Commission identifies triumphs and challenges in Horizon Europe backing for small and medium-sized firms

The European Innovation Council, whose focus includes supporting smaller companies use breakthrough technologies, has surpassed its goal of having at least 70 per cent of its resources going to small and medium-sized enterprises, according to a report by the European Commission.

A European Commission report on the participation of SMEs in the EU’s current research and innovation programme, Horizon Europe, since 2021 finds that the European Innovation Council allocated more than 74 per cent of its resources to SMEs.

The European Innovation Council is the EU’s flagship funder for the development of breakthrough technologies, also prioritising their commercialisation by SMEs.

SMEs have received 20 per cent of all Horizon Europe funding awarded so far, amounting to €6.6 billion for 7,474 companies. According to the report “SMEs bring to projects at least 38 cents for every euro in EU funds they receive”.

Just over a third of Horizon Europe project participants are identified as SMEs—a decrease from the previous funding programme, Horizon 2020, where they made up 41 per cent. The report states that this is in fact due to the discontinuation of an SME tool in favour of the EIC accelerator.

The application success rates for SMEs under Horizon Europe is 19 per cent, up from 12 per cent under Horizon 2020, and on average companies receive larger amounts of funding, up by more than a third. EIC accelerator grants can be worth up to €15m including equity.

Challenges

The EIC “does not add as many new participants to Horizon Europe” as its predecessor, says the report, adding that only 70 per cent of funded SMEs are first-timers compared with over 90 per cent under Horizon 2020.

Furthermore, newcomer companies are less likely to participate in more than one or two Horizon Europe projects and “have a low degree of attachment to the framework programme” compared to repeat awardees.

The report says that “obviously, the largest EU economies have more Horizon Europe SME participants”, but a whopping 62 per cent of funding is awarded to 12 member states “that are considered high-performing in R&I” such as Germany, Spain Italy and France. Widening countries that are identified as lagging in R&I received only 18 per cent.

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European industry leaders want next EU R&I programme to include dual-use technology and “financial firepower”

A group of European industry leaders have called for a greater commitment to research and innovation in the EU’s next research framework programme, including allowing dual-use defence research.

Framework programme 10 will succeed the current Horizon Europe, which is worth €93.5 billion for 2021-2027.

The European Round Table for Technology (ERT), which brings together chief executives and chairs from 60 of Europe’s largest industrial and technology companies, released a report that called for EU decision-makers to tear down “the artificial ‘fences’ that exclude ‘dual-use’ projects—and correct a major weakness of Horizon Europe” in FP10.

Call to prioritise defence research

The inclusion of dual-use technology should focus on “drawing the line only between innovation for specifically military applications and ‘everything else’”, saying that research for defence encompasses fields as disparate as aviation, artificial intelligence, chemicals, energy and health, says the report.

Military-specific R&D should still be excluded due to lack of security capacities within FP10, it adds.

The report urges prioritising defence research in Europe, saying that “current defence technology will become obsolete and ineffective sooner rather later” due to global competition.

Horizon Europe has already lost some funding to other causes such as defence, prompting worries that defence research could dilute the focus of FP10.

Competition

The report also challenges the EU to follow through on its recent focus on competitiveness with “financial firepower and pragmatic policy to mobilise human capital in order to master and drive forward key technologies”.

The ERT advocates for the EU to more than double the Horizon Europe budget to €200bn under FP10 and for member states to prioritise investment in R&I as well.

The report argues that Horizon Europe is a“success”, but if it “has one dark chapter, it is the experience of how opportunities are lost due to tight national purse strings”. So far, due to budget shortages, Horizon Europe has been able to fund only around a third of the high-quality proposals it has received.

The ERT said that “systemically low chances for success lead to frustration and make Europe a less attractive place to study and pursue academic careers when compared to more lavishly funding (and competing) world regions”, letting China and the US take the lead in R&I.

Chair of the ERT’s Committee for Competitiveness and Innovation and chief executive of Syensqo, Ilham Kadri, said: “FP10 is a vital opportunity to further boost research and to scale-up innovation potential by adding elements that are still missing—to help the EU make that leap forward in emerging technologies".

The ERT also calls for technologies that are closer to being market ready to be eligible to apply for some FP10 funding.

Funding tools

The report emphasises that FP10 should build on successes of Horizon Europe, such as the “very powerful” European Research Council, which has proven vital in maintaining world-class science and thus “rather than being disrupted, it should be made even stronger”.

The same applies to the European Innovation Council, which supports scaling up technology and funds deep tech startups.

Considering the success of both these instruments, the ERT argues that the final pillar of Horizon, focused on research to tackle global challenges, should have an Industrial Competitiveness Advisory Council that would set a clear and strategic course.

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New faces join organisation responsible for directing EU innovation policy

Five new members have been appointed to the board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, EIT.

The board is responsible for guiding the strategic direction of the EIT, the independent EU body charged with strengthening the bloc’s capacity to innovate. It is also responsible for selecting and monitoring the performance of the nine Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) created since the EIT was established in 2008.

The new members are: Anne Borg, former director of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology; Dariusz Jemielniak, vice-president of the Polish Academy of Sciences; Kyriacos Kokkinos, Cyprus’s former minister for research, innovation and digital policy; Anna Lindén, vice-chair of the board of Åbo Akademi University in Finland; and Michel Mariton, vice-president for economic development at Paris-Sarclay University in France.

EIT is based in Budapest, Hungary. Its 15 board members have backgrounds in business, education and research. They are appointed by the European Commission and serve a non-renewable four-year term.

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Lack of access to finance is stifling innovative firms, European Investment Bank says

The EU must invest in firms at the scale-up stage to stay at the forefront of technological change, according to the bloc’s leading financial institution.

A report published on 24 July by the European Investment Bank says the EU needs to remove barriers to investment in order to close the financial gap for firms between starting up and reaching maturity.

Scale-ups have been increasing in Europe and are a vital source of innovation but are often stifled by financial barriers, the EIB report suggests.

“Innovation is Europe’s path to a sustainable and equitable future. Inadequate investment in innovation, coupled with the ageing of mature technologies, threatens to undermine Europe’s competitiveness,” it says.

Removing barriers

The document argues that the financial barriers for scale-ups should be removed and that targeted public investments should be offered. This would “generate a virtuous cycle, redirecting investments from institutional investors to this strategic market segment”.

Ensuring startups have the investment they require is “essential for the EU to maintain its edge in technology and thrive amid the green and digital transitions”, the bank says.  

But it adds: “European innovators grapple with significant constraints when seeking investment, particularly as they transition from startups to growth-stage companies.”

These problems mean that firms often have to seek the necessary finance from institutions outside the EU or even relocate their operations overseas, the EIB points out.

Value of scale-ups

Scale-ups are young firms with high growth potential, according to the report, and can be more productive than the average company while developing into leaders in new technologies.

They often have to raise capital, which makes them vulnerable to cyclical economic downturns and tightening financial conditions.

Europe needs to create more effective capital markets by improving access to the stock and bond markets. But it also needs private equity financing to help close the financial gap, the report says.

The EU is still not investing enough in equity and venture capital, it says, adding that “financing constraints faced by EU scale-ups stem from the shallow and fragmented nature of European capital markets, particularly the venture capital market”.

Venture capital investment in Europe is approximately six times smaller than that of the US, it says.

Public sector action needed

While the EU is attractive for foreign venture capital investors, insufficient domestic savings are channelled into the financing of innovative companies, the bank says.

Its report calls for EU and national policies to be coordinated in a broad strategy for improving European competitiveness. Private investments in innovative firms could also be catalysed by the public sector.

“Regulatory and legal intervention is needed to deepen capital markets, mobilise private institutional investors towards this strategic segment of innovative firms and develop a robust ecosystem,” the report says.

It also points out that the EU has a strong track record of supporting business growth through grants, ‘business angels’, seed capital, venture capital and venture debt. Business angels are experienced high-net-worth individuals who invest in new or growing businesses individually or as part of a syndicate.

