Horizon Europe is well underway, but the world of European R&D policy goes well beyond the confines of the €95.5 billion R&D programme. EU climate, digital, agriculture and regional policies all have significant research and innovation components. National governments often come up with new R&D policies, decide to fund new research avenues, and set up international cooperation deals. This blog aims to keep you informed on all of that and more.
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The EU needs a technology boost in defence and security to increase its strategic autonomy, according to António Costa, president of the European Council.
“It is clear that the European Union’s budgetary architecture and policies will have to evolve. That could mean exploring ways for other policies – such as defence, innovation, the twin digital and energy transitions,” Costa said at the opening of the Polish presidency of the Council of the EU.
Costa said new investments in defence and security could turn the sector “into a real economic engine, creating better and more skilled jobs, developing a more autonomous European industry, and creating technological champions.”
For its second stint at the helm of the Council, Poland has made security its watchword at a time of political uncertainty sparked by Russia’s continuing war on Ukraine, economic stagnation, and the re-election of Donald Trump.
“Prosperity and security go hand in hand,” Costa said.
Read his speech here.
South Korea has joined Horizon Europe under a transitional agreement, given that its association to the EU research framework programme is considered as imminent, the European Commission said.
As of January 1, researchers and organisations from South Korea are able to take part in the calls and activities of Horizon Europe’s Pillar II, which funds pre-competitive research and innovation projects and currently receives the major share of the budget.
“This transitional arrangement follows the successful conclusion of negotiations between the Commission and the Government of the Republic of Korea regarding Pillar II of Horizon Europe programme,” the statement read.
Meanwhile, the signing of the association deal is expected to take place in 2025.
Read more about it here.
On Wednesday, the European Commission appointed a new members in the European Research Council’s (ERC) Scientific Council.
Director of HUN-REN Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics in Budapest, Hungary, András Stipsicz is an expert in low-dimensional topology. He will take office in April 2025.
Stipsicz was awarded ERC Advanced Grants in 2012 and 2024.
“András Stipsicz’s expertise and leadership will strengthen the ERC mission to advance frontier research across our continent,” said research commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva.
Read more about Stipsicz’s appointment here.
The Czech Ministry of Education has published its recommendations for the successor to Horizon Europe, Framework Programme 10 (FP10), including a call for Widening measures to remain in the programme. Successful widening tools such as twinning and teaming should be maintained, while others like the hop-on facility and the European Excellence Initiative should be reworked or discontinued, it says.
The paper suggests the European Institute of Innovation & Technology could operate independently from FP10 as a standalone body, or otherwise better align its activities with the European Innovation Council.
Czechia also wants the partnership model to remain in FP10, and for member states to have greater say in proposing and implementing partnerships, especially when they make substantial financial contributions.
Overall, it proposes moving away from large projects which lead to the creation of “oversized, inflexible consortia”, simplifying the system for calculating eligible personnel costs, and having more dedicated calls in the social sciences and humanities.
Support for dual-use R&D should be “strategic, proportionate, and embedded in well-justified parts of FP10”, and this “without strictly separating research activities for technologies that can have both civil and military applications”.
Washington and Beijing have finally agreed to extend a long-running science and technology agreement following more than a year of temporary roll-overs amid criticisms that the relationship has allowed China to extract too much knowhow from the US.
The countries have amended the deal and extended it for five years, the White House announced last week. However, this new agreement, not yet released, only covers basic research and contains new protections on transparency and data reciprocity.
Republicans have accused the White House of attempting to “tie the hands” of the incoming administration of Donald Trump by signing an extension just before the handover of power in January.
The European Commission has signed a 12-year concession contract for the Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite (IRIS²) with a view to reinforcing Europe’s sovereignty and technological leadership.
The constellation of 290 satellites, implemented by a cross-industry consortia of space, digital and deep tech firms, is set to provide secure connectivity services to EU member states and high-speed broadband for private companies and citizens.
According to Henna Virkkunen, the vice-president for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, “this cutting-edge constellation will protect our critical infrastructures, connect our most remote areas and increase Europe’s strategic autonomy.”
Via the partnership with the SpaceRISE consortium, she added, “we are demonstrating the power of public-private collaboration to drive innovation.”
Read the press release here.
The European Commission organised a roundtable with experts to discuss the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in science, as scientists are pushing to increase its uptake in their disciplines.
The talks, hosted by new research commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva and Henna Virkkunen, the executive vice-president for tech, security and democracy, aimed at identifying how to better use and adopt AI to speed up scientific innovation in Europe.
“This roundtable is an important step in realising our vision of a united and well-resourced ecosystem for AI in science, to drive scientific breakthroughs and boost EU competitiveness,” Zaharieva said.
The discussions also looked into ways to pool and consolidate European resources in the field.
Read more about it here.
The European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC) has selected seven proposals to establish AI factories, to give start-ups and researchers access to supercomputers designed for the development of AI models and applications.
The first AI factories represent a €1.5 billion investment, with half coming from the EU’s Digital Europe Programme and Horizon Europe, and the rest from national funds, after a call was launched in September.
The factories will involve updating two existing EU supercomputers in Spain and Greece, and deploying brand-new, AI-optimised supercomputers in Finland, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and Sweden.
The AI factories will more than double existing EuroHPC computing capacity, and will be deployed in 2025-2026, according to the Commission.
“Now we are ready to lead with the right infrastructure in our ambition for the EU to become the AI continent,” said Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty.
“We are on track to make the AI factories initiative a reality in the first 100 days of the new European Commission. We expect a second wave of offers on 1 February.”
A host of European start-up and investor associations have called on the European Commission to launch a European Venture Capital Initiative (EVCI), to foster exchanges between VCs and institutional investors such as pension funds.
“The EVCI would create a label and a fund-of-fund structure to enhance institutional investors’ investments in VCs, by mapping the ambitious funds in which they can invest, and carry out a due diligence process for them,” the networks, led by France Digitale, wrote in an open letter to President Ursula von der Leyen and her new commissioners.
Start-ups in Europe face considerable challenges raising funds to scale up, partly because institutional investors prefer to invest Europeans’ savings oversees.
“These important financial actors are over-investing in the US market and under-investing in the European risk market, due to our regulatory and cultural barriers,” the letter states.
A working group in the European Association of Research and Technology Organisations (EARTO) has recommended that FP10 supports emerging health technologies to strengthen the sector’s competitiveness and resilience.
From biomedicine to digital health, “the healthcare innovation chain in Europe lacks continuity and efficient mechanisms for the adoption of new health technologies from the bench to the bedside,” EARTO wrote in a position paper.
Citing “ageing populations, chronic and non-communicable diseases, new climate-related health issues, mental health problems, anti-microbial resistance, future pandemics, and economically unsustainable healthcare costs,” the group said that the successor of Horizon Europe should ensure adequate funding to cross-cutting health innovations and stimulate the participation of SMEs.
Read the full paper here.
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