Horizon Europe Guide 0706

Horizon
Europe
The
essential
guide
Europe’s biggest-ever R&D programme is
getting under way at last. Science|Business
provides an expert – but easy to follow – guide
for applicants
4th Edition: 2021

About this report
Science|Business, a Brussels-based media and communications company, has been following
EU R&D programmes since its founding in 2004. In our fast-growing online news service at www.
sciencebusiness.net you can track the daily developments, and sign up for our free twice-weekly
newsletters. If your institution is a member of our network of 70+ universities, companies and other
organisations, you can join our events and debates. And in our periodic publications, such as this
volume, you can get a true insider’s guide.
This report is the fourth edition of our popular guides to the EU’s Framework Programmes. Of course, it
is only our take, as journalists, on what Horizon Europe means. It is entirely unofficial. But its goal is to
help you understand what this programme is all about, how it came about, and how to benefit from it.
This publication is based on the independent reporting of Science|Business journalists,

and does not represent official European Commission policy or the views of our
Science|Business Network members.
Editorial team:
Richard L. Hudson, Éanna Kelly, Nuala Moran, Goda Naujoskaityte, Roy Pennings,
Nicholas Wallace, Florin Zubaşcu
Science|Business is a registered trademark of Science Business Publishing Ltd.
© 2021 Science Business Publishing Ltd.

Avenue des Nerviens 79
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Horizon Europe: The essential guide
Horizon and the world
If there was ever an argument for public spending on R&D, COVID-19 was it. With unprecedented
speed in early 2020, research and industry around the world joined forces – across borders,
disciplines and sectors – to understand the disease, treat it and develop vaccines for it. But most
of the cash for the early-stage science, without which there would have been no vaccines, came
from public rather than private coffers and followed many prior years of public research.
But this raises many questions. If governments paid the basic research bills, why is industry
profiting? Don’t the rich countries that developed the vaccines have a responsibility to heal the
rest of the world, too? Does further research in vaccines, AI or PPE become a matter of national
security? These kinds of question, though made urgent by COVID, have been implicit in all public
research programmes for years. Now they become explicit in Horizon Europe, the EU’s new €95.5
billion, seven-year programme for research and innovation.
Of course, some answers will be found and money spent, wisely or not. But I, for one, would rather
see a government programme like Horizon finding these answers, rather than leaving it to private
interests and corporate labs alone. These are policy problems, in which citizens have a big stake.
The genius of a programme like Horizon, or the National Institutes of Health, is to combine public
and private interest, to advance science and technology in ways that support public priorities yet
stimulate private initiative. The results often disappoint. The bureaucracy is excessive. But the
effect, to accelerate and steer R&D to the betterment of society, is irreproducible.
The next step, in my view, is global: find a way to coordinate all these regional and national R&D
programmes to the benefit of all peoples. A genuine, global science programme with budget to
match. A global science council, officially advising governments on how to spend it. And a new
global regime for intellectual property and investment.
Sounds absurd? Seventy-five years ago, as the world emerged from the horrors of global war,
the idea of a world bank or trade organisation seemed absurd. The notion of a union of European
states was laughable. Always in human history, horrific crisis forces change, occasionally for the
better. May COVID may have at least this one positive legacy.
Richard L. Hudson
Editor-in-Chief and Vice-Chair of the Board
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Table of contents
0 HORIZON AND THE WORLD 3
1 AN INTRODUCTION TO HORIZON EUROPE 7

Who gets the money? 9
Horizon 2020 - Where did the money go? 12
Horizon - The researchers vote 14
2 WHAT’S IN HORIZON EUROPE? 19

New features in Horzon Europe 19
The structure of Horizon Europe 21
3 THE POLITICS OF HORIZON EUROPE 25 29

The making of Horizon Europe - Timeline of key
developments, from Science|Business news 32
4 MISSIONS, PARTNERSHIPS AND CLUSTERS 45

The missions 46
Partnerships 51
Unpacking the 6 clusters 57
5 HORIZON EUROPE’S FUNDING AGENCIES 65
The European Innovation Council 65
The European Research Council 69
The European Institute of Innovation and Technology 76
6 WIDENING 2.0, OR EAST V WEST 83
7 GOING GLOBAL? UP TO A POINT… 91

The cast of characters 92
The Great Game: geopolitics and Horizon 96
8 THE PRACTICAL DETAILS: HOW TO JOIN 109

