UK targets Spain and Germany for new Horizon Europe collaborations

The UK is embarking on another campaign to encourage its researchers and businesses to work with Spanish and German counterparts on collaborative Horizon Europe projects.

In 2024, the UK finally joined the €93.5 billion research and innovation programme, after political wrangling over Brexit left it on the outside from 2021. 

Since then, UK-based researchers have successfully gotten back to winning ways in individual funding schemes such as the European Research Council (ERC). Last year, UK scientists won more ERC Advanced Grants than any other country.

But in Pillar 2 of the programme, which accounts for the majority of its budget and funds pan-European consortia of researchers and businesses, the UK still hasn’t recovered from its long absence. 

While individual applications are easy to restart, the UK’s links with EU research consortia appear to have been damaged by the country’s long absence from the programme, and will take time to repair.

In July, the UK’s Russell Group of large research universities estimated the country was back to 60-70% of its performance under the predecessor programme, Horizon 2020. A Science|Business analysis in May found the UK ranked sixth for Pillar 2 funding, whereas it had come third in Horizon 2020. 

In response, on September 3 the UK said it would launch a “campaign in Spain and Germany to showcase the benefits of working with UK researchers and businesses through Horizon Europe.” 

The announcement coincides with a visit of Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, to London and highlights a Horizon Europe project, Escalate, that is developing electric trucks with partners from all over Europe, including the UK. 

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Under that project, however, the UK participants did not receive any money from the EU, as it began before the country had associated to Horizon Europe. The UK participants may have instead benefitted from a substitute UK guarantee scheme, which offered domestic funding so that British applicants could join Horizon Europe consortia. 

This latest announcement provides no details on exactly what the campaign will involve. Science|Business has asked the UK government for more information. 

However, a previous push launched in January involved an advertising campaign and events in Italy, Germany and Spain.