The EIB says it has been successful in backing innovative companies and scaling up new technologies. It could play a “catalytic role, contributing to Europe’s global competitiveness”.

Nadia Calviño, the bank’s president, said: “The EIB Group is playing an important role in supporting Europe’s innovation ecosystem. We stand ready to do more, especially in paving the way for a true capital markets union, a key priority to drive sustainable growth and job creation.”

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First European Open Science Cloud platform to be presented to scientific community in October

A collaboration involving the European Commission, working to create a new platform for European researchers to share information and services, is seeking views from researchers on interest and readiness for the service.

The collaboration wants views from the scientific community to help it build European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) ‘nodes’.

Various nodes—platforms for researchers to publish, find and reuse data and services for research, innovation and educational purposes—will be created to form what will be called the EOSC Federation.

The EOSC EU Node, which will provide a blueprint for other potential infrastructure nodes, is being presented to the scientific community this October.

EU researchers will also be able to find tools and support for their work on this platform.

‘Intensifying discussions’

Discussions “are intensifying on the aims, structure and tasks of the individual EOSC Nodes that will complement the EOSC EU Node to initiate the formation of the EOSC Federation,” according to a press release from the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) encouraging its members to take part in the questionnaire.

It added: “Based on the replies to the questionnaire, several organisations will be invited by the Tripartite Governance to contribute to the refinement of the EOSC Federation concept during the build-up phase.”

The collaboration is also made up of the EOSC Association, an organisation that works to advance open science, and the EOSC steering board, which includes representatives of EU member states and other countries associated with the research programme Horizon Europe.

Organisations ensuring “the best possible representation of various countries” will be invited to help refine the EOSC Federation based on answers to the questionnaire.

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New member for the EU’s Mediterranean research and innovation partnerships

Lebanon has joined the EU’s Mediterranean public-private partnership for research and innovation funding, following a ceremony this week.

The head of unit for international cooperation at the Directorate General of Research and Innovation, Nienke Buisman, met with the Lebanese ambassador to the EU, Fadi Haj Ali, and Tamara Elzein, the secretary-general of the French national research funder, CNRS, at the event on 22 July. There they signed an agreement on Lebanon joining the EU’s Partnership on Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area (Prima), according to a statement from the European Commission.

The Commission said “the positive outcome of the negotiations marks a success for the EU and Lebanon in the current geopolitical situation in the region”.

Prima initiative

Prima is a 10-year funding initiative launched in 2018 that the EU is expected to support with up to €325 million in funding from the previous financial framework programme, Horizon 2020, as well as the current Horizon Europe programme. Participating states are also expected to contribute €384m over the same period.

Lebanon will now be able to take part in Prima research funding calls for the remaining period of 2024-2027, which represents “an important step towards enhanced cooperation”, according to the Commission.

Representatives at the ceremony highlighted “the strategic importance of Prima in contributing to tackling global challenges, in particular in water and food security”, the Commission stated.

Prima consists of 20 countries; including 13 member states. The external members include Tunisia and Turkey, which are both associated with Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe, together with Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Morocco.

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AI and laser measurement projects get joint support from Horizon Europe and South Korean funder

Four research projects on semiconductors are set to receive €6 million in funding from Horizon Europe as part of a strategic collaboration between the EU and South Korea.

The funding, announced on 17 July, will be delivered through the Chips Joint Undertaking, a partnership between the European Commission, 32 national governments and industry. The National Research Foundation of Korea is expected to provide equivalent funding, bringing the total budget to around €12m.

A statement from the Chips JU said that as well as technological benefits, the new partnership with South Korea would “establish a robust network of cooperation among leading researchers and institutions from both regions”.

Of the four projects, three are focused on artificial intelligence. One aims to develop energy-efficient circuits using two-dimensional materials; one to develop chips that use light in their processing, called photonics; and one to improve AI for processing visual data. The fourth focuses on laser-based distance measurement, known as lidar.

Strategic partner

South Korea has emerged as a strategic partner for the EU and became the first country in Asia to agree to associate to the €93.5 billion research funding programme Horizon Europe in April of this year. The two also agreed a digital partnership in 2022, covering areas including AI, quantum technology and high-performance computing.

The four projects aim to draw on both regions’ strengths, building ties in research and innovation activities, according to the Chips JU, which was founded in 2021 to foster research, development and capacity building in the European semiconductor ecosystem. The partnership with South Korea follows the announcement earlier this month of €325m of EU funding for semiconductor research. 

Thierry Breton, commissioner for the internal market, said the joint funding for the four projects showed a “shared commitment to pioneering advancements in AI and semiconductors”. He continued that “this collaboration is a testament to our enduring partnership and mutual pursuit of excellence in cutting-edge research and innovation”.

South Korea’s science minister Lee Jong-Ho said that the country aimed to “establish a cooperative network with excellent semiconductor researchers from various EU countries”, and that the newly funded projects would secure the technology “necessary for next-generation AI semiconductors and autonomous driving applications”.

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Report says more investment in R&I is needed to ensure a secure supply of materials

“Significant efforts” are needed in R&D to ensure the EU has a safe supply of critical raw materials, a study has found.

Requested by the European Parliament Panel for the Future of Science and Technology, the study was carried out by independent researchers led by Luis Tercero Espinoza of the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI.

The study, published on 17 July, focuses on the role of research and innovation in ensuring that the EU has secure access to a sustainable supply of the raw materials needed for its economy.

Achieving the EU’s targets for sourcing raw materials “will require significant R&D efforts along the entire [materials] supply chains, from exploration and mining to processing, use and recycling”, the report says.

“Europe must invest in improving R&I capacity,” it adds, “both in areas of current weakness (to ensure autonomy) and in areas of current strength (to reinforce sovereignty).”

The study recommends that the EU “consider strategic, large-scale investments at par with those in other key enabling technologies”.

It outlines areas of R&I where there is potential for further engagement at the European level, which include reinforcing existing capacities and “developing more effective solutions for technologically mature fields”.

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Experts recommend long-term investment in education, infrastructure and skills to narrow divide

Improving the innovation performance of lagging European countries will require long-term investment in higher education, research infrastructures and knowledge transfer skills, experts have told Research Professional News.

On 8 July, the 2024 European Innovation Scoreboard from the European Commission showed that the EU as a whole is gradually improving its innovation performance but that there is a persistent divide between its leaders and laggards. This roughly follows geographical lines, the Commission flagged, with northern and western Europe leading the way and the east and south trailing.

Denmark and Sweden, which again ranked first and second in terms of EU innovation performance, are improving in a “fast and steady” way, the Commission said, while Romania, Bulgaria and Latvia at the rear are “progressing at a slower rate than the EU average”. Hence, at the poles, “disparities have become wider”.

Experts said many factors affect innovation, and that driving improvement will not be easy.

Need for skills and competences

Toril Nagelhus Hernes, pro-rector for innovation at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said that the scoreboard and similar rankings use metrics in a way that paints a simplified picture, but that they can be helpful for highlighting the factors at play.

She said the education level of a country and its investments in research are “very important” determinants of innovation performance but that the “ability to utilise the new knowledge from research, digitalisation and new technologies is essential”. Therefore, “skills, competence and capacity” are also needed.

Research and higher education institutions are fundamental for “bridging people, companies, the public sector and countries”, and so countries should “invest more in their own universities, but also stimulate collaboration with other countries that are at the frontiers in education, science and technologies” to improve their innovation performance.

Such collaboration could be boosted through funding schemes and mobility, she suggested.

Persistent investment required

Erkko Autio, chair in technology transfer and entrepreneurship at Imperial College London, said the scoreboard results are consistent with similar rankings. He warned that “there is no miracle cure to turning innovation performance around overnight”.

“Becoming a strong innovation performer requires a persistent, long-term commitment and policy effort that focuses on two elements in particular: developing human capital and infrastructure,” he said.