From idea to project: Tips 109
Defining your project 109
Building your consortium 112
The moment of truth 112
Running an EU-funded project 115
5
An introduction
to Horizon Europe
6
In Strasbourg on 27 April 2021, the next big European Union R&D programme was born. In a vote
of 661 to five, members of the European Parliament adopted the plan on how to spend €95.5
billion over the next seven years. It will define much of what Europe’s labs and tech companies
do with their ideas. Like a drummer in a jazz group, it will set the pace for much of what many EU
member states do in their own R&D programmes. And just maybe it will help humanity avert a
global climate meltdown, manage the next health catastrophe more effectively, and lower social
and economic tensions within Europe and across the globe.
If that sounds overblown, well… Horizon is unique. It is a sweeping agenda, crossing all sciences
and industries, rather than a targeted programme for any specific sector; a longterm blueprint
for the next decade, rather than a rapidly changing annual plan; a science programme to push
products, services and jobs into the economy, and an investment programme to pull scientific
breakthroughs from the lab. It is a European programme for the world; its budget will be
augmented by contributions from non-EU countries like Israel and Britain, and perhaps Canada
and other partners far from Europe. It is a collection of national initiatives across the EU; member
states routinely coordinate some of their own R&D programmes with Horizon, and in some east
European countries Horizon’s structure and priorities are copy-pasted locally. It is supposed to
fight climate change, promote gender equality, make people healthier and Europe wealthier.
In short, Horizon is all things to all people in the world of research and innovation – and that means
it’s also a political battleground of rival organisations, disciplines, sectors and regions fighting for
their own share of the spoils. One can argue that it’s actually too diverse, and should be split into
discrete pieces to manage more easily. But there’s little chance of that happening. So for now,
reconciling the conflicting priorities is a noisy process that takes at least five years, thousands of
meetings, and millions of drafted words and numbers. And then the real work starts: spending the
money and getting into the lab.
The growth of Framework Programmes (billions)
€ billions
Source: European Commission
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It traces back to 1957, and the Euratom Treaty that pledged common nuclear power research
among the six founding EU members. It gradually broadened to other fields, and took a giant
leap in 1984 with the creation of the first Framework Programme; technically, Horizon Europe is
the ninth such multi-year programme. As it grew, it gained money for frontier research (European
Research Council in 2007), a network of innovation clusters (European Institute of Innovation and
Technology in 2008), and a small business funder (the SME Instrument in 2007, subsumed into
the new European Innovation Council.) Its standing, sector-specific R&D partnerships multiplied
to more than 100, before consolidation this year into 49 – covering aviation, manufacturing,
semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, water management, food production, batteries and more. And
its budget grew many times over, from €3.8 billion in FP1 to €95.5 billion in FP9/Horizon Europe.
What has Europe gotten for this money? Every €1 spent on Framework yielded something between
€6 and €11 in returns to the European economy, according to various (EU-funded) studies. The
first mobile-phone generation, GSM, was scaled up by the EU from a Scandinavian prototype. One
of the first Ebola vaccines, new antibiotics and much fundamental knowledge of coronaviruses
were developed in Horizon. Its role in the pandemic has been huge: Though the EU messed up
vaccine delivery, its R&D leaders plunged into action almost immediately, pumping nearly €1
billion into the continent’s top medical labs. The technology for many of the vaccines is mostly
European, and partly funded by Horizon. But it’s a mixed picture. From the start, the Framework
Programmes were designed to strengthen Europe’s tech industries, and to knit together the R&D
worlds of each member state into a continent-wide single market. The first objective has failed
miserably: not a single EU company tops the world digital tables, despite 36 years of trying (OK,
Nokia got there briefly.) But the second objective succeeded: Thousands of research publications
are co-authored among neighbours; intellectual property is protected in the same way across the
EU; and the administrative burden of a company opening a subsidiary in a neighbouring company
is greatly reduced.
So what’s next, in Horizon Europe? It will run one of the largest venture capital funds in Europe–an
effort to create more European “unicorns” that can grow fast to challenge global markets. By law,
at least 35% of its budget must be spent on projects that, directly or indirectly, can help humanity
avoid a climate crisis. Another 20% must go to small companies. At least €3.3 billion will go to
strengthening eastern Europe’s perennially underfunded R&D systems – in EU jargon, “widening”
access to Horizon for those countries. All public-sector applicants will have to demonstrate they
have appropriate gender-quality programmes. Alongside it, the Commission is trying harder than
in the past to get “synergies” with other programmes – for instance, better aligning its food and
agriculture research with its massively expensive Common Agricultural Policy. Its foreign-policy
dimension is the most contentious today. When planning got underway in 2015, the Commission
intended to make Horizon “open to the world,” inviting Canada, Japan, Korea, Australia and other
wealthy countries to pool money with the EU and its neighbours. But then came Trump and Brexit
and the pandemic, and those globalist ambitions took a hit. At this writing, we know that Britain,
Norway and some other EU neighbours will be partners, but the rest is uncertain.
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Who gets the money?
All of this matters greatly to thousands of researchers and entrepreneurs, universities and
companies, across the continent.
Universities: Horizon is a big deal for universities. In poorer countries, it’s the major source of
research or spin-out funding. In richer countries, it also matters – for cash, prestige and networking.
The fact that EU grants are awarded in continent-wide competitions gives them academic cachet,
and freedom from local politics. That’s especially so for the European Research Council, whose
Starting grants can make the career of a young researcher and whose Advanced grants provide
steady, long-term funding for a complex and risky project. So far in Horizon 2020 (though applications
have closed the Commission is still dishing out the cash to awardees), 40% of all the money has
gone to universities – and that’s a significant rise from Framework Programme 7. But at least as
important as the cash is the research partnerships, contacts and career movement that Horizon
facilitates. The Commission’s original rationale for R&D funding in 1984 included using science
and technology to strengthen the European Union overall – a single market of ideas. In Horizon
Europe, that rationale has been reinforced with its east-west Widening programme, an innovation
ecosystems programme, the huge networks of its European Institute of Innovation and Technology
and, perhaps (if EU member states ever find agreement on this) the development of a European
Research Area. explicitly to knit east and west European universities together more closely.
Public science and technology labs: Among the biggest players are non-profit research
organisations such as Germany’s Fraunhofer or Dutch TNO. They depend on Horizon grants
to co-fund their early-stage technology development, often for European industry. At the same
time, synchrotrons, laser installations, nuclear labs and other public research infrastructure turn
to Horizon for research funding or doctoral-exchange grants. In all, a fourth of the Horizon 2020
money went to these public or quasi-public organisations – reflecting the intensity with which
they lobby Brussels and their national capitals to maintain their piece of the pie. But a 2021
reorganisation of the Commission’s Horizon department, DG Research and Innovation, pushed
part of this work into a separate administrative agency – lower on the political pecking order in
Brussels. This is giving a queasy feeling to several organisations that depend on EU infrastructure
money: they fear losing influence and cash without an in-house Commission advocate.
Distribution of Horizon 2020 funds

