The Widening News

The four countries have teamed up to bring together Germany’s political heft with the expertise in digital transformation of the Baltic states and inject fresh impetus into the EU single digital market agenda

Merging institutions can bring economies of scale, strengthening finances and research - and attracting staff and students. But vested interests often block this route to moving up the league tables 

After concentrating support on companies that were forced to flee, EU initiatives are increasingly working to rebuild the country’s start-up ecosystem

Recent supply shocks have exposed Europe’s dependence on imports of essential resources. Estonia is aiming to overcome this by developing new techniques for extracting raw materials from overlooked or under-exploited domestic sources

A partnership with the Central European Research Infrastructure Consortium is one of the latest moves to try and improve success rates in getting finance from the EU start-up funder

Concerted efforts to increase success in winning grants from the research programme are bearing fruit. While still low in the EU league table, the two countries now have the networks and support systems in place to make further headway 

SynergistEIC supports start-ups to give them a better chance of success in the EIC Accelerator. But high demand means getting selected for the scheme is almost as competitive as the EIC Accelerator itself

Three universities in Widening countries are under investigation, including the University of Zagreb, where a dean of faculty and 28 others were arrested on suspicion of fraud involving €1.7M of EU funds

With the likely new government promising to increase R&D funding and ‘depoliticise’ science, researchers are pointing to further reforms they say are needed to increase the standing and quality of the country’s research system

As things stand, the country’s national contact points have to juggle their day jobs with helping researchers to win funding. Creating a professional network is now on the cards, but it may take some time