The former requires long-term investment in higher education institutions, particularly scientific ones, and the latter requires investment in R&D institutions but also innovation support infrastructures “such as new venture accelerators and entrepreneurial ecosystems”.

Investment in digital technologies and infrastructures is particularly important, he said, because these “are a key enabler of scale-ups and business model innovation, which is a very important form of innovation today”.

Countries are innovation leaders because they have “well-rounded” systems, he said, with strengths across higher education and infrastructure as well as high public and private investment in R&D. “Once all the necessary ingredients are in place, they tend to reinforce one another.”

Autio said Estonia, which improved its performance on the scoreboard the most since 2017, was a “great example” of how “decades of hard work and investment in promoting entrepreneurship and digital technologies and infrastructures in particular” can pay off.

Understanding, institutional strength and digitisation

“Without world-class research and educational institutions and universities, it is not possible to develop a strong innovation ecosystem,” agreed Martin Vechev, a professor of computer science at ETH Zurich and the founder of a major computing research centre in Bulgaria. This is because such institutions attract talented innovators, he said, adding that the “general issue in Eastern Europe, Bulgaria being an example, is that it lacks strong focus on world-class research”.

“I do not think it is a question of the R&I sector, it is a question of national priorities. In general, there is a lack of understanding in Eastern Europe of how world-class innovation works,” he said. “To complete globally, a country must develop strong research and education first at the university or institute level; everything else follows.”

The Bulgarian government has tried to address this issue by helping to found Insait, the computer science and AI institution Vechev leads. He said the centre is attracting talent to Sofia, establishing partnerships with major tech companies and creating start-ups. “It really is the only way to properly bootstrap a high-tech ecosystem.” 

The emphasis on digitisation was supported by Lina Jacobsen, an associate professor of management at Aarhus University in Denmark and co-founder of the Danish Innovation Index. Commenting on Denmark’s leading performance, she said the index showed a “clear trend” that “Danish companies and those operating in Denmark are at the forefront of digital innovation”. 

Fellow index co-founder Darius-Aurel Frank, also an associate professor of management at Aarhus University, said that Danish companies are eager to adopt new technologies such as artificial intelligence. He said the challenge for companies “lies in translating the use of these technologies into tangible value for consumers”.

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Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions and European Innovation Council also face cuts to 2025 budgets

The European Research Council, which is the EU’s flagship funder of basic research, would lose more than €73 million from its proposed 2025 budget under cuts sought by the Council of the EU member state governments.

On 15 July, the Council’s budget committee revealed that it wants Horizon Europe, the EU research and innovation programme that includes the ERC, to have a 2025 budget of €12.3 billion, which would be €400m less than the European Commission proposed earlier this year.

A separate text set out exactly where the budget committee wants the axe to fall. Its recommendations are all but certain to be adopted by the Council, which will then negotiate on the budget with the European Parliament.

The ERC’s 2024 budget from Horizon Europe, before the addition of funding from associated countries, was €2.18bn, and the Commission has proposed an already lower 2025 budget of €2.156bn, to reflect a cut of €2bn across Horizon Europe for the remainder of its duration that was agreed by politicians earlier this year.

Now, the Council is set to push for a 2025 ERC budget of €2.08bn. This is despite ERC president Maria Leptin having been outspoken about it being underfunded and about the impact of this on success rates and grant sizes, which have not kept pace with inflation.

Other cuts 

Cuts are being sought by the Council across Horizon Europe, not only for the ERC.

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions scheme, which supports doctoral and postdoctoral basic research, would get €30m less than its proposed €884m.

The health-themed section of the part of the programme that funds collaborative R&I on societal challenges would get €20.1m less than its proposed €592m; the climate, energy and mobility section would lose €36.4m from €1.07bn; and the food and environment section would get €35.7m less out of €1.05bn.

In other big losses, the European Innovation Council, which funds the development and commercialisation of cutting-edge technologies, would have a budget of €1.1bn, which would be €38.7m less than proposed by the Commission.

The Parliament has yet to adopt its stance. When it does, up to three weeks of negotiations will take place, with the budget due to be agreed in the autumn.

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Only 68 companies from 969 applicants secured Accelerator money from European Innovation Council

The latest round of European Innovation Council funding for technology-based startup companies yielded a 7 per cent success rate for applicants.

Of 969 companies that submitted a full proposal, only 68 will receive funding from the EIC, the funder announced on 15 July. It described the application process as “highly competitive”.

The selected companies will receive a total of €411 million from the EIC’s Accelerator programme, of which up to €165m is in grants and an estimated €245m will be equity. Nearly all of the companies will receive a mix of the two.

An additional 273 of the submitted proposals were deemed to be of high quality but were unable to receive EIC funding due to budget constraints. Instead, they received the Seal of Excellence, a label intended to help them find alternative funding.

The 68 funding winners are located in 17 different countries, five of which are Widening countries, meaning they lag behind the EU average in research and innovation.

The Accelerator call closed in March and companies are expected to receive their funding within the next three months.

The EIC is a part of the EU research and innovation programme that is focused on helping to develop new technologies and bring them to market.

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Member state governments also seek cut to Erasmus+ academic exchange programme

The Council of the EU member state governments wants to cut €400 million from the European Commission’s proposed 2025 budget for the bloc’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme.

On 15 July, the Council’s budget committee published its stance on the EU’s 2025 budget, which is invariably adopted by ministers. The Council will then use that stance to negotiate on the budget with the European Parliament.

Last month, the Commission proposed that Horizon Europe should have a 2025 budget of just over €12.7 billion, down from around €12.9bn in 2024. EU programmes usually have growing annual budgets over their seven-year durations, but earlier this year politicians agreed to cut €2bn from the remainder of Horizon Europe to redirect funding to other priorities, including supporting Ukraine.

Horizon Europe’s total budget was therefore cut from €95.5bn to €93.5bn, with the Commission wanting €397m of the cut to fall in 2025, partially alleviated by a €20m return of unspent funds from previous years.

But now the Council is set to push for Horizon Europe to get just €12.3bn in 2025, although it is likely the Parliament will argue for an increase on the Commission proposal.

Other cuts sought

The Council budget committee also wants to cut €50.5m from the €486.5m 2025 budget proposed by the Commission for Iter, the international nuclear fusion research facility being built in France.

In addition, it wants to cut €295m from the €3.97bn budget proposed for Erasmus+, the EU’s academic mobility programme. Under the Commission proposal, Erasmus+ would get €173m more than in 2024.

Explaining its stance, the budget committee said it wanted to “ensure prudent and realistic budgeting and to provide adequate resources to support clearly set priorities”. It said the proposed cuts to programmes including Horizon Europe were partly intended to “prevent risks in terms of absorption capacity”.

So far, due to budget shortages, Horizon Europe has been able to fund only around a third of the proposals it has received that were deemed to be of high quality.

The Parliament has yet to adopt its stance on the budget. Negotiations usually conclude in the autumn.

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European University Association says national position on EU’s next R&I programme “does not bode well”

The European University Association is anxious about the likely budget for the EU’s next research and innovation programme, saying it is a bad sign that a formal opinion from national representatives did not recommend a specific figure.

On 10 July, the EUA published a response to the opinion on Framework Programme 10 that was recently set out by the European Research and Innovation Area Committee, a body that advises the EU on R&I policy and is itself composed of representatives from the EU member states and the European Commission.

“In the current climate, where future R&I investments are under significant pressure, it is disappointing that Erac did not take a stance on the overall budget for FP10,” the EUA said.

“The fact that R&I ministries do not advocate for a larger budget does not bode well for the negotiations,” the association added. It called on Erac to “leverage its unique role in actively contributing to future budget discussions”.

Many European R&I organisations are calling for FP10 to have a budget of about €200 billion, up from the €93.5bn of the current programme, Horizon Europe. The EUA is among the organisations backing a campaign called Research Matters that is pushing for a doubling of the programme budget.

