Leaked draft work programme outlines EU plans to call on social science and humanities researchers to help boost democratic governance, protect our cultural heritage and promote social inclusion

Countries accounting for 75% of global GDP aim for carbon neutrality by 2060, creating huge demand for clean technologies. Horizon Europe must support research and scale-up to ensure Europe can lead these markets   

Its French co-inventor, Emmanuelle Charpentier won a Nobel prize last year. Now the European Commission says the EU should look to the ‘major advances’ CRISPR gene editing provides to boost yields and reduce the environmental footprint of agriculture

The focus will be on post COVID-19 recovery, with leaked draft work programme indicating that in 2021 researchers can expect six calls for proposals on topics ranging from mental health to improving healthcare systems

For the past few weeks, Science|Business has been publishing leaked draft documents about the €95.5B Horizon Europe programme. Editor-in-Chief Richard L. Hudson explains why

Excellence and impact will be the main criteria in evaluating proposals, but in case of a tie, gender balance in research groups will swing it. All institutions awarded grants must have published gender equality plans - and show they are implementing them

Accepted wisdom holds earthquakes can’t be predicted. But a large-scale AI supported sensor system could change that, at the same time building Europe’s skills in real time environmental monitoring and becoming a standard bearer for citizen science

Leaked draft indicates there will be no open calls for synergy and proof of concept grants this year. About 980 projects will be funded, down from 1,213 in 2020

Leaked draft – dating from January - envisages the European Innovation Council handing out €602M to start ups and €507 million for targeted calls addressing specific areas of research in the next 11 months

Chair of the Parliament research and industry committee calls on Commission to ignore legal niceties and get money from new research programme flowing as soon as possible. MEPs also want more effort to create synergies with other funding streams