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

The European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) has selected the Jules Verne consortium to host & operate in France the second exascale supercomputer to exceed the threshold of one billion billion calculations per second.

With a total budget of around EUR 540 million, the machine will be co-funded by the EuroHPC JU, with budget stemming from the Digital Europe Programme (DEP) and by contributions from France and the Netherlands.

The European Commission has opened a new call worth €15.4 million for 2024 and 2025 editions of European Researchers’ Night and Researchers at Schools, two science engagement and communications events aimed at showcasing research and its impact on society.

More info about the call is available here.

Over 600 participants of an annual forum have weighed in on the challenges that the EU’s Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change is facing. The forum took place on 13 June. 

The key takeaways included a demand for “appropriate” and “accessible” funding for adaptation measures, better coordination between national, regional and local authorities, and greater input from the private sector in the green transition. 

The EU’s climate-focused mission aims to support European regions in becoming more environmentally friendly and resistant to the effects of climate change. In total, 308 regional and local authorities from 25 EU member states have signed the mission’s charter.

The EU and Israel reaffirmed their commitment to continue to work together on research and innovation through the Horizon Europe framework programme during a meeting held in Brussels on 12 June. 

It was the second such meeting between the sides since Israel’s association to Horizon Europe in 2021. 

There were discussions on Israel’s overall participation in Horizon Europe, its involvement in the EU’s thematic missions and partnerships initiatives as well as the European Innovation Council, and its strong performance in winning European Research Council grants.

Representatives of Serbia and the EU met on 15 June for a first Joint R&I Committee Meeting under Horizon Europe between the two sides. Serbia has participated in EU research and innovation programmes since 2007, but became a fully associated member of Horizon Europe only in 2021. 

Discussions during this meeting centred on strengthening R&I cooperation between the two sides, increasing Serbia integration into the European Research Area, and increasing Serbia’s participation in Horizon Europe.

Seventeen new so-called ‘Africa-Europe Clusters of Research Excellence’ are set to give EU-AU research cooperation a boost by bringing together distinguished researchers from both continents.  

In the project spearheaded by the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) and The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities, the clusters will address seventeen key societal challenges while stimulating equitable collaboration. 

The EU and the AU has been working on advancing their cooperation in science over the past few years, including through a recently adopted joint AU-EU Innovation Agenda, which promises to accelerate talent circulation, help develop research infrastructures and foster the emergence of joint centres of excellence. 

Horizon Europe supported public-private partnership with the bio-based industries has selected the first 21 research projects to invest €116 million in.  

The grants will fund the development of new bio-based products and materials, first-of-their-kind production facilities and innovative processes. 

The goal of €2 billion Horizon Europe partnership, the Circular Bio-Based Europe Joint Undertaking, is to boost the industry’s competitiveness while helping it transition towards more circular modes of production and business. 

UK’s higher education funding bodies have set out initial rules for assessing £2 billion of block-grant research funding and its impact for 2021-2027.  

The new rules will shift focus away from the performance of individuals to the impact on the research environment. This will in turn help reshape how research is incentivised and reported, allowing funders to recognise and reward a wider range of research outputs. 

Three elements will be assessed: people and culture (25% weighting), contribution to knowledge and understanding (50% weighting) and engagement and impact (25% weighting). 

Across the Channel, the European Commission initiated a similar push to reform how research is assessed last year. The movement is now supported by more than 500 research organisations around Europe.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen this week signed a memorandum of understanding with Argentinian President Alberto Fernández agreeing to a partnership on sustainable raw materials value chains.

An element of the partnership involves research and innovation cooperation, including working together on mineral knowledge, environmental measures and the circular economy. 

The £10.5 billion in venture capital raised by UK life sciences between 2020 to 2022 is more than what was raised in Germany, France and Canada combined, the British Business Bank’s latest Small Business Equity Tracker has found. 

In total, life science companies accounted for 16% of total venture capital investments in the UK in the same period. 

Louis Taylor, the CEO of British Business Bank, said part of the reason the UK is so successful in scaling life science companies is because of the country’s “incredible academic institutions”. 

But he warned that the sector could still be impacted by a general downturn in venture capital in the UK if there is not continued “later stage and specialist, patient capital”.