Other elements welcomed

The EUA did welcome a call from Erac for FP10 to have a more stable budget and well-balanced support for basic and applied research, which are positions broadly shared among the R&I community.

It also supported Erac’s push for the Commission to increase its consultations on the R&I programme with the member states and stakeholders.

It is “essential” that dialogue with stakeholders is both “regular” and early enough to prevent any delays in implementation, the EUA stressed.

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Move would ease administrative burden for EU’s next research and innovation programme, advisory body suggests

The EU should ease the administrative burden on its next research and innovation programme by allowing applicants to opt for longer projects than are currently funded, a body that advises the Austrian government on R&I has said.

Forwit, the Austrian Council for Science, Technology and Innovation, published a position paper on Framework Programme 10 on 8 July. The design of FP10, which is due to start in 2028, is currently being considered.

The council did not say what length it thinks projects should be allowed to run to, or whether the idea should be limited to specific parts of the programme. But it did say that the budgets for longer projects should reflect the impacts of inflation.

Like many other R&I organisations, Forwit called for FP10 to have a budget of €200 billion, up from €93.5bn for the current programme, Horizon Europe. More uniquely, it suggested that the name Horizon Europe should be retained, and recommended the creation of a separate funding pot for responding to crises.

Within that overall budget increase, there should be boosts for the European Research Council and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions schemes for basic research, Forwit said. It also suggested that “suitable instruments should be established to better connect the programme’s different components”.

Support for research careers also needs more attention, it said, and there should be stronger cooperation between science and industry. The council also called for the development of “regional or inter-regional technology and research clusters, along with the necessary research infrastructure and technology transfer centres” to support key technologies.

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Business Europe association also says industry should lead EU’s public-private research and innovation partnerships

The EU’s next research and innovation programme should have a specific governing body dedicated to steering its industry-related funding, the representative body Business Europe has urged.

The group, which pulls together industry associations from individual European nations, made the recommendation in a position paper published on 10 July, on the EU’s next R&I programme, which is due to start in 2028 and is currently known as Framework Programme 10.

Business Europe said there should be “a governing body for the ‘industrial competitiveness’ pillar” of FP10, although this part of the current programme also covers societal challenges, and the design of FP10 is still pending.

It said that in FP10 this pillar “should have a clear focus on industrial competitiveness and be supported by a governing body [that would be] industry-driven and responsible for steering and promoting the work”.

Business Europe pointed out that such governing bodies already exist for the European Research Council, which funds basic research in pillar 1 of the current Horizon Europe programme, and for the European Innovation Council, which supports the growth of technology-based companies in the third pillar.

Industry focus

FP10 as a whole “should have a significant focus on industrial R&I, be more business and competitiveness-oriented, and offer more attractive conditions for industry participation”, the association argued.

It said that the public-private partnerships funded by the programme, in areas such as medicines and microchip development, “should be the focal point of FP10 as they enable important risk-sharing, long-term impact and collaboration between stakeholders”.

According to the European Commission, €23.9 billion from the Horizon Europe budget of €93.5bn is devoted to these PPPs, which are also expected to pull in another €31.4bn from other sources—mainly their industry members.

“Industry should be in the driving seat for the design of PPPs and their respective calls. Simplified application processes and less detailed reporting requirements are needed in the calls under the PPPs to attract and incentivise industry participation,” Business Europe said.

Other recommendations

Its other recommendations included a proposal for the European Innovation Council to support not only technology-based startups but also “companies of all sizes”.

Horizon Europe’s R&I-based ‘missions’, on cancer, cities, climate change, soil and waters, should have “adequate focus on industrial R&I”, according to the group.

More generally, Business Europe said the EU should consider the impacts on innovation of all of its policymaking, use more regulatory exceptions to boost innovation, and promote both early-age scientific education and research careers.

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R&I programme should use evaluator consensus meetings for every call, association says

The EU should change how it evaluates proposals to its next research and innovation funding programme, according to the European Association of Innovation Consultants.

EAIC members have supported several hundred projects that have won funding from the current EU R&I programme, Horizon Europe, over 2021-24, the association said in a position paper published on 10 July.

Based on this experience, it laid out a set of recommendations for Framework Programme 10 (FP10), Horizon Europe’s successor programme, which is due to start in 2028.

Evaluation changes

Among its recommendations, the EAIC said the scores that evaluators give to project proposals, which determine which projects are funded, should be weighted “based on the relevance of [the evaluators’] expertise with regards to different evaluation sub-criteria”. This is already done for the EU’s Innovation Fund, it said.

In addition, the EAIC said that the three main evaluation criteria of the EU R&I programme—excellence, impact and quality of implementation—may need to be redefined.

“There is often confusion among the evaluators, for example, concerning where to penalise applicants if the duration of the project is insufficient for the proposed ambition: under Excellence or Implementation?” it said.

There is also a need for more consistent scoring by evaluators, which could be achieved through clearer definitions of what constitutes various shortcomings, the EAIC suggested.

It further called for consensus meetings of evaluators to take place for every funding call in the programme. A lack of such meetings at present for some calls “gives too much weight to individual opinions”, according to the EAIC.

Other recommendations

Another recommendation made by the EAIC was that the EU should allow projects to delegate their management to professional organisations, for which it said that 100 per cent funding should be allocated.

It also called for the creation of new funding schemes specifically focused on delivering impact from projects, saying that a lack of funding for this was a “key bottleneck”.

“While efforts to maximise project impact during implementation are effective, they are often hampered or even halted once the projects end,” the association said. “There are not enough efforts made to maximise and capitalise on new knowledge generated.”

The EAIC called for reviewers of projects funded using the lump-sum mode to be given training on the importance of their evaluation of project progress to the provision of funding, and for further definition of what checks on lump-sum projects are needed.

FP10 should have a budget of €200 billion, up from the €93.5bn of Horizon Europe, the association urged, echoing calls made by other sector organisations.

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European Research Council increases Starting, Consolidator and Synergy Grant indicative budgets by a quarter

The European Research Council has significantly boosted the overall funding it plans to make available for some of its main grant types in 2025, while slightly reducing the budget for Advanced Grants.

A 2025 ERC work programme was adopted by the European Commission on 9 July. It sets out an overall budget for the funder of €2.71 billion for next year, up from €2.34bn in 2024.

But the 2025 budget has been significantly bolstered by funding being contributed by countries associated to the EU’s broader research and innovation programme, which the ERC is part of.

An ERC spokesperson told Research Professional News that the associated country contributions were only partly included in 2024 and that this was the reason for the apparent shifts in budgets between its main grants year-on-year.

Funding allocations

Starting Grants for early career researchers have been given an indicative budget of €751 million to fund 483 grants in 2025, up by about a quarter from €601m for 387 grants in 2024.

Similarly, Consolidator Grants for mid-career researchers have been allocated €719m for 354 grants, up by just under a quarter from €584m for 291 grants this year.

Synergy Grants, which support collaboration among multiple principal investigators, have been earmarked €500m for 48 grants, up a quarter in funding terms from €400m for 39 grants.

Advanced Grants, which support senior researchers, are set to get €683m for 276 grants, down just under 3 per cent from €703m for 285 grants last year.

An ERC spokesperson said that the 2024 work programme included money from associated countries only for the Advanced Grants. Once this is factored in, “the 2025 budget has hardly changed compared to 2024”, they said.

The UK associated to Horizon Europe from the start of 2024, which was too late for its contribution to be reflected more broadly in the 2024 ERC work programme. The ERC spokesperson said that the funder bolstered the budgets of its 2024 Starting and Consolidator Grant calls without amending the work programme.

Other announcements

Announcing the plan, the ERC pointed out that EU member states can transfer money to the ERC from the European Regional Development Fund to help it fund more grants within their borders.

The funder also said it would use part of its broader 2025 budget to help National Contact Points share best practice, to monitor and evaluate the impact of its funding and to communicate its activities to a wider audience.