Horizon Dashboard, May 2021
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Multinationals: The multi-player R&D partnerships that are a hallmark of Horizon are bigger
and more ambitious in virtually every industrial sector. Increasingly, they are also designed to
complement big EU member-state collaborations, amplifying budgets and impact. In some parts
of Horizon, these partnerships can directly subsidise corporate R&D. in other cases, the companies
bring their own money but benefit by expanding their R&D networks, forging new partnerships
and improving their tech intelligence. Also, Horizon projects often lead to policy for emerging
technologies. For instance, Horizon R&D projects on data sharing led to a broad Commission
push to create a European Science Cloud – a major opportunity, or risk, for the multinational
tech companies that dominate Europe’s cloud computing market. But that kind of engagement
is sector-specific: when a topic is hot, like cloud or AI or COVID, Horizon is viewed by many
corporate research directors as a good way to expand their R&D networks with new partnerships
in new fields. But in more established fields, the corporate interest often wanes. The paperwork
is heavy. The standard grant contract terms for reimbursement and intellectual property don’t suit
all companies. The appeal of EU R&D grants among multinationals has been dimming for many
years – a source of much concern in the Commission. The Framework Programmes began in 1984
with heavy involvement from Siemens, Philips, Ericsson and other European multinationals. Now,
unless the Commission wins back the multinational community, its ambitions to make Horizon
Europe a key force for boosting Europe’s tech competitiveness will fizzle.
Start-ups and SMEs: Horizon also provides grants to small European businesses that the
Commission believes have something special to offer – from a better software idea to avoid
shipping collisions in harbours, to a truly “disruptive” innovation that could found the next Google.
And, following post-2008 budget cuts in southern and eastern Europe, Brussels has become one
of the few public funders still available to tech entrepreneurs in those regions. In Horizon 2020,
the Commission became one of the largest funders of tech start-ups in Spain and Italy – and in
budget negotiations over Horizon Europe, those governments fought to maintain those elements
of EU SME funding that mattered most to them. At the same time, however, a major new aspect of
SME funding is expanding fast in Horizon Europe: scale-up cash for fast-growing tech companies
with the market track record to show they may be onto something big. Under this EIC Accelerator
programme, such companies can apply for larger grants and loan guarantees – and even equity
investments through a new EU venture capital fund. This money comes with a lot of paperwork,
however. And if a May 2021 surge of new applications is anything to go by, the odds of success
won’t be huge.
Policy makers: The Framework Programmes have a profound effect on public policy for
technology. As part of the programme, the Commission analyses R&D governance in member
states; and as a result, many countries have modelled their own national programmes on Horizon.
Big parts of the Polish national R&I system look, on paper, like Horizon – a high form of flattery
from a country with strong scientific traditions of its own. In many fields – biopharma development,
animal experimentation, data sharing, chemical regulation – the EU’s research programmes have
thrown up new ideas later written into law. Now, with Horizon Europe, the self-styled “geopolitical”
Commission is deliberately using R&D money to push and pull industry in its favoured policy
directions: green hydrogen, renewables and carbon offset prototypes for its Green Deal; organic,
biodiverse and low-fertiliser experiments for a more eco-conscious Common Agricultural Policy;
cutting-edge quantum, AI and machine learning projects to sharpen Europe’s digital expertise.
The policy-R&D nexus is big, and the Commission is fully exploiting it. For the past two years, the
Commission has been trying to end its perennial internal warfare, which saw its digital, agricultural,
industrial, infrastructure development and education directorates endlessly quarrelling with its
Horizon administrator, DG Research and Innovation, over how to spend the Horizon money in
their respective policy domains. So far, the peace is far from secured; indeed, efforts to coordinate
Horizon and Structural Funds are visibly failing. But the infighting at least shows that other parts of
the Commission see the importance of Horizon money for policy development. In politics, better
to be hated than ignored.
10
H2020 SME Participations

