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The European Commission is working on a new proposal for its 2021-2027 multiannual budget, which is to be paired with a recovery plan aimed at helping the EU come out of the looming recession set in motion by the coronavirus pandemic.
Here, we gather the latest news and reactions to how the EU is planning to fund its research and innovation programmes during the difficult period ahead.
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The European Institute of Innovation and Technology’s (EIT) Climate programme has selected eleven projects addressing challenges posed by the COVID-19 crisis that will receive funding as part of the EIT’s €60 million COVID-19 rescue fund.
EIT Climate, one of the EIT’s eight Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs), received a total of €8.4 million from the €60 million fund. The money will fund the eleven COVID-19 projects announced on Friday and support innovative companies strapped for cash due to the pandemic.
The European Commission today launched the first call for project proposals under the Innovation Fund, the EU’s programme financing breakthrough green technologies.
The call will provide €1 billion in grants to large-scale green technology projects developing solutions for clean hydrogen, renewable energy, energy-intensive industries, energy storage, and carbon capture, use and storage.
The goal of the fund is to help clean energy projects reach the market and overcome commercialisation risks. An extra €8 million is set aside for projects that are not yet ready for the market.
The call remains open until 29 October 2020. All submissions will be evaluated based on their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emission, financial and technical maturity, and potential for scaling up, innovation and cost efficiency.
The Innovation Fund, which is set to invest €10 billion in green technologies by 2030, is a key part of the Commission’s plans to lead Europe to climate neutrality by 2050. It is financed by the revenues from the auction of emission allowances from the EU's Emissions Trading System.
The European Commission today announced it has granted marketing authorisation for a new vaccine against Ebola to Janssen, a pharmaceutical company owned by Johnson & Johnson.
The development of the new vaccine was funded with over €130 million through the Innovative Medicines Initiative, the EU’s public-private partnership with the pharmaceutical sector, partly financed by Horizon 2020.
The vaccine, which consists of two components, called Zabdeno and Mvabea, was tested on 3,367 adults, adolescents and children in five clinical trials conducted in Europe, Africa and the US. It is the second Ebola vaccine to be authorised by the Commission in the past year.
The European Innovation Council (EIC) Advisory Board today published recommendations on how to pave the way to a full-fledged EIC under Horizon Europe.
The report includes advice on tracking the EIC’s performance, revamping its equity fund and connecting research with market opportunities.
When it comes to the equity fund, the Board acknowledges there is a huge demand for the new funding option but says the application process is still too difficult, feedback takes too long and decision-making is not flexible enough. To solve the issues, the report recommends addressing them by drawing lessons from private venture capital.
On connecting advanced research and the market, the Board suggests moving “beyond the linear model of research to innovation to enable far more dynamic interactions and pathways” and creating portfolios on initiatives clustered around similar themes, which would ensure all options for different technologies are tested and compared.
The recommendations made by the Board of 22 innovators will feed into the preparations for the launch of the full EIC under Horizon Europe in 2021.
Johan Van Overtveldt, the chair of the budget committee at the European Parliament, today criticised the European Council for taking over a year to agree on the EU’s next long term budget and asked the European Commission to finally deliver a contingency plan in case the negotiations fail.
At a press conference today, Van Overtveldt warned the European Council meeting next month, where the budget will be discussed, “will not be the end of the story” and asked the member states to do their best “to quickly reach an agreement.”
“There is no reason why the responsibility of going fast should only fall on the European Parliament,” said Van Overtveldt, reminding the Council that their agreement will have to go back to the Parliament to be approved.
He also addressed the European Commission and once again asked for a back-up plan in case the new budget is not ready by 2021. “Do not act as the Council’s secretariat, be the guardian of the Treaties,” said Van Overtveldt addressing the Commission.
The Parliament is demanding a “sufficiently high” EU budget that would address both urgent needs and long-term priorities. “These two elements have to be combined,” said Van Overtveldt.
The Human Brain Project (HBP), the largest brain science project in Europe, will start its final phase after receiving a new grant of €150 million from the European Commission.
In its final phase, the project, started in 2013, will investigate brain networks, their role in consciousness, and artificial neural nets with the help of big data, simulation, robotics and artificial intelligence. The new research will help expand the project’s atlas and database on the human brain, EBRAINS, which will remain the legacy of the initiative after it ends in 2023.
The European Innovation Council (EIC) today announced it has officially established its fund for direct equity investments in innovative companies.
The fund will invest in start-ups by acquiring 10 to 25 per cent of their stakes for a limited time until private capital step in. This way, the EIC will help fill the gap in start-up funding in the EU by taking risks private investors are not willing to take.
Since the launch of the equity financing programme in 2019, 102 companies have been pre-selected to receive a total of nearly €400 million of the so-called blended finance. More companies will be selected in July and November.
The fund is expected to make up around a third of the EIC’s budget, which is currently set at €10 billion under the European Commission’s latest EU budget proposal.
The Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) today announced six funding opportunities for medical research projects in its last €59 million call for proposals under the Horizon 2020 programme.
The six opportunities call for research on beating cancer with the help of artificial intelligence, modelling antimicrobial resistance, creating a platform for neurodegenerative disease research, speeding up rare disease diagnosis, ensuring the return of clinical trial data to participants, and guiding patient adherence.
“These final IMI2 Calls showcase the areas where IMI is best placed to make a difference,” said Pierre Meulien, chief of the IMI, the EU’s flagship public-private partnership on health research under Horizon 2020.
Research and technology organisations should play a key role in the development, design and implementation of the EU’s research ‘missions’, according to the European Association of Research and Technology Organisations (EARTO).
The five missions are big research programmes with ambitious goals, such as beating cancer or adapting to climate change, which will be launched under Horizon Europe. In a paper released yesterday, EARTO argues research and technology organisation have the right expertise to directly support the missions and act as intermediaries between the EU and the many stakeholders in the programmes.
At the same time, the association calls for a correspondingly ambitious budget for the missions: EARTO wants policymakers to direct at least 60 per cent of Horizon Europe money to the part of the programme funding the large-scale projects.
In a bid to secure funding under the new Horizon Europe programme, two public-private partnerships, Clean Sky 2 and Fuel Cells & Hydrogen 2, released a study showing hydrogen’s potential in making aviation more sustainable.
The study found that hydrogen could be used to power small planes as soon as 2035, reducing each flight’s climate impact by 50 to 90 per cent at a cost of less than €18 per passenger.
The leaders of the two programmes researching aeronautics and the use of hydrogen as a power source argue the study shows their joint work is integral in reaching the EU’s sustainability goals.
“Our ultimate goal is to achieve climate-neutral aviation by 2050. Turning this ambition into reality requires the seamless integration of a range of important new technological advancements, one of which is hydrogen-powered aircraft,” said Axel Krein, director of Clean Sky 2.
Public-private partnerships are long-term initiatives set up by the European Commission together with private partners to coordinate and fund R&D in specific areas.
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