Earlier this month, the ERC announced that researchers at Swiss institutions would be eligible to apply for its 2025 Starting, Consolidator and Synergy Grants, but said they would be able to obtain the funding only if Switzerland associates to the broader R&I programme by the time the grants are ready to be signed. 

The Starting Grants call opened on 10 July, while the Synergy Grants call opens on 11 July. Their grants are due to be signed in December 2025 and March 2026 respectively. The Consolidator Grants call is due to open in September, with signatures expected in April 2026.

Update 11/7 – This article was updated with the information about the contribution from associated countries

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French research agency aims for greater integration of fundamental research and innovation

The CNRS, France’s multidisciplinary research agency, has suggested a raft of changes to the EU’s next research and innovation programme to strengthen the pipeline from fundamental research to societal impact.

Its recommendations include modifications to the three main pillars of the programme, which is due to start in 2028 and is currently referred to as Framework Programme 10. It will follow the current programme, Horizon Europe.

In its position paper, published on 8 July, the CNRS says that “the continuum linking fundamental research and innovation should underlie the design of FP10”, and it encourages a stronger focus on global challenges.

Among the measures it proposes, the CNRS urges the EU “to pull out all the stops to build critical European masses around highly strategic topics (artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, new materials…) by creating and supporting over the next decade dedicated distributed or single-sited centres”.

Nonetheless, the CNRS stresses that excellence should be kept as the main criterion for funding, both for individual and collaborative actions, across FP10.

Shifting pillars

If followed, the CNRS recommendations would see the focus of pillar 1 shift from ‘excellent science’ to ‘excellent and innovative scientific research’, with greater support for collaborative research at technology-readiness levels 0 to 4. Low TRLs on a scale from 0 to 9 indicate that a project focuses on basic research, whereas higher ones indicate increasing readiness for commercialisation.

Pillar 2, meanwhile, would shift focus from ‘global challenges and European industrial competitiveness’ to ‘global challenges and European transformation’, supporting research at TRLs 1 to 6. Pillar 2 should include more support for “target-driven basic research” at low TRLs, the CNRS says.

The agency also recommends that some calls from successive annual work programmes of each cluster of Pillar 2 could “make it possible to fund long-term projects over the entire duration of the programme in which the consortia could evolve [via] a go/no-go assessment process”.

Pillar 3, currently under the heading ‘innovative Europe’, should be “entirely dedicated to ‘innovation and industrial competitiveness’”, but nonetheless should have calls on TRLs between 0 to 8 “to ensure the continuum between basic research and market-oriented projects”, the CNRS says.

It suggests a budget breakdown between the three pillars of 40 per cent, 40 per cent and 20 per cent for pillars 1, 2 and 3 respectively.

Sustainability concerns

Acknowledging the growing existential threat of the climate and ecological crises, the CNRS “strongly encourages [FP10] to support projects developed within a sustainable approach minimising their environmental impact”.

It says that a “buy less and buy better” approach should be adopted for cost eligibility rules under FP10. This could work, the CNRS adds, “by establishing an eco-bonus which would promote maintenance and repair of purchased equipment and the use of second-hand equipment”.

Elsewhere in the recommendations, the CNRS proposes boosting support to collaborative projects between young researchers through the European Research Council, with up to eight partners allowed on projects, all “funded by a substantial budget”.

The CNRS reiterates its support of the call to more than double the funding for FP10 relative to Horizon Europe, by raising it to €200 billion. Horizon Europe has a budget of about €93.5bn for 2021-27.

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Proposal could build on existing EU-funded agriculture, aquaculture and forestry initiative

The EU has drawn up outline plans for its proposed central and eastern European research and innovation partnership on the circular bioeconomy—the sustainable use and reuse of biological materials for economic activities.

Draft conclusions intended for adoption by the Council of the EU member state governments, published on 5 July, say that there is a need to boost R&I cooperation among the CEE countries and that circular bioeconomy initiatives could help the EU meet its environmental targets, while boosting its competitiveness.

Furthermore, challenges relating to biotechnology and biomanufacturing are complex and cross borders, which calls for a regional approach to tackle them, according to the conclusions. They underline the importance of “aligning policies and regulations related to the bioeconomy at EU level” to “create a conducive environment for investment, innovation and sustainable development in the sector”.

An “institutionalised” R&I partnership on the bioeconomy could enhance science diplomacy, foster relationships and help prevent skilled people from leaving the countries involved, they add.

Build on Bioeast

The conclusions say that an existing EU-funded R&I initiative called Bioeast, focused on agriculture, aquaculture and forestry in the CEE countries, could form the basis of the partnership, which could expand geographically, including beyond the CEE countries.

The goal would be “an open, Europe-wide but geographically focused R&I partnership on advancing sustainable natural resource management, food system security and the deployment of the bioeconomy”, reminiscent of the existing Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area. 

The draft conclusions ask the European Commission to assess the feasibility of such a partnership being launched, potentially in the 2028-34 EU funding period. They are set to be discussed by national representatives on 18 July.

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Metrics generally improving but with substantial divergence among member states, Commission reports

Fifteen EU member states improved their innovation performance over the past year, while 11 slipped and one remained stable, according to the European Commission.

On 8 July, the Commission published the latest European Innovation Scoreboard, which has measured innovation in the member states since 2001.

This year’s report shows that the EU is generally improving its innovation performance, but that the gap between the highest and lowest-scoring performers has grown.

“This suggests that the innovation divide persists,” it says.

Mixed trends

Based on the 32 metrics used for the assessment, the innovation performance of the EU as a whole has improved by 10 per cent since 2017 and 0.5 per cent over the past year, according to the Commission.

The report says that every member state except Luxembourg has improved its individual innovation performance since 2017, but that “the extent to which they have improved varies strongly”.

Cyprus and Estonia have improved the most since 2017, while over the past year, Lithuania, Cyprus and Poland have shone by each upping their performance by more than 3 per cent.

The Commission categorises member states as leading, strong, moderate or emerging innovators; the latest report says that since 2017 there has been “modest convergence” within the strong and moderate categories, but increased divergence within the leading and emerging innovators.

In a statement, the Commission pointed out that the allocation to these categories is broadly in line with geography, with leading and strong innovators “predominantly located in Northern and Western Europe, and many of the moderate and emerging innovators in Southern and Eastern Europe”.

Global comparison

The report says that Switzerland was the most innovative country in Europe, with Denmark topping the list for the EU, followed by Sweden—the same as last year. Romania was again bottom of the table in the EU, with Bulgaria once more the second-lowest placed.

South Korea was again ranked as the most innovative country in the world, while Canada, the United States and Australia were all deemed to be more innovative than the EU as a whole. China has now surpassed Japan and is catching up with the EU.

“In the global context, the EU maintains a robust position, demonstrating strong performance in most indicators including in small and medium-sized enterprises introducing product and process innovations and environment-related technologies,” the Commission said.

“The EU still faces challenges compared to its main global competitors in areas such as intellectual assets, collaboration among innovative SMEs and R&D expenditure in the business sector.”

Iliana Ivanova, the EU research and innovation commissioner, says in the report’s introduction that the EU’s progress overall is “in good part wed to the ongoing implementation of the New European Innovation Agenda”, launched in 2022.

But she points out that the EU “still lags behind the US as regards the adoption of digital technologies”.

In a statement, Ivanova called for increased private investment in research and innovation in the EU.

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Science Europe calls for disciplinary diversity and continued support for laggards under Horizon Europe successor

The EU’s next research and innovation programme needs to devote “more efforts” to supporting interdisciplinary R&I, according to the association of major research funding and performing organisations, Science Europe.

In a position paper published on 5 July, the association said there was a need for “truly interdisciplinary” funding calls in Framework Programme 10, which is due to start in 2028.

These FP10 funding calls should “include perspectives from the arts, social sciences and humanities from the outset”, Science Europe said.

Furthermore, ASSH disciplines should in general be “better integrated” in the programme, including through “co-creation and early involvement of interdisciplinary teams in the development of the work programmes” that set out funding calls, as well as by ensuring that there are experts from these disciplines on proposal evaluation panels.

Without such moves, there is a “risk [of] continuing the pattern of disappointing integration between” ASSH and science, technology, engineering and mathematics that Science Europe said the current programme, Horizon Europe, has suffered from.

Programme structure

The association made its recommendations in a paper setting out its views on FP10, joining other stakeholder groups and formal advice bodies that have done so in recent weeks.

Like many of these groups, Science Europe said the broad structure of Horizon Europe should be retained, but that FP10 should have a budget of €200 billion, up from €93.5bn in the current programme.

Such an increase is needed because of the part FP10 can play in tackling societal challenges such as climate change and inequality, the association said.

Science Europe also joined others in calling for the new R&I-based ‘missions’ on cancer, cities, climate change, soil and water to be moved outside of the R&I programme, due to their broader remit.

“The involvement of researchers and innovators and a science-based transformation are vital for the success of EU missions, but this does not always involve research-generated knowledge or direct R&I projects,” it said, while also calling for more transparent processes around the missions’ funding.

New narrative on Widening

Science Europe also called for a “careful assessment” of the Widening scheme for supporting countries whose R&I performance lags behind the average.

“FP10 should only maintain the instruments that have been proven to contribute to the aims of sustainable, long-term reduction of the R&I divide,” it said, praising the ERA Chairs posts for single researchers and the Twinning initiative, which matches leading and lagging institutions.

Separately, a policy and project officer at the European University Association, Federica Garbuglia, said in a blog post for the EUA on 5 July that there was a need for a “new narrative” on the Widening scheme.

This should better reflect both the progress that the scheme and other efforts have made to increase the performance of lagging regions and the need for further improvements to include reforms at national level, she said.

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High-level group will coordinate efforts to build advanced materials ecosystem

The European Commission has launched a call for applications to join a new EU advice group on advanced materials.

It said on 5 July that the “high-level group will coordinate efforts to meet future needs for advanced materials in Europe and is key to building a single advanced materials ecosystem”.

Advanced materials are designed and engineered to have specialised attributes, making them “fundamental for innovation, for example, in energy, electronics, construction and mobility, and therefore crucial for the green and digital transitions”, the Commission explained.

Research and innovation commissioner Iliana Ivanova said: “Europe’s long-term competitiveness relies on our technological edge, including the supply of advanced materials for the green and digital transitions.

“The Technology Council for Advanced Materials is part of our strategy to work together with the member states, research organisations and industries to identify and address common needs for European leadership in advanced materials.”

Part of the plan

Demand for advanced materials is expected to increase in coming years, which prompted the Commission to publish a strategy for them in February. Establishing the advice group was one of 14 actions proposed in the strategy, along with the creation of a public-private partnership and a digital infrastructure for advanced materials.

A response to that strategy is currently being prepared by the EU member states.

Maria Cristina Russo, Commission director for international R&I strategy, encouraged experts to “join us in driving research and innovation to bolster Europe’s industrial leadership and competitiveness”.

The group is expected to consist of representatives from member state research and industry ministries, academia, research and technology organisations, industry and the Commission.

Applications are due by 9 September.

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Calls will fund work expected to be important for high-performance computing and communications

The EU’s microchips-focused research and innovation public-private partnership has opened funding calls offering €325 million to “further support Europe’s semiconductor industry”.

The Chips Joint Undertaking wants industrial players and research organisations to work on photonics (light-based data transmission), microchip competence centres and a cloud-based chip design platform. Participating member states are expected to top up the funding.

More specifically, researchers will receive the funding for work on photonic integrated circuits, which the European Commission said will be important for future high-performance computers, high-speed communications and data centres. PICs are semiconductors that use light to process and transmit information at higher speeds than electron-based chips, while using less energy.

Chips competence centres

The funding will also support the creation of chips competence centres in participating countries, which will help companies improve their chip design capabilities and skills.

The cloud-based online design platform is intended to allow users to design and develop new chips. Academia, start-ups and small companies are expected to benefit from it the most.

Applicants for the photonics pilot line, the competence centres and the design platform have until, respectively, 17 September, 2 October and 10 October to submit their bid.

In February this year the Chips JU announced €216m of funding to strengthen “collaboration, industrial competitiveness and the transfer of knowledge from laboratories to factories”.

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Swiss institutions now eligible for applications to host 2025 Starting, Consolidator and Synergy Grants

Researchers at Swiss institutions are being allowed to apply for more of the European Research Council’s major grant types, while awaiting Swiss association to the EU’s research and innovation programme.

Figures from across the European research landscape have hailed the decision by the European Commission as showing strong progress towards a full restoration of the EU-Switzerland research partnership that has been torn apart in recent years.

The decision comes as the Commission is negotiating with the Swiss government over Switzerland’s association to Horizon Europe, which the ERC is part of.

Increased eligibility to apply

It was announced earlier this year that researchers at Swiss institutions would be allowed to apply for ERC Advanced Grants for senior researchers under the funder’s 2024 work programme. That call opened in May and closes on 29 August.

Now they are also being allowed to apply for the rest of the ERC’s core grants—namely, Starting Grants for early-career researchers, Consolidator Grants for mid-career researchers and Synergy Grants, through which multiple principal investigators collaborate—under the 2025 work programme. These calls open on 10 July, 26 September and 11 July, respectively.

For successful applicants to be able to have their grants hosted at Swiss institutions, Switzerland would need to be associated to Horizon Europe by the time the grants are ready to be signed. This is because ERC grants can only be hosted by EU member states or countries associated to Horizon Europe.

Switzerland has been associated to previous EU R&I programmes, but the EU initially prevented it from associating to Horizon Europe after the Swiss government walked away from talks on a broader political agreement. The Swiss government has been offering domestic alternatives to ERC grants while its institutions have been ineligible to host the EU versions.

Negotiations on Swiss association to Horizon Europe began in March this year, after political relations thawed. On the same day as the new announcement, Commission executive vice-president Maroš Šefčovič said on social media that he had had a “productive” call with Swiss foreign minister Ignazio Cassis on several topics, including “a transitional arrangement for 2025 Horizon Europe calls”.

Šefčovič has previously said that progress must be made across all areas of EU-Swiss talks for Horizon Europe association to be agreed. Switzerland is also seeking association to the EU’s Erasmus+ academic mobility programme, its digitisation programme, and its nuclear research programme Euratom. But it is other areas that are more likely to delay agreement. Šefčovič said it was “important to keep the momentum in the area of the free movement of persons”, for example.

The Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation reiterated that the government’s “overarching goal is to achieve association with the entire Horizon package as quickly as possible”.

‘Excellent news’

The ERC said on 4 July that the Commission decision was “a clear sign of goodwill in the negotiation process”. Its president Maria Leptin said on social media that the ERC “warmly welcomes back the Swiss research community!” She added: “We are ready to receive and evaluate your applications!”

Robert-Jan Smits, the former top R&I official at the Commission and now president of the board of Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, told Research Professional News that the development was “great news”.

“The EU and Switzerland are natural partners in [research] because they share the same values and have so much to offer to each other,” he said, urging the parties to “continue on this path” for the next EU R&I programme, starting in 2028, “and avoid that politics gets once again in the way of this unique partnership”.

Similarly, Yves Flückiger, president of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences, hailed the “excellent news”, adding: “It proves that negotiations between Switzerland and the EU are making progress.”

Jan Palmowski from the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities said the move was “great progress” not only for Switzerland but also “for the capacity of European science to transform what we know and what is possible”.

But he added: “Now we need full association.”

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EU leader met with Singaporean deputy prime minister to discuss association to programme

The European Commission has asked EU governments to allow formal negotiations on Singapore becoming associated with the EU’s research and innovation funding programme, Horizon Europe.

Commission executive vice-president Margrethe Vestager announced the move via social media on 4 July, during a visit to the country in which she met with its deputy prime minister Heng Swee Keat.