EU members and beyond: The distribution of Framework money across the Union is jealously
watched in EU capitals. In Horizon 2020, 56% of the money went to the six founding EU members,
led by Germany at 14.9%. Britain, which will continue in Horizon despite leaving the EU, won
11.8% of the money. None of that is an accident: The programme’s contours are shaped over
years, literally, of struggle among the EU members to give their own researchers and companies
the best possible shot at the money. France pushes big R&D budgets for aviation and space
(Airbus, Thales, Aerospatiale). Germany makes sure there’s plenty of money for its huge auto,
engineering, and pharma/chemical industries (Daimler, Siemens and BASF). Britain, Sweden and
11
the Netherlands root for their first-class universities, while Spain and Italy push for small-business
money. The only losers in this game have been in eastern Europe, where universities and tech
industries are still weak from decades of national under-investment. In Horizon 2020, just 5.2%
of the money went to the countries that joined the EU from 2004 – a source of deep tension
at ministerial gatherings. And then, there’s the explosive issue of non-EU members. For years,
Switzerland, Norway, and Israel have been among 16 Framework “associate” members, paying
a membership fee into the common programme treasury so their researchers could join the grant
competitions. In Horizon 2020, those three countries won 8% of the budget – more than all the
EU’s eastern members. Now, however, the rising appeal of policies promoting “technological
sovereignty” led the Commission to attempt blocking Switzerland, Israel and Britain from its
sensitive quantum and space research. And its prior efforts to expand the list of non-EU partners
to include Canada, Australia, Japan and other tech-rich countries have stalled.
Horizon 2020 – Where did the money go?
If you’re trying to predict who will get funded from 2021 to 2027 in Horizon Europe, a good place
to start is by looking at how the Commission spent its money in Horizon 2020, from 2014 to 2020.
There will be changes: It’s likely the share of money to SMEs will rise, green and space research
will grow, popular fields like quantum and cultural industries will benefit, and eastern Europe will
get a tad more. But the balance of political power in EU research is finely calibrated, and the
programme is organised to keep each constituency happy. So the specific projects may change,
but the money always has a funny way of ending up in the same hands – more or less.
The top 25 grantees
CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS France € 1.126.039.163

COMMISSARIAT A L ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES France € 664.480.535
FRAUNHOFER GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FOERDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG E.V. Germany € 640.144.084
MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN EV Germany € 636.991.160
THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD United Kingdom € 492.278.725
THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE United Kingdom € 440.837.399
EIDGENOESSISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE ZUERICH Switzerland € 410.688.471
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON United Kingdom € 407.505.852
ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FEDERALE DE LAUSANNE Switzerland € 361.185.001
KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN Belgium € 356.203.602
KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET Denmark € 355.492.809
DEUTSCHES ZENTRUM FUR LUFT - UND RAUMFAHRT EV Germany € 327.210.698
AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DEINVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS Spain € 324.508.822
INSTITUT NATIONAL DE LA SANTE ET DE LA RECHERCHE MEDICALE France € 311.203.198
IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE United Kingdom € 308.254.626
CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE Italy € 301.146.979
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT DELFT Netherlands € 299.030.703
THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH United Kingdom € 262.202.671
DANMARKS TEKNISKE UNIVERSITET Denmark € 261.183.451
COST ASSOCIATION Belgium € 260.009.171
TEKNOLOGIAN TUTKIMUSKESKUS VTT OY Finland € 246.670.525
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN Germany € 237.996.654
INTERUNIVERSITAIR MICRO-ELECTRONICA CENTRUM Belgium € 234.693.282
STICHTING KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT Netherlands € 227.811.342
UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT Netherlands € 224.024.224
12
% of grant value, by scientific discipline

% of grant value, by country

Horizon Dashboard, April 2021
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Horizon – The researchers vote
But what’s it like to be part of Horizon? Is it worth all that money? Views on that are as varied as
the people applying for the money. Of course, nobody gets to vote on a programme like Horizon;
public sentiment, to the extent it factors into the Commission’s planning (not much), is hard to
gauge. The people who know the programme best are often those who benefit from it most, and
they are a geeky, opinionated lot. Still, we at Science|Business think it’s important to ask people
– and so, in late 2020, we did. We launched an online survey among our researcher-focused
audience. These are the results.
News | 24 Sep 2020
Survey results: EU should boost Horizon R&D spending, but also simplify
Q. Should the Horizon Europe budget be higher?
Source: Science|Business online survey

18 Aug. – 24 Sept. 2020, 502 respondents
The European Union should increase the budget currently planned for its Horizon Europe R&D
programme – but it should also make it easier to apply for the funding, according to a survey by
Science|Business.
Of 502 respondents to the online survey, 80% said the proposed budget should rise higher than planned,
while just 4% said it should be cut. “R&D is absolutely the best use of taxpayers’ money,” is how one
anonymous respondent put it. Wrote another: it “is the best answer to world-wide competition.”
But that doesn’t mean everybody’s happy with EU R&D programmes. Nearly half, or 46%, of
respondents said they aren’t easy to apply for. They are “too difficult to manage, with too many
constraints, well-meaning but difficult to execute,” wrote one respondent. Said another: “Too
much bureaucracy. Funds go always to the same ‘well lobbied’ actors.”
The survey, conducted online among Science|Business readers from 18 August to 24 September
2020, adds a counterpoint to a noisy policy battle over the EU’s budget. As made clear from
the survey, the Horizon budget and how it is allocated is a hot topic in the EU research and
innovation world. When offered a “write-in” to describe the one thing most in need of change in
the programme, more than half the respondents grabbed the opportunity. The budget bothered
many: one person suggested raising an extra €40 billion for Horizon by recovering funds “from the
fight against tax avoidance.”
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But politics and bureaucracy also bothered many. “Make it less political and more competitive,”
wrote one respondent; “it is not social welfare.” Another complained about “too formal process.
Too much about form and not content. Get better evaluations.” Another, arguing that Horizon has
not “catapulted the EU in a world leadership position” or brought eastern and western Europe
together as planned, urged “a whole new, deep, and broad strategic reassessment.”
But despite individual complaints, the broad majority of respondents have a warm and fuzzy
feeling about Horizon. About 46% “agree strongly” that it strengthened the EU, and another 33%
“agree somewhat.” Likewise, 70% agreed (strongly or somewhat) that it has had a big impact on
European society and economy.
News | 1 Oct 2020
Survey results: Multinationals not quite so welcome in the EU’s Horizon

R&D programme
Q. How would you prioritise spending in Horizon Europe?
Source: Science|Business online survey

18 Aug. – 24 Sept. 2020, 502 respondents
Funding basic and applied research is all well and good – but the idea of the European Commission
supporting big industry R&D is a lot more controversial among people familiar with EU research
programmes, according to a survey by Science|Business.
Among 502 respondents to an online survey from 18 August to 24 September 2020, the core
of EU R&D programmes is very popular – with 83% saying they support Horizon 2020’s classic
multi-partner, multi-country applied research projects, and 74% saying they support fundamental
research.
But when it comes to industrial research, the verdict splits. “Big industrial technology demonstration
projects” – which often involve multinationals – are backed by only 35% (and a third of those
“strongly” agree.) By contrast, 36% said they oppose that kind of funding. Likewise, “big public-
private partnerships” – again, a frequent multinational zone – split with 45% for them, 26% against,
and the remainder uncommitted.
“Stop giving money to large and private industry,” wrote one anonymous respondent to the
survey. “Private partners don’t need the money to innovate since they do this from their own R&D
budgets.”
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The debate over public versus private EU funding has been heating up in recent years. The EU
programmes began as a deliberate piece of industrial policy, to help Europe’s tech industry
compete better against then-dominant American and Asian (at that time, Japanese) companies.
But since then, funding for public research has soared – with, for instance, the creation in 2007
of the European Research Council for frontier science, and rapid growth of collaborative research
projects to tackle climate change, healthcare or social problems.
Currently, about a third of the EU money goes to private companies – and the bulk of that is
to small firms. Several multinationals participate without getting EU cash; instead, they join
formal partnerships to which they contribute in-kind services (researcher time and lab facilities).
But, critics note, in return they get to exploit technologies developed in these publicly funded
partnerships – and have a strong voice in shaping which technologies get developed and which
don’t.
One surprise in the survey, however, was the equally wobbly position of research directly involving
citizens – so-called citizen science projects. Of the survey respondents, just 39% support such
projects while 27% oppose them; the rest are uncommitted.
This type of project has grown quickly, on the notion that the EU should involve normal folk in the
projects as a democratic exercise, and to promote science education. For instance, the German
government as current president of the EU Council is promoting a citizen science project called
“plastic pirates”. The aim is to recruit thousands of teenagers to monitor and measure plastic
pollution in their local rivers and lakes, and feed the results into a scientific database.
On the EU programme objectives, the survey suggested that most people buy the commission’s
official rationale for what it does. For instance, 83% said they support the idea of using EU R&D
programmes to promote ethical research behaviour, and 82% support cross-border collaboration
– especially between rich and poor countries. The weakest support was for promoting
entrepreneurship, with 65 per cent in favour.
And as for applied versus basic research, one respondent offered this conclusion: “The eternal
battle for funding between fundamental and applied research – a balanced portfolio of BOTH is
needed! One does not exclude the other.”
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17
2
What’s
in Horizon Europe?
Horizon Europe covers virtually every sector and discipline from pharma to philosophy. It will We should not
launch a series of ambitious “missions” to fight cancer or protect the oceans. It will re-shape its let American
many big industrial R&D partnerships in seemingly every field from aviation to microelectronics. It
will increase support for basic science and young scientists. It will bridge the East-West innovation
platforms
gap. And it will, through a new plan to buy shares, become one of the biggest tech investors in get a grip of
Europe. our digital
content.
The core issue, what kind of research will be funded, was settled in April 2019. But an agreement MEP Christian
on how much to spend was a long time coming. The UK’s departure from the EU scrambled the Ehler
politics: though Britain will contribute money to Horizon as an associate member, it wasn’t in the
budget negotiations playing its usual role as Advocate No. 1 for research funding. Germany, the
Netherlands and other science- and cash-rich EU members balked at the Commission’s initial
pleas for a 20%-plus jump (in real terms) in the Horizon budget, and laughed off the European
Parliament’s demand for more than 50%. Meanwhile, lower-income countries such as Hungary
and Slovakia fought to defend the bloc’s Cohesion budget, which funds development in poorer
regions. And the powerful farm lobby, which always gets the biggest EU budget slice, wouldn’t
budge. That made science funding an obvious target for cuts. And then came COVID-19.
The economic devastation caused by the lockdowns forced everybody back to budget negotiations
– for all aspects of EU funding. Now, finance ministers were more worried about joblessness
than credit ratings. Eventually, EU leaders agreed a new debt-financed €750 billion post-COVID
recovery fund, additional to the main EU budget; the total was an unprecedented €1.9 trillion over
seven years. But most of that money will go to farmers, infrastructure, the unemployed and other
urgent problems. In the end, just €5 billion of the recovery fund will go to Horizon Europe. And, in
theory, another €4 billion may come from EU antitrust fines and other items. But the bottom line for
research and innovation has disappointed its advocates. In 2018 euros, the measuring stick from
when formal Horizon negotiations first began, the final budget is about €85 billion, compared to
€77 billion for the prior programme, Horizon 2020. The Commission now prefers to talk in current
prices, which makes the budget sound grander at €95.5 billion.
Still, half a loaf is better than none; and, Horizon backers say, it’s time to move on and make
the best of what remains a great programme. The Horizon Europe agreement shows “that the
institutions are able to deliver in a short time,” said Christian Ehler, one of the Parliament’s Horizon
rapporteurs, in an interview. “We should be aware that time is precious, and we are living in times
of global competition where stakeholders are no longer just Europeans. They can easily go to the
United States or to China” and they will not wait for “complex political decision processes.”
New features in Horizon Europe
As with omnibus legislation in any part of the world, the Horizon deal includes lots of surprising
and very specific side-deals.
For instance, it earmarks some of the Horizon budget for Europe’s cultural industry. “[This] is one
of the biggest sectors in the European economy,” said Ehler, a German conservative. “We created
a complete new instrument, a research collaboration space for museums and cultural heritage.
We should not let American platforms get a grip of our digital content.” And, he argued, it’s more
than just subsidies for video producers and museums. He gave the example of a company that
had made it easier to treat children with lung diseases by integrating lung-testing machines with
a video game.
There is also money for quantum computing, a critical new technology that could upend the
world’s computing systems and, in the wrong hands, threaten security. Artificial intelligence,
better soil management, earth observation technologies, green hydrogen to revolutionise factory
and trucking fuels… the Horizon shopping list is long. And, precious though time may be, EU
policymakers have taken a lot longer than expected to finalise the programme details and formally
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launch all the calls for grant applications. By June, only the European Research Council and the
European Innovation Council had actually opened calls – and the latter had to close the gate again
suddenly, saying it needed more time to assess the torrent of applicants.
One new feature of Horizon Europe, “missions” to solve big global challenges, has only been
sketched out in the broadest terms. There are supposed to be five missions: on climate, cancer,
oceans, smart cities and soil health, with the specific objectives suggested by a series of expert
advisory panels. These missions are modelled on the US Apollo moonshot: Pick a big, headline-
making goal and pump the money into getting lots of people making it happen. But they will, at
best, have 6% of the total Horizon budget – and that will come mostly from relabeling other parts
of Horizon. In short, a far cry from the original ambitions. On this budget, Apollo wouldn’t have
gotten into orbit, never mind reach the moon.
Horizon Europe’s 4 main objectives
In February 2021, after months of meetings and public consultation, the Commission published a
detailed mission statement for the bulk of the programme’s first four years:
• “Promoting an open strategic autonomy by leading the development of key digital, enabling and
emerging technologies, sectors and value chains to accelerate and steer the digital and green
transitions through human-centred technologies and innovations;
• “Restoring Europe’s ecosystems and biodiversity, and managing sustainably natural resources
to ensure food security and a clean and healthy environment;
• “Making Europe the first digitally enabled circular, climate-neutral and sustainable economy
through the transformation of its mobility, energy, construction and production systems;
• “Creating a more resilient, inclusive and democratic European society, prepared and responsive
to threats and disasters, addressing inequalities and providing high-quality health care, and
empowering all citizens to act in the green and digital transitions.”
As in past Frameworks, the heart of Horizon is a collection of subject-specific “work programmes”

