HORIZON BLOG: European R&D policy newsbytes

Today, the Commission has disbursed €2.967 billion to support 39 energy projects across 10 Member States, focusing on renewable energy, energy efficiency, and greenhouse gas reduction.

The funding initiative aims to help the EU move towards climate neutrality by 2050.

The money comes from the Modernisation Fund, a EU’s instrument that supports thirteen lower-income Member States in their transition to climate neutrality. Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia are the beneficiary states of today’s Commission allocation.

“By supporting this group of Member States in modernising their energy systems, we continue to move forward on our decarbonisation path via investment into clean technologies that also make us competitive in the long run,” said Maroš Šefčovič, Executive Vice-President for European Green Deal, Interinstitutional Relations and Foresight.

More details here.

Last week, the third EU-Montenegro Joint Committee on Research and Innovation meeting took place in Podgorica highlighted Montenegro's significant progress in research and innovation.

Both sides expressed satisfaction with Montenegro's increased participation in Horizon Europe and acknowledged the country's ongoing R&I policy reforms, including the development of new strategies and infrastructure plans.

The EU committed to continuing support for Montenegro's integration into the European Research and Innovation Areas, encouraging its participation across the various areas of Horizon Europe, such as collaboration with the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, with the European Innovation Council, and with the Commission’s Joint Research Centre.

More details here.

On Wednesday, the Commission has designated 151 EU regions as Regional Innovation Valleys (RIVs) to bridge their key innovation resources, enhance regional innovation ecosystems, and reduce the innovation gap across Europe.

Thanks to €116 million from Horizon Europe and the European Regional Development Fund, these regions will focus on key challenges like reducing fossil fuel dependence, boosting food security, advancing digital transformation, improving healthcare, and increasing circularity.

“Through Regional Innovation Valleys, we will help turn the diversity of the EU’s territories into a strength and facilitate collaboration to foster new EU value chains for Europe’s home-grown innovation,” said research commissioner Iliana Ivanova.

“By expanding their cooperation based on Smart Specialisation, the interconnected regions, including less developed ones, will be better equipped to strengthen Europe’s overall innovation performance while bridging the existing innovation divide,” said Elisa Ferreira, Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms.

Read the announcement here.

The next EU framework programme for research and innovation, FP10, should enhance the use of existing research infrastructures (RIs) by ensuring sustained transnational access, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) says.

EMBL, an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to molecular biology research and supported by 29 member states, published a position paper contributing to the design FP10, which is due to start in 2028.

“Europe should further capitalise on existing RIs’ technical expertise, talent pool and abundant computable data to strengthen its digital, green and Artificial Intelligence (AI) leadership,” reads the document.

Read the position paper here.

Over the last years, the EU and NATO have worked together on emerging and disruptive technologies and defence innovation, according to an activity report released last week.

Among the initiatives EU institutions and NATO jointly worked on the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund, the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) and the NATO Innovation Fund.

Also, NATO Science and Technology Organisation (STO) and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) engaged “on science and technology advice as well as the identification of technological weak signals,” the report says.

Read the full report here.

EU research commissioner Iliana Ivanova announced the launch of a VC investor network to co-invest with the European Innovation Council Fund (EIC) in innovative deep-tech companies.

“Our proposed Investor Network would have the power to revolutionise the European deep-tech innovation landscape by strengthening the investor base and fostering cooperation between investors,” Ivanova wrote on her LinkedIn profile.

“By joining forces towards a shared vision for Europe’s competitiveness, we can unlock the full potential of venture capital investments in disruptive deep-tech European technologies,” she said.

Today, the Commission announced the first pre-operational platform of the European Digital Twin Ocean (EU DTO), aimed at boosting marine research.

The initiative is funded by the EU's Horizon Europe programme and is set to enhance our understanding of how pollution and human activities impact the ocean's vital functions in climate regulation and biodiversity preservation.

“It is still a prototype, but once it’s fully up and running, the platform will become a game-changer in ocean management, providing essential information and precise, real-time predictions,” she said.

Read the full announcement here.

The concept of digital twins has a long history in engineering, where the creation of digital copies of machines or systems allows performance testing and fine-tuning without the cost of rebuilding the original for each round of changes. But in recent years, new applications of digital twins have proliferated, underpinning products and services in medicine, energy, planning and other sectors. Read more about it here.

The next EU framework programme for research and innovation, FP10, should give more room to more collaborative projects across European and associates countries, and fund more projects at lower TRLs, EU-LIFE says.

EU-LIFE, the alliance of independent European research institutes in the life sciences, published a position paper contributing to the design FP10, which is due to start in 2028.

“Excellent research groups need collaborative approaches to tackle societal challenges, but currently calls require too broad impact and the incorporation of too many stakeholders per project,” reads the document.

Read the position paper here.

Today, the Commission announced the winners the EU 2024 Prize for Citizen Science, the general public engagement in scientific research activities.

A jury of experts selected three winning projects from a batch of 288 applications. 27 received honorary mentions. Among the winners, two were funded by Horizon 2020 and the third involves a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) fellow.

“I warmly congratulate the winners of this year’s EU Citizen Science Award, but would also like to commend all participants,” said EU research commissioner Iliana Ivanova.

“[These initiatives] improve the excellence and impact of our research, and also deepen the relationship and trust between science and our societies,” Ivanova said.

Read more about the winners here.

The European Commission has launched the ERA Talent Platform, a centralised online platform providing researchers and their organisations with access to a range of services related to career development. These include the EURAXESS service centres for researcher mobility, the Research Career Observatory, and the the RESAVER pension scheme.

“This is another milestone on our journey towards a vibrant, interconnected European Research Area where talent knows no boundaries,” said research commissioner Iliana Ivanova. It is hoped the one-stop-shop will help the EU to attract and retain scientific talent.