Vestager said that they discussed “our mutual interest in this partnership and bringing [European] and [Singaporean] scientific excellence together”.

Association to EU R&I programmes enables non-EU countries to take part on almost equal terms with members of the bloc, in exchange for a budget contribution. Horizon Europe, the 2021-27 programme, is the first to open up association to developed countries outside the European region.

Formalisation of talks

Singapore has been holding informal talks with the EU on association to the programme’s second pillar, which is focused on societal challenges and industrial competitiveness. This pillar has a budget of €52.4 billion from the total programme budget of €93.5bn.

The Commission now wants to move those talks to the formal footing required for reaching a deal. The EU ambassador to Singapore, Iwona Piórko, said on social media that the Commission’s request was “an important step on the way” to Singapore’s association.

A day earlier, Canada signed off its association to the second pillar of the programme, following a similar deal for New Zealand. South Korea has also agreed to associate to the pillar, but has yet to sign off.

Informal talks on association to pillar two are also underway with Japan, while formal negotiations are ongoing with Switzerland for its association across the entire programme.

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R&I programme should prioritise collaboration and attracting private investment, industry-dominated joint statement says

More than 100 European associations representing organisations that carry out research and innovation have called on the EU to “significantly increase” the budget of its next R&I funding programme.

At the same time, the EU member states themselves should, “at a minimum”, finally meet their long-missed target to spend 3 per cent of their GDP on R&I, the groups including the European Association of Research and Technology Organisations said in a joint statement published on 4 July.

EU investment in R&I “significantly lags behind [that of] its global competitors”, the organisations pointed out, echoing remarks made repeatedly by the academic sector and the EU R&I commissioner Iliana Ivanova, among others.

The next R&I programme, starting in 2028, will play “an important role” in encouraging private investment, said the new joint statement, whose signatories were mainly industry groups.

Public investments “are crucial to alleviate market failures…by lowering the risks that such investments represent for the industry”, said signatories including Business Europe and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations.

Focus on collaboration

Whereas most academic groups have stressed the importance of instruments that fund basic research, mainly by single principal investigators, the signatories said the next programme “must focus on excellent cross-border collaborative R&I, with a strong industrial participation”.

A “significant” part of the programme’s total budget should go to its collaboration-focused instruments, which must also be “driven by strategic EU priorities and clearly defined industrial needs”.

This should include building long-term public-private partnerships and reducing the risk of private investment by “demonstrating the EU’s support for technology-intensive sectors”.

“We are fully convinced that Europe has much better potential in the global innovation race,” the organisations said.

“Europe needs to strongly invest in pan-European collaborative R&I fostering collaboration, driving technology maturation and innovation, and leveraging the expertise of R&I public and private actors to strengthen its competitiveness and assert its leadership in key technological domains.”

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Parliament studies recommend increased communication efforts, including through National Contact Points

Potential beneficiaries of the EU’s research and innovation programme lack awareness of its funding opportunities and the steps that have been taken to simplify applications to it, according to a new European Parliament study.

Published on 4 July, the study was requested by the Parliament’s Panel for the Future of Science and Technology. It examined parts of the R&I programme that underwent transitions between its 2014-20 and 2021-27 iterations, Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe, aiming to assess the impacts of the changes.

Funding opportunities 

Based on stakeholder surveys, the report says: “The consensus among stakeholders interviewed highlights a prevalent lack of awareness regarding available funding opportunities.” This was particularly the case for small companies, it says.

Similarly, “approximately half of the consulted stakeholders [were] unaware of the modifications introduced under the Common Model Grant Agreement or the strategic plan”.

The CMGA was introduced to Horizon Europe to “simplify the complexity of grant agreements”, the report explains, but while it “does make it easier to understand the terms and conditions…its ability to simplify administrative burdens and enhance transparency remains debatable”.

Similarly, the strategic plan was introduced to Horizon Europe to set out the programme’s priorities, but the lack of awareness of it or of its co-design opportunities “excludes potential stakeholders from actively shaping the orientation of Horizon Europe”.

The study concludes that better communication is needed to ensure that stakeholders are well informed. It suggests that the network of National Contact Points in many participant countries could play a part in this.

Going green

The same Parliament panel also requested another study, released a day earlier, focused on Horizon Europe’s contribution to the EU’s Green Deal environmental policies.

This report says the programme has been “instrumental in supporting the EU’s push towards becoming climate-neutral by 2050”.

But it adds that “areas exist where Horizon Europe might benefit from some fine-tuning, especially in terms of fostering collaboration, improving the accessibility and visibility of calls, and easing the path from research to commercial success”.

The report sets out policy options to address these shortcomings, with increased support from National Contact Points again among them.

Another option suggested is creating a centralised platform for connecting innovators with companies, investors and public-sector entities interested in sustainable solutions.

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Intense demand and limited budgets have made European Research Council grants fall behind inflation

In 2020, the European Research Council did something unprecedented and, so far, unrepeated. For the first time since launching in 2007, the EU’s premier funding body for frontier research raised the maximum amount of money that researchers could apply for in two of its three main grant schemes.

The ERC budget has slowly grown over the years. But instead of the value of its grants also growing over time, the agency’s leaders have almost always erred on the side of awarding a greater number of grants to keep up with intense demand.

The situation is worrying the ERC president Maria Leptin. “We—the ERC Scientific Council and I personally—are concerned that the value of our grants is being eroded after seventeen years,” she tells Research Europe.

“Research funded by the ERC is expected to lead to advances at the frontiers of knowledge and to set a clear and inspirational target for frontier research across Europe. That’s why the Scientific Council, from the outset when the ERC was launched in 2007, set the size of our grants to be competitive with grants available from other funders worldwide.

“Over the years, the Scientific Council has considered raising the grant size on many occasions, but has always refrained from doing so because of the potential impact on the already low success rates for applicants in the ERC calls.”

Putting it bluntly, Leptin says the situation “inevitably means that, due to inflation, the real value of the grants has declined”. The recent spike in inflation, which started in 2021 and was exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has only made the issue more urgent.

Limited by success

The ERC awarded its first Starting Grants for early-career scientists in 2007, its first Advanced Grants for senior scientists in 2008 and its first Consolidator Grants for mid-career scientists in 2013; each lasts up to five years. Starting Grants are worth up to €1.5 million, Consolidator Grants up to €2m and Advanced Grants up to €2.5m. 

The only budgetary change made since each scheme was launched is to the additional funding that applicants can request to cover costs for grant holders moving country, buying major equipment or accessing large facilities. Since 2020, applicants across all three schemes can request up to €1m in additional funding, whereas previously the maximum available for Starting Grants was €500,000 and for Consolidator Grants €750,000.

Jesper Svejstrup, the vice-president of the ERC and a biochemistry researcher at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, tells Research Europe the ERC “would really like to increase the grant sizes so they reflect the present reality in terms of research cost”.

According to Svejstrup, a €2.5m Advanced Grant 15 years ago would need to be at least €3.7m today.

“We could in theory decide to increase the size of the grants, but not without greatly lowering the success rates,” he says. In the 2023 funding rounds, the success rates across all three major schemes were 14-15 per cent but in previous years have fallen as low as eight per cent.

Given that success rates are relatively low, Svejstrup says increasing the size of grants is “not presently viewed as a viable solution”.

Difficult balance

While competition for ERC grants is fierce, some applicants are more successful than others. Anja Groth, who leads a research group at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research at the University of Copenhagen, has successfully applied to each of the ERC’s three main grant schemes. She received a Starting Grant in 2011, a Consolidator Grant in 2016 and an Advanced Grant in 2023.

Groth’s ongoing Advanced Grant has been “extremely important” for her career, she says, “but obviously, to get an Advanced Grant 15 years ago would have made a bigger difference to your lab than it does today”.

Her grants were funded at almost the maximum budget each time, and for her Starting Grant she received an equipment allowance worth €200,000 which was used to acquire a microscope that was essential for the project.