that lay out the Commission’s research objectives in health, energy, ICT and other fields. Much
of that money will go to consortia of researchers and (often) companies competing against
one another for the money in response to “calls for proposals” periodically published by the
Commission. The winners – the odds of success in Horizon 2020 were about 11% - sign grant
contracts setting the terms of payment, reimbursement, intellectual property, liability and such
in excruciating detail. Partly overlapping with these will be a series of 49 so-called partnerships.
These are legally constituted public-private, or all-public, consortia doing collaborative R&D in
specific sectors, to which the Commission can sometimes sub-contract decisions on who gets
money for what. These partnerships have many critics – from the left, claiming it permits corporate
self-dealing, and from the right, that they are ineffectual government meddling in private R&D. But
they have been a central feature of the Framework Programmes for years, and a direct expression
of industrial policy to make Europe more competitive globally. In Horizon Europe, the Commission
said it has tried to simplify the partnership rules and types. So far, however, many multinationals
are grumbling that this “simplification” appears to be for the Commission’s benefit, not theirs.
Another (relatively) new feature in Horizon is the European Innovation Council (EIC), a funding
agency inside Horizon focused on start-ups, fast-growth companies and their plans to get new or
“disruptive” technologies to market. A pilot version of the EIC was launched under Horizon 2020.
One part of the EIC, the Accelerator, is intended to support innovation in small and medium-
sized enterprises (SMEs) through a mix of grants, equity investment and, possibly, loans. It
partially replaces an existing component of Horizon 2020, the SME Instrument, which provided
grants to small companies – and which had become a mainstay of cash-starved entrepreneurs in
Spain, Italy and other economically struggling EU members. MEPs wanted to preserve the SME
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Instrument’s functions by ringfencing 40 per cent of the EIC Accelerator’s budget for grants only.
But that didn’t happen. Instead, the two sides agreed to change the remit of the Accelerator from
providing only “blended finance” to awarding “two types of support: mainly blended finance […]
as well as grants, optionally followed by equity investment.” What does that mean, exactly? That
the Commission has become one of the biggest tech investors in Europe, pumping hundreds of
millions of euros directly into buying shares of promising little tech companies across the EU.
Another political hot potato was support for the EU’s poorer, mainly east European, members. In
those countries, politicians complain that their researchers win fewer grants than those in western
Europe, and when they do win a grant they get paid less. Western politicians say that’s just
because the eastern universities aren’t as strong, and their national pay levels are generally lower.
For a time, this argument – picking at the political scab between the EU’s rich northwest and poor
southeast – threatened to stalemate all the negotiations.
The Parliament, led on this issue by Romanian MEP Dan Nica, were unable to persuade the Council
that Horizon Europe should compensate by paying researchers in poorer countries an additional
25% on top of their normal local salaries. Instead, negotiators agreed that 3.3% of Horizon
Europe’s budget should support efforts to make it easier for poorer countries to win grants – for
instance, by funding partnerships between eastern and western universities, or allowing eastern
researchers to “hop on” to existing Horizon projects led by the west. It wasn’t a great deal for
either side, but it stopped the fighting long enough to move the Horizon legislation forward. But
the pay issue is reemerging.
The structure of Horizon Europe
One of the dark arts of Framework Programmes in Brussel has always been how to write the
organisational charts for the sub-programmes. This can seem an arcane topic, but it directly
affects how the money gets allocated and administered.
The agreed structure for Horizon Europe is broadly similar to that proposed by the Commission
in 2018, dividing the programme into three “pillars,” each with a different role: promoting the best
science, solving societal or industrial problems, and funding small companies. For instance, inside
the science pillar is the widely respected European Research Council funding frontier research.
Inside the “global challenges” pillar are a series of six broad R&D topics, or “clusters,” that will
be further broken down into a series of competitive calls for grants, plus the new missions and
partnerships. Inside the “Innovative Europe” pillar will be the new EIC. And a fourth part (not called
a pillar as part of the political compromises of 2019) will help the poorer EU members improve
their R&D performance.
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Horizon Europe, pillar by pillar
Pillar I: Excellent Science Support for academic research €24.9 billion

