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

Independent scientists need to be given the freedom and resources to evaluate and call out the risks associated with AI, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the AI Safety Summit in London today.

The role of quantum physics in developing both nuclear energy and the atomic bomb shows the importance of “objective scientific checks and balances”, she said in a speech to the global political leaders, tech bosses, and academics gathered at Bletchley Park.

Von der Leyen said a global framework to mitigate the risks of very complex AI systems should be built on four pillars: independent scientists with public funding and access to supercomputers; internationally accepted procedures and standards for testing AI safety; a procedure for reporting incidents cause by misuse of AI; and an international system of alerts.

The European Innovation Council (EIC) has published its latest tech report looking at new technologies and breakthrough innovations that the body is funding. 

The EIC is the principal innovation funding mechanism under Horizon Europe and has backed 700 projects to date from over 10,000 proposals. 

This year’s tech report is the second, following the first version last year.

Recent EU Council recommendations on improving research careers have been welcomed by several university associations, but they still want to see them taken further. 

The European University Association (EUA), the Guild, Aurora Universities, Coimbra Group and YERUN - Young European Research Universities published a joint statement stressing that the Council recommendations should only be a first step. 

They are calling for:

• Appropriate legislative changes at national and regional levels
• Researchers' expertise and transversal skills need to be widely recognised in other sectors
• More stable and predictable research careers
• The future Research and Innovation Careers Observatory (ReICO) should be open and transparent

Science|Business covered the details of the draft recommendations this week, which you can read here. 

The start-up fund European Innovation Council (EIC) has selected 47 companies to receive a mix of grants and equity investments in the latest €350 million funding round. 

The start-ups and scale-ups from 15 Horizon Europe countries will receive grants of up to €2.5 million combined with equity investments ranging from €0.5 to €15 million.  

In this latest biannual funding round, engineering and tech companies did particularly well, accounting for a quarter of grantees.  

Brussels and Tokyo have concluded a deal that will allow data to flow between the EU and Japan more easily, aiming to allow companies to shed bureaucratic administrative and storage requirements.

Agreed on the margins of the G7 conference in Osaka last week, the new rules remove data localisation requirements, which a Commission announcement described as an “unnecessary burden.”

“This matters as it will ensure companies are not required to physically store their data locally,” it said.

The European Commission has opened a three-month long process to shape its European Defence Industrial Strategy, an effort to bolster the continent’s weapons industry.

The strategy was announced by Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in her State of the Union address earlier this year.

It will look at issues including “how to coordinate demand, strengthen supply chains, boost innovation, support the competitiveness of the sector and how to better account for defence objectives in EU policies,” according to a Commission announcement.

The final strategy should be presented in “early 2024”.

Over 130 scientists in 19 countries will receive €395 million in the latest European Research Council (ERC) synergy grants funding round. 

ERC synergy grants support groups of two to four principle investigators working to tackle ambitious research problems in any field. Projects can receive up to €10 million for a period of six years.  

In this funding round ERC selected 37 projects involving 114 universities and research centres, including 27 projects in Germany, 12 in France and 7 in the Netherlands. The projects cover a wide range of topics, including treating liver metastasis, decoding communication between mobile genetic elements, the role of silica in the dawn of life on the planet and hydrogen under pressure.

A new Slovak scheme will fund excellent applicants that failed to get funding from the EU’s oversubscribed MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships scheme. 

Slovakia will use money from the EU recovery fund, which countries can allocate as they see fit, to finance fellowships for researchers that reached the minimum threshold for receiving EU funding but didn’t due to budget constraints. These are holders of the so-called Seal of Excellence, a consolation prize for projects that are good enough to receive EU funding based on excellence. 

The scheme is open to applicants that were planning to carry out their project in Slovakia or are willing to carry out their project in Slovakia, if they had a host organisation in another country.  

The deadline for proposals is 31 December 2023. 

The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) has received backing of 75 education providers, businesses and financial partners to carry out its initiative aiming to train one million people in deep tech by 2025.  

The pledgers can contribute to the development, financing and delivery of the courses and training. There are currently 56 courses running. Interest organisations can still join the initiative. 

The deep tech talent initiative is part of the EU’s New Innovation Agenda, a five-flagship plan to put Europe at the forefront of the global deep tech innovation landscape. 

The EU plans to double the budget for financing clean technology manufacturing projects, including wind turbines and their components, under the Innovation Fund to €1.4 billion in the next call for proposals on 23 November.

The plans are part of the European Commission’s Wind Power Package, aiming to support the European wind power industry, which was published today.

Innovative wind projects will also be eligible under other topics in the upcoming call. “At equal merit, priority will be given to wind energy projects under this call,” the proposal states.

There will also be increased support for wind energy manufacturing under the revised Strategy Energy Technology Plan (SET), and the new Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP).