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The online info day for Horizon Europe’s calls in culture, creativity and inclusive society is set to take place on 7 December.
The European Commission will hold webinars explaining how researchers can apply and secure funding for projects in the areas of democracy and governance, cultural heritage, and social and economic transformation.
The event will be livestreamed here.
The Canadian government said it has begun working the European Commission on developing systems for “digital credentials,” a technology for verifying the identity of parties in an online transaction.
These systems are digital equivalents to ID cards or other conventional proofs of identity, and are already starting to be used – but in different formats and with different rules from country to country. Some prototypes include sometimes-controversial genetic or other biometric identification for secure transactions. Other, more-prosaic systems such as the EU’s Europass are intended to make it easier for national professional or educational certificates to be recognised from country to country.
In a statement, the Canadian innovation ministry said that following joint workshops on the topic with the Commission the two governments aim to work together on R&D on the topic, and in enlisting other countries in coming to agreement on how to deploy and regulate the technology.
The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) is moving its university innovation initiative to the next phase as it launches the second call for proposals.
The EU innovation agency is calling on higher education institutions to join forces with companies, research centres, public authorities and association to design activities that would help them better support and grow innovations. The selected candidates will receive up to €1.2 million to carry out the task.
The first call for projects earlier this year supported 24 projects involving 142 universities and 155 partners with €28.8 million under the initiative, which aims to help universities become regional innovation engines across the EU.
Two calls for proposals under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) went live today with a total budget of €161.5 million.
One €89 million call, open until 10 February, will provide funding for new or existing doctoral and postdoctoral programmes. A second call, worth €72.5 million and open until 9 March, will support short-term international and inter-sectoral exchanges of staff members involved in research and innovation.
The two calls aim to improve researcher career development and help form research networks around Europe, in line with the goals of the new €6.6 billion seven-year MSCA framework under Horizon Europe.
The European Commission today launched the first calls under the seven-year Digital Europe programme aimed at advancing the EU’s digital transition.
The first €415 million strand of grants will be distributed to projects in cloud to edge infrastructure, data spaces, artificial intelligence, quantum communication infrastructure, advancing people's digital skills, and tackling online child sexual abuse and disinformation. The money is set to be spent until 2022.
Another €43 million in grants will be invested in cybersecurity projects, such as support in the health sector, and the deployment of a network of coordination centres in a bid to help member states implement relevant EU cybersecurity legislation.
There’s also a separate call for proposals to set up and deploy the European Digital Innovation Hub (EDIH) network, which will aim to private companies and the public sector in their digital transformation.
The Commission adopted its plan for the first two-years of the Digital Europe programme last week, setting aside €2 billion for Europe’s digital transformation.
The European Innovation Council (EIC) is set to enter a new phase , as the European Commission begins the search for the new president to provide strategic leadership to the EU’s new innovation agency.
The EIC will have a president and a governing board starting in the first half of 2022. The president will chair the board, providing strategic leadership to the agency, as well as serve as the face of the EIC. The role mirrors that of the president of the European Research Council, the EU’s basic research funder.
“The role of the EIC Board President is to provide leadership to the EIC as a flagship innovation programme, known to innovators across Europe and beyond,” said EU research commissioner Mariya Gabriel. “(S)he will lead the new EIC Board and translate the their vision and advice into a programme that meets innovators needs and enables them to develop ground breaking technologies and successful companies in Europe.”
Applicants from EU member states are invited to submit applications by 17 December. The selected candidate will hold a full time post for four years, renewable once.
The EIC, Horizon Europe’s newest addition, launched earlier this year with a budget of €10 billion following a three-year pilot phase. The agency supports start-ups and breakthrough innovation projects with grants and equity financing, seeking to put Europe at the forefront of global innovation in strategic sectors.
EU auditors say the EU student mobility programme Erasmus+ could benefit from reduced use of IT tools, a clearer programme guide, a simpler application procedure and measures tackling gender inequality, in their latest assessment of EU spending programmes.
The auditors noted Erasmus+ hugely benefits individual participants, while its support for innovative practices has been largely successful. However, the success rarely translates beyond the benefitting institutions.
Overall, the assessment ruled the COVID-19 pandemic undermined Erasmus+ due to its impact on travel and in-person learning.
The EU’s Innovation Fund is investing €1.1 billion in seven large-scale projects aiming to bring novel energy technologies to the market.
The projects are expected to contribute to decarbonising energy-intensive industries and the energy market with the help of hydrogen, carbon capture, use and storage, and renewable energy technologies in Belgium, Italy, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden.
One project in Sweden will power steel production with renewable hydrogen, while across the border in Finland a demonstrator will produce clean hydrogen through renewable energy and by capturing and storing CO2 in the North Sea.
In the South of Europe, an Italian project will develop an industrial-scale pilot line for the manufacture of high performance photovoltaic cells, while in Spain non-recyclable municipal solid waste will be converted to methanol, a low-carbon fuel alternative.
The European Court of Auditors (ECA) has signed off the 2020 financial records of all Joint Undertakings (JUs), the EU’s public-private partnerships with industry and research groups.
In the seventh of their ten-year life span, most JUs have already implemented approximately two thirds of their activities within Horizon 2020, the EU’s eight framework programme for research and innovation.
However, the auditors also noted that personnel costs are the main source of financial error, and suggest that the corresponding rules and procedures should be further streamlined.
The eight JUs manage a total of €19.7 billion from the Horizon 2020 budget and from in-kind contributions and other financial contributions from private partners, participating states and intergovernmental organisations.
“Although several aspects could be improved further, our audit for 2020 confirms that the financial and compliance management of the Joint Undertakings is healthy”, said Ildikó Gáll-Pelcz, the member of the European Court of Auditors responsible for the audit.
“We note positively that JUs have adapted their business to the constraints imposed by the pandemic without any great impact on activities and deliverables, thanks to synergies among them,” said Gáll-Pelcz.
The first Horizon Europe call managed by the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is now open for submissions.
With an overall budget of €32.6 million, the call welcomes proposals that aim develop applications based on data from the EU space programmes Galileo, EGNOS, and Copernicus.
The deadline for applications is 16 February 2022.
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