European Research Council Awards research grants for €16.1 billion
promising and leading academic
researchers
Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions Academic fellowships €6.4 billion
Research Infrastructures Material resources for the academic €2.4 billion
community
Pillar II: Global Challenges Targeted research and innovation €53.8 billion
and European Industrial funding to address EU policy goals
Competitiveness
Cluster One: Health Funding for health-related topics €8 billion
Cluster Two: Culture, creativity and Funding for cultural heritage, creative €2.3 billion
inclusive society industries, and social inclusion
Cluster Three: Civil security for society Funding for security-related topics, €1.9 billion
including cybersecurity
Cluster Four: Digital, industry, and Funding for key technologies, €15.5 billion
space manufacturing, space and other
related topics.
Cluster Five: Climate, energy, and Funding for topics related to climate €15.2 billion
mobility change, clean energy and clean and
autonomous mobility
Cluster Six: Food, bioeconomy, Funding for better management €9 billion
natural resources, agriculture and of the natural world (not including
environment climate change)
Joint Research Council Funding for the Commission’s in- €2 billion
house research centre
Pillar III: Innovative Europe Support for innovation projects €13.4 billion
with commercial potential
European Innovation Council Awards grants, loans and equity to €9.7 billion
startups and university spin-offs
European innovation ecosystems Supports dialogue between €0.5 billion
stakeholders
European Institute of Innovation and Promotes cooperation between €3.2 billion
Technology academia and industry through
partnerships and training
programmes
Strengthening the European Aims to boost the performance of €3.3 billion
Research Area Europe’s research and innovation
landscape
Widening participation and spreading Supports measures to help Europe’s €3 billion
excellence lower-performing regions catch up
Reforming and enhancing the Supports policy evaluation and €0.3 billion
European R&I system promotes change in European
research
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Pillar I: Excellent Science
“Excellent Science” is for the purists: it’s all about supporting the best science and the best
scientists without privileging one field over another.
Pillar I has three parts, the most significant of which is the European Research Council, an EU
agency run partly by scientists, for scientists. The ERC awards grants targeting researchers at
different stages in their careers, and intended to go to people carrying out the highest-quality
research without specifying what fields or challenges that research should concentrate on. The
idea is to support the pursuit of science for its own sake, not for policymakers to use grant funding
as a way to influence research and direct it towards what they think is important (that’s pillar II’s
job).
The second part is the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. The MSCA are a collection of different
research fellowships that aim to help young researchers develop their careers. As with ERC
grants there is no special treatment for particular research topics, but MSCA fellowships are
geared towards supporting international research collaboration, such as travel grants, researcher
networks and staff exchanges.
The third piece of pillar I is “research infrastructures,” which is a portion of the budget ringfenced
for “big science” labs, scientific archives, complex databases and other types of physical or virtual
infrastructure that could be of use to European researchers. One beneficiary of this component is
the European Open Science Cloud, a partnership that aims to create a gigantic virtual space for
researchers to store, manage, share and re-use research data.
Pillar II: Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness

Pillar II gets the largest share of the budget: €53.8 billion, or 56% of the total. In contrast to the
hands-off approach of Pillar I, Pillar II will support research and innovation that address challenges
and priorities defined by the EU – in short, this fulfills the prime political purpose of the programme,
the reason why 27 EU member governments agreed to dump billions on labs and techies. There’s
space for France, autos and engineering for Germany, health for Sweden, wheat and spas for
Hungary – the political must-haves are endlessly complex. But to try simplifying, the budget
negotiators organised Pillar II into six broad, themed “clusters” covering health, culture, security,
climate & energy, food & environment and (the biggest cluster) digital, industry and space.
The legislation only sketches out the purposes of each cluster in very broad strokes. The main
objectives are laid out in a “Strategic Plan” that the Commission published in March 2021. But
even this doesn’t explain exactly what grants will be on offer: as of June 2021, that’s still in the
works, held up by a row over which non-EU countries should be able to participate in quantum
computing and space projects. But the Commission staff has been working on the details for the
past few years, drafting and redrafting “work programmes” that describe the objectives, specific
calls for proposals, and the timing of it all. These work programmes, in draft form, have been
circulating online for months, and in a later chapter we flesh out in more detail what’s planned. A
side-note: in theory these drafts are non-public, as Commission work in progress – but in January
2021 Science|Business gathered all the drafts it could find online and published them. We believe
this should all be public, from beginning to end, to ensure every applicant has an equal chance at
preparing for the calls.
23
The six clusters of Pillar II – from the Horizon legislation
1. Health:
> “Health throughout the life course,” including healthy ageing, infant and child health, mental
health in adolescents
> “Environmental and social health determinants” like pollution, poverty, and occupational health
> “Non-communicable and rare diseases”
> “Infectious diseases, including poverty-related and neglected diseases”
> “Tools, technologies and digital solutions for health and care, including personalised medicine”
> “Health care systems” addressing public health services, including new technologies, data, and
digital skills
2. Culture, creativity and inclusive society:

