren Tang said it was “heartening to see that these S&T clusters are growing at a particularly fast pace in emerging economies”. The report cites Brazil, India and Turkey as examples.

China has 24 clusters in the top 100, followed by the US with 21, and Germany with nine. Cambridge in the UK and San Jose-San Francisco in the US were found to be the most intensive clusters in proportion to their population density.

There’s a new batch of Horizon Europe calls for proposals for culture, creativity and inclusive society projects set to open on 4 October. 

A total of €180 million will be available for projects on topics such as job creation, AI, loneliness, rule of law, political identities and extremist movements under Horizon Europe’s Cluster 2.  

Cluster 2 projects are expected to mainstream social sciences to help understand contemporary transformations in society, economy, politics and culture. 

The European Commission will hold an info day on the calls on 18 October. 

Six budding scientists have been awarded the top prize at this year’s EU Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS), each scooping €7,000 for their winning projects. It is the 34th annual EUCYS event. 

Maksymilian Gozdur from Poland, Elizabeth Chen from Canada, Martin Stengaard Sørensen from Denmark and a three-member team from Portugal comprising Afonso Jorge Soares Nunes, Inês Alves Cerqueira and Mário Covas Onofre all shared the top prize. 

Second and third-placed projects went to scientists from the Netherlands, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Greece and Germany. 

In total, 85 projects were submitted to an international jury made up of 22 top scientists and engineers from around the world. 

Marc Lemaître, director-general of the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation at the European Commission, congratulated all the winners and contestants. 

“"EUCYS is about rewarding the enthusiasm, passion and curiosity of Europe's next generation of bright minds finding new solutions to our most pressing challenges,” he said.

Massimo Busuoli, the director of the Brussels office of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), has been elected as the next chair of the Universities Informal Liaison Offices Network (Unilion) for the year 2024. 

Unilion is an informal network of over 50 Brussels-based liaison offices. 

Busuoli, who received 70% of votes in his favour, said that he is “eager to pro-actively contribute to the further development of the network, enhancing its added value for its members”.

Women still manage only 9% of Europe’s venture capital firepower, or assets under management, marking no change in the balance since last year. 

The conclusion comes from the third annual study from the association European Women in VC and suggests more support is needed for women fund managers.  

While acknowledging progress is slow, the report adds to mounting evidence that more diversity in asset management leads to better results. The report’s financial performance analysis based on a sample of 100 VCs shows financial performance increases with higher representation of women in senior management.  

“While progress is being made, we must collectively acknowledge that change takes time. The correlation between gender diversity and superior performance is a powerful motivator for the industry to adapt to the evolving landscape,” said Kinga Stanislawska, founder of European Women in VC. 

France is one of the leading countries in terms of participation in public and private research and innovation partnerships supported by the EU, according to the latest ERA LEARN country report. 

In Horizon 2020, the previous seven-year EU research programme, France took part in 102 partnerships, far above the EU average, and led 27 of them. In Horizon Europe, which has a much slimmer partnership portfolio, the country’s organisations are taking part in 43 partnerships and leading 3 of them. 

Horizon partnerships are an umbrella term for joint programmes run and co-funded by the European Commission with industry and public organisations under the EU’s research programmes, Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe. 

ERA LEARN is a project attempting to make sense of these partnerships. This is the project’s ninth country report, with the others covering Poland, Austria, Spain, Belgium, Finland, Norway, Germany, and Estonia. 

Find the full report here. 

The UK parliament’s health committee today heard evidence  on how the country can maintain its status as a world leader in cancer research, in light of the UK joining EU’s Horizon Europe research programme. 

MPs discussed the significance of Horizon Europe association with four specialists from Oxford University, AstraZeneca, the Institute of Cancer Research and the Medical Research Council.