She says the ERC money has been “instrumental for the success of my lab”, in part due to their size and length, especially in comparison to most national grants in Denmark. Danish grants are only up to three years long, she says, limiting how ambitious a project can be. 

Groth is well aware of the challenges facing those in charge of funding bodies. “I am not saying that I would vote for making grants bigger at the cost of lower funding rates—it is a difficult balance and I understand the people who sit with this decision are not in an easy place.”

Increasing diversity

While the real-terms value of ERC grants is eroding over time, not all repeat ERC winners see this as a major problem. William Martin, head of the Institute of Molecular Evolution at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf in Germany, won three consecutive Advanced Grants in 2009, 2015 and 2021.

He says that while salaries may have risen recently, ERC funding provides sufficient funding “to pay five postdocs or maybe three postdocs, and three or four PhD students” so winners should not consider themselves underfunded. “What is underfunded are the national grants,” he says.

Rather than increasing the size of grants, Martin would like to see a greater diversity in who is awarded them, highlighting “outstanding ideas from Eastern European countries, from outstanding minds” who may not have the resources to put in competitive proposals.

He thinks giving scientists “the ability to develop their own scientific culture in their home countries, so they can be competitive in the long run” warrants a greater number of grants rather than increasing grant sizes.

Martin even suggests that having too much money can become unmanageable, potentially “straining the physical system of what the institutes can provide”, though he notes that his work in biology does not require a considerable amount of equipment.

“Humans are the most important thing in my research because it is not physics,” so the projects’ main expense is salaries, he says.

Excellence unfunded

Unlike some national funders, the ERC does not differentiate between the size of grants it offers researchers working in different fields—something noted by Svejstrup, who says there are “great differences in the research costs per domain, some research is more expensive than other”.

The ERC divides applications between three broad domains—physical sciences and engineering, life sciences and social sciences and humanities—with each domain further split into different categories for evaluation.

Svejstrup says the differences in research costs between different disciplines is “arguably not really reflected in the amounts scientists in the different domains apply for, as most applicants apply for the maximum allowed”.

The fact that the ERC receives far more excellent proposals than it can fund is a “big problem”, Svejstrup says, “but one which ERC is not itself equipped to solve, of course. We can only fund the research that the budget from the EU allows us to distribute.”

As the EU looks towards the design of its next long-term research and innovation programme, due to start in 2028, Leptin and many others in Europe’s research community have been pressing for the budget to be €200 billion—more than double that of the current Horizon Europe programme.

“Because we can see that so much excellent science goes unfunded, ERC would ideally like to have a larger budget,” says Svejstrup. “We realise that this is not straightforward, but it would be great to be able to better meet the needs of the outstanding research community of Europe.”

Ultimately, it will be up to politicians to decide how much funding the ERC has at its disposal. If the purse strings are loosened, then the agency will then have to decide if it wants to be more generous or fund more people.

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Young European Research Universities Network also calls for “societal readiness levels” in funding calls

The EU’s research and innovation-based ‘missions’ should be moved outside the bloc’s R&I funding programme due to their reliance on other funding sources and delivery needs, a university association has suggested.

The Young European Research Universities Network made the recommendation in its contribution to the development of a report on the EU R&I programme by a group of independent experts led by Manuel Heitor, former science minister of Portugal.

Yerun said the EU should make missions a “separate, horizontal and more ambitious programme outside of the [R&I] programme…to allow the use of other synergistic funding mechanisms and the development of related policy initiatives through additional instruments”.

Missions have proved controversial since they were introduced in Horizon Europe, the current R&I programme, to help achieve progress in tackling societal challenges in five areas: cancer, cities, climate change, soil and water. Criticisms have included that the missions are trying to achieve too much with too little resource and that too much of their success relies on funding and implementation measures beyond the scope of the R&I programme.

Yerun said that the R&I programme should fund only the missions’ R&I activities. Its suggestion echoed the views of EU member state R&I advisers, who have said that the governance of the missions should be moved outside the EU R&I programme.

Societal readiness levels

Yerun also provided recommendations on other parts of the R&I programme and its operations.

It advocated for the programme to pilot the use of “societal readiness levels” as a way to embed societal considerations in funding calls. This or other approaches to measure social adoption would “encourage cross-sector collaboration and stimulate interdisciplinary projects that consider both technological feasibility and societal desirability”.

The EU already uses “technology readiness levels” as a way to set out where projects should lie along the spectrum from basic research to commercialisation of technologies or services.

Yerun said that social sciences and humanities fields should also be better integrated into the programme more generally, because they are “too often neglected”. It added that evaluation panels should include more evaluators with social sciences and humanities backgrounds for the same reason.

More generally, Yerun said the current three-pillar structure of the R&I programme should be preserved but that “better synergies” should be established between the pillars.

In the first pillar, the European Research Council and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions should be strengthened and their budgets “ringfenced”, according to the group.

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Deal gives Canada access to EU research and innovation programme’s collaborative second pillar

Canada is making its association to the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme official by signing off on the deal, having informally agreed it in November last year.

Association to EU R&I programmes gives countries access on almost equal terms with EU member states, in exchange for a budget contribution. It has traditionally been reserved for countries in the European region, or less-developed countries, however, and Horizon Europe is the first EU R&I programme that has opened association to developed nations around the world.

Canada is associating to only the second pillar of the programme, which funds collaborative research focused on societal challenges and industrial competitiveness. This pillar has an allocation of €52.4 billion from of the total 2021-27 Horizon Europe budget of €93.5bn.

“Canadian entities will now be able to join and lead research consortia with some of the world’s best research organisations to tackle global challenges together. They will have the opportunity to be funded directly by the programme, while Canada will contribute to its budget,” the European Commission said on 3 July when it announced the signing.

A transitional agreement had been in place enabling Canadian researchers to apply to and be evaluated for funding from the programme from 2024.

Going global

In associating to the second pillar, Canada is following in the footsteps of New Zealand, which was the first developed country outside the European region to associate to an EU R&I programme.

South Korea agreed to associate to the pillar earlier this year but has yet to formally sign off on the deal. Informal talks are underway with Japan and Singapore, which would both also associate to pillar two.

Research Professional News exclusively reported last month that Australia had broken off talks on its potential association to the programme.

By contrast, formal negotiations are underway with Switzerland for its association across the whole programme, akin to that agreed with the UK.

The Canada deal will be signed by EU R&I commissioner Iliana Ivanova, who is currently visiting the country, and by its science and innovation minister, François-Philippe Champagne. It was scheduled to take place in a ceremony followed by a press conference at 5pm CEST.

Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau (pictured) issued a joint statement welcoming the signing.

“By combining the strengths of our research communities, we can accomplish greater scientific breakthroughs and technological progress, and become better equipped to meet today’s global challenges and succeed in the green and digital transitions,” they said.

“Canada’s association to Horizon Europe will allow us to build on our R&I cooperation in crucial areas such as oceans, health, raw materials, energy and bioeconomy, as well as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and digital infrastructure.”

Sectoral welcome

When the informal agreement was announced last year, European R&I leaders welcomed the news.

“Canada becoming an associated country is excellent and I think it is highly significant as many researchers in Europe closely collaborate with colleagues across the Atlantic. A huge win-win for both sides,” Mattias Björnmalm, secretary general of the Cesaer group of European science and technology universities, said at that time.

“Horizon Europe has many features that makes it an excellent platform for international research cooperation and having Canada in there is good for everybody,” said Thomas Jørgensen, director of policy coordination and foresight at the European University Association.

In announcing the latest news on social media, the EU R&I commissioner Iliana Ivanova shared quotes from researchers in Canada welcoming the signing.

“Horizon Europe association is a transformative opportunity for my research,” said Hector De la Hoz Siegler, who is studying algae at the University of Calgary.

“Being eligible for funding will enable us to contribute more substantially to cutting-edge R&I, facilitating profound and impactful collaborations.”

Update 3/7 – This article was updated with more information from the Commission and the quotes from the joint statement

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