Widening newsletter 15

The latest news

LITHUANIA TAKES A LEAD ON TRANSFERING REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT MONEY TO RESEARCH: Money from EU regional funds will be transferred to Horizon Europe projects, in a bid to help the country increase its success rate in winning EU grants and inspire more applicants in the future.Lithuania is the first EU country to do this, with €18.5 million having been made available. The full story is here.

MIND THE RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE GAP: Widening countries have made some progress but they still lag significantly behind western member states in the number of research infrastructures they host. Evidence from a recent report shows that the gap is not about to close any time soon, with widening countries having submitted no, or few applications to the relevant EU programmes in 2021 – 2022. Thomas Bent has the story.

RESEARCH ASSESSMENT REFORM: Addressing uneven research performance in the EU is among the key objectives of the ongoing debate on reforming research assessment, which aims to move away from a set of rigid set of quantitative indicators towards more nuanced criteria. However, research stakeholders in Widening countries want to have a bigger say in how the reform is shaping up. Anna Rzhevkina has the story.

LASER WAR ENDS: Speaking of research infrastructures,Romania is now a “founding observer” of ELI-ERIC, the European consortium of advanced laser research facilities. This followed intense diplomatic efforts and a positive vote last week. It marks a big step towards more normal relations with international research partners, after a legal dispute that has seriously delayed the full implementation of the ELI project, the largest research infrastructure in eastern Europe. Read the full story here.

In other news

SYNERGIES ARE ‘IRRESISTIBLE’: The European Commission recently launched an expert group on synergies that will work under the framework of the European Research Area (ERA) Forum. The Commission’s research chief Marc Lemaitre said the group “should become an irresistible place for exchange” on how member states can learn to combine more EU funding sources to boost R&I investment.

NATO WOOS ROMANIAN START-UPS: NATO’s deputy secretary general, Mircea Geoană, visited the university centre of Cluj-Napoca in northwestern Romania last weekend to convince local start-ups to join forces with universities, big companies and the government to develop new defence technologies.

Geoană hopes to convince more innovators working in the burgeoning IT industry in Cluj to apply for funding from DIANA, NATO’s new tech accelerator programme, and work on dual use technologies, including a new guidance system for submarine drones that would protect pipelines and cables on the bottom of the Black Sea from sabotage.

A career diplomat, Geoană is likely to run in the presidential elections in Romania next year. In 1996 he was Romania’s youngest ambassador to the US, and he helped steer Romania’s accession talks to NATO and the EU as foreign minister between 2000 and 2004. He attempted to run for president in 2009 but lost by less than 1%.  

ROMANIAN TUSSLE: The country has a new research minister, after a government reshuffle. On the first day in the job, Bogdan Ivan was faced with a letter from Romania’s research and higher education union accusing the government of attempting to influence competitions for leadership posts in 17 national research institutes. The Hermes research union says Ivan’s predecessor Sebastian Burduja should be investigated by the national anticorruption agency for suddenly changing the eligibility criteria for research managers. “All accusations are false,” Burduja said, defending the way competitions were organised.

CZECH MICROSATELLITES: The preparatory phase of the SLAVIA space mission is now over and the Czech Academy of Sciences hopes its researchers will launch two microsatellites designed to track sources of raw materials in space by 2027. “It would be great if the Czech Republic became a superpower in the development of miniature instruments that are able to provide complete information about elements, chemical compounds, minerals and rocks on any examined body in the universe,” said Eva Zažímalová, president of the academy.

NEW BRANDING: Four years after its launch, the Eötvös Loránd Research Network is to be rebranded. This should make it easier for the domestic and international research community to identify the institution, which is often confused with a Budapest-based university that also bears the name of the famous Hungarian physicist.

The network was officially established in 2019, following government interference in the structure of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, including moving its research institutes into a new institution controlled by the government. The network of research institutes will come back after the summer break simply as The Hungarian Research Network.

Mark your calendars 

BRUSSELS AND ONLINE, 26 JUNE: The Brussels office of Poland’s national centre for research and development is organising a one hour seminar with Marc Lemaître, the recently-installed director general of the Commission’s research and innovation department. Lemaître will discuss current challenges in R&I policy, the next strategic plan for Horizon Europe and funding synergies for research and innovation. Register here.

KRAKOW, 27 JUNE: Horizon Europe infoday organised by the Polish Science Contact Agency to promote EU funding opportunities for Polish researchers. More details here.

The Widening newsletter is a roundup of news and analysis of research and innovation policy and investments in central and eastern Europe, delivered to your inbox twice a month. Sign up here.