Messy communication around an EU ban on 21 Hungarian universities accessing Horizon Europe funds has had a terrible impact on Hungary’s participation in the programme and relationships with European partners, Hungarian authorities say. The ban is on funding, not participation, but this is not well understood and a hesitancy to work with Hungarian partners has spread around Europe. A new letter from the Commission seeks to clarify the situation.

Elsewhere, a project to build new scientific infrastructure for Ukraine in Poland receives a financial boost, and an Estonian professor argues in favour of funding more science with Widening measures. Finally, Poland’s space tech companies are going to benefit from playing a leading role in the design of two new satellite constellations being built later this decade.  

Measures that aim to close Europe’s research gap must be used to fund science, says University of Tartu professor

Momentum is building for the EU’s next research and innovation framework programme, FP10, to have a budget of €200 billion. But what place is there in the programme for Widening measures? This week, we delve into how Europe’s research community wants the scheme to change and evolve. We also look at why reforms of Poland’s Academy of Sciences are proving controversial, moves to fight back against predatory publishers in central and eastern Europe, and why Slovakia needs help to increase its participation in European Innovation Council calls. 

The communist legacy leaves researchers exposed to fee-charging publishers who don’t do peer review or editing. But a fightback is underway

We analyse the views of 15 groups of stakeholders to see how they want measures designed to close the east – west research performance gap to change in FP10

Deep tech champions from Widening countries must first be nurtured within their local ecosystems

This month marks 20 years since the EU’s largest single enlargement, when 10 countries joined the union. In today’s newsletter, we look at how the research and innovation landscape has changed in those countries over the past two decades. There are a lot of encouraging signs, but also a few areas of decline and stagnation. The European Institute of Innovation and Technology is also celebrating the 10-year anniversary of its Regional Innovation Scheme, aimed at closing Europe’s innovation gap. It’s been a huge success, the EIT says, but now is time for evolution. We also take a deep dive into the Teaming instrument of the Widening measures, and look at how Estonia is using the EU’s post-pandemic funds to propel investment in green tech start-ups

While it is supporting R&I activities and addressing the brain drain, the Teaming instrument can be unpredictable and complex

Since the 10 countries joined there has been significant improvement in R&I performance, but not all the signs are positive