HORIZON BLOG: European R&D policy newsbytes (Archived_03)

The European Parliament today voted through its position on the Net-Zero Industry Act, a proposed EU plan to produce 40% of its net-zero technologies by 2030.  

Building on the Commission proposal, the MEPs propose faster authorisation procedures for projects and introduce net-zero industry valleys, which would speed up the permitting process by delegating parts of the environmental assessment evidence collection to member states. 

“Without these steps to reduce the administrative burden, speed up processes, and increased public investment in our industry and innovation, Europe would face decarbonisation by deindustrialisation. This proposal shows we can prevent this”, said the rapporteur for the file, MEP Christian Ehler. 

The plan is seen as the EU’s response to the US’ Inflation Reduction Act, a plan to funnel $369 billion to into the green tech industry. The EU’s ambition is to capture 25% of the global market value for net-zero technologies and tackle the main bottlenecks to scaling up their manufacturing capacity. 

The Research and Innovation Week (R&I Week), the European Commission’s flagship event on research and innovation, will take place between 18 and 21 March 2024 at Tour & Taxis in Brussels.

Policymakers, researchers and other stakeholders will debate the future of R&I and its contribution to political priorities such as European tech sovereignty and competitiveness.

The programme includes the 2024 EIC Summit on 19 March, a Belgian EU Presidency conference on innovation procurement on 19-20, and the European R&I Days on 20-21.

The UK government has announced £4.5 billion in funding for manufacturing in eight strategic sectors, with the aim of providing industry with long-term certainty about their investments.

The funding, which will be available from 2025 for five years, includes £975 million for the aerospace sector, to support the development of zero-emission vehicles and investment in zero-carbon aircraft equipment.

There will also be £960 million for clean energy, including carbon capture, hydrogen, nuclear and offshore wind; and £520 million for life sciences manufacturing to build resilience for future health emergencies.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said: “Our £4.5 billion of funding will leverage many times that from the private sector, and in turn will grow our economy, creating more skilled, higher-paid jobs in new industries that will be built to last.”

The German Research Foundation (DFG) has urged the German federal government to approve the European Commission’s draft regulation on the use of new genomic techniques in plant breeding, at a parliamentary evening attended by researchers and politicians.

“Facilitating access to field trials using plants developed using these new technologies is essential for future-oriented and innovative plant research in Germany and Europe,” said DFG President Katja Becker on the sidelines of the event, which was held at the Representation of the European Commission in Berlin.

The Commission proposal does not address the complicated issue of patents for gene-edited plants, and the DFG is calling for the patent debate to be conducted separately, to allow the draft legislation to be adapted before the European elections in June.

The European Innovation Council has said it received 1,083 applications for its Accelerator programme which closed on 8 November, the highest number of proposals this year.

Germany, France and Israel were the countries that submitted the most proposals. 14% came from widening countries – EU member states that lag behind on framework programme participation.

17% of the applicant start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises had female chief executives.

The European Union has launched a new call to support innovation in large-scale AI models, offering winning projects GPU hours on European supercomputers along with a shared €1 million prize.

The AI Grand Challenge call is in partnership with the  European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking, which aims to develop Europe-wide supercomputing infrastructure and support R&I activities. 

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced in her September State of the Union speech plans to fast track access for artificial intelligence start-ups to Europe’s high-performance computers to train their models. The new AI Grand Challenge call appears to be part of this.

The European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) has hailed the achievements of its Regional Innovation Scheme (RIS) over the course of 2022 in a new report published this week. 

The EIT launched the scheme, aimed at closing geographic disparities in innovation performance around Europe, back in 2014 and upgraded it in 2021.

The 2022 EIT RIS Activity Report highlights some of the scheme’s accomplishments in this year, including training 88,000 participants of EIT courses, launching more than 350 new innovations and creating and supporting over 2,500 ventures. 

The seven winners of the 2023 REGIOSTARS Awards have been announced, recognising the outstanding innovation of seven EU projects that have been supported by Cohesion Policy funds. 

This year’s awards received a record 228 applications. The public’s choice winner, chosen through online votes, is the Cultural Art Centre: museum and library, located in Burgas, Bulgaria. 

The other winners are for projects tackling various social, digital or mobility issues.

See the full list of winners here.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has agreed a €30 million loan with aerospace company Skydweller SL’s to help it develop production of a solar-powered autonomous aircraft capable of achieving perpetual flight. 

The investment will mainly support the company’s operations in Italy and Spain. 

The aircraft can be used for services such as telecommunications, intelligence gathering and surveillance, as well as humanitarian relief. 

Read more about the agreement here.

The European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund has approved€1 billion in investments in its first year, providing equity to 159 high-risk deep tech start-ups and SMEs.  

The fund had a rocky start at the beginning of Horizon Europe but finally launched in September 2022. 

The funding comes from the €7 billion EIC Accelerator programme for start-ups, which is in line for a €2.6 billion top up. But the top-up depends on a deal policymakers will reach in their negotiations on the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP).