The Widening News

The National Science Centre is calling for its overall budget to be doubled to €673M, saying it is now regularly having to turn down excellent proposals from researchers. The situation ‘has never been so dire’ its director tells Science|Business

Romanian MEPs on the research and industry committee say the European Defence Fund should allocate grants more evenly across member states

A formal system has been put in place that allows regional funds to be transferred to Horizon Europe projects. To date, €18.5M has been made available

A new report highlights structural problems and bottlenecks that are holding back progress in building up capacity and strengthening the scientific systems in eastern Europe

As the process of reforming research assessment gains momentum, representatives of Widening countries share concerns that their perspectives will not be properly accommodated

Concentrated diplomatic efforts win the day as Romania is made a ‘founding observer’ in the ELI ERIC consortium. The move is a huge step forwards after a long-running row that seriously held up the largest research infrastructure in eastern Europe

The government withheld funding for a research institute after objecting to the views of one of its scholars. Researchers say this is an attempt ‘to intimidate scholars whose research might result in refutations of opinions held by some politicians’

Toomas Asser, recently appointed for a second term at the helm of the University of Tartu, has big plans for changing how knowledge is translated from lab to market

Science|Business is tracking various assessments of how Widening initiatives in Horizon Europe are matching up to their objectives with a view to understanding how they should evolve

Few EIC grants have gone directly to early-stage companies in Widening Countries, but now an EIC-backed accelerator is providing mentoring to help 32 start-ups from the region to shape their business plans and access private capital