> “Democracy and governance,” including populism, journalistic standards, cultural identity,
social media, justice systems
> “Cultural heritage,”
> “Social and economic transformations” including education,training, sustainability, tax, social
security, affordable housing
3. Civil security for society:

> “Disaster-resilient societies” including tools for first responders and tools to prevent, manage
and reduce disaster risk
> “Protection and security” including tools for emergency services, analysis of cross-border crime,
radicalisation and fraud
> “Cybersecurity”
4. Digital, industry and space, which covers:

> “Manufacturing technologies” such as biotech production, additive manufacturing, intelligent
robotics, AI, sensor technologies, advanced batteries and hydrogen
> “Key digital technologies,” such as nanoelectronics and photonics
> “Emerging enabling technologies,” meaning undefined future technologies
> “Advanced materials” such as new polymers and alloys
> “Artificial intelligence and robotics”
> “Next Generation Internet” meaning future Internet infrastructures like 5G and the services they
might support,
> “Advanced Computing and Big Data” including High Performance Computing (HPC)
> “Circular Industries,” which, broadly speaking, covers recycling
> “Low-carbon and clean industries” including process technologies, conversion technologies,
electrification and unconventional energy sources within industrial plants
> “Space, including Earth Observation,” including satellite programmes like Galileo, EGNOS
and Copernicus; Space Situational Awareness, secure satellite comms; non-dependency and
sustainability in the supply chain
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5. Climate, energy, and mobility:
> “Climate science and solutions”
> “Energy supply”
> “Energy systems and grids”
> “Buildings and industrial facilities in energy transition”
> “Communities and cities,” including decarbonisation, urban planning, and quality of life for
citizens
> “Industrial competitiveness in transport,” including vehicle design, on-board systems, new
materials, construction methods
> “Clean, safe and accessible transport and mobility” including electrification of all modes of
transport, batteries, fuel cells, and hybrid fuel technologies, sustainable fuels, and analysis of
mobility patterns
> “Smart mobility” including digital traffic management, air traffic control, railway automation, and
smart shipping,
> “Energy storage” including liquid and gaseous renewable fuels, batteries, and hydrogen
6. Food, bioeconomy, natural resources and environment:

> “Environmental observation” including open data, monitoring of biodiversity, and the Global
Earth Observation System
> “Biodiversity and natural resources” including terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems
and ecotoxicology of compounds and new pollutants
> “Agriculture, forestry, and rural areas,” including antimicrobial resistance and agrochemical
hazards, digital innovations in farming and forestry such as AI, robotics, precision farming and
remote sensing
> “Seas, oceans and inland waters” including environmental protection, blue economy, the role
of seas in migration
> “Food systems” including healthy diets, personalised nutrition, consumer behaviour,
environmental sustainability
> “Bio-based innovation systems in the EU bioeconomy,” including sustainable biomass sourcing
and bio-based materials
> “Circular systems” including cities and the use of water resources
Besides the clusters, pillar II will also fund the Joint Research Centre. The JRC is the Commission’s
in-house research service, which publishes research intended to help support and inform EU
policymaking. It also manages nuclear research, under one of the three founding European treaties
of 1957. Unsurprisingly, JRC research funded through Horizon Europe will follow similar themes
to the six clusters.
Pillar III: Innovative Europe

If Pillar I is about scientific research that’s supported but not steered by the EU, then Pillar III
attempts to do something similar for technological innovation. This part of the programme,
called “Innovative Europe,” funds actions that are intended to produce new and unpredicted
technology-enabled businesses and business models, as well as more innovative ways of doing
things generally, without much top-down direction on what technologies should be supported. It
was the pet project of Carlos Moedas, the Portuguese research commissioner from 2014 to 2019,
who vowed to help turn Europe into a breeding ground for sizzling, high-growth tech companies
with “disruptive innovations” to unleash on global markets.
Pillar III has three components. Foremost among them is the new European Innovation Council.
Broadly speaking, the EIC’s job is to provide grants, equity and possibly loans for small businesses
25
The Horizon Papers
What research will Horizon Europe, the EU's new R&D programme, fund? When will the European
Commission publish calls for grant applications? All this is in the detailed Work Programmes that
the Commission has been drafting for months.Below you can find all the Work Programme drafts
Science|Business is aware of. Some were leaked to us, as explained in this viewpoint. Some,
marked here with an asterisk, were published recently by the Commission. This list is as of 8 July
2021. Visit sciencebusiness.net for the latest version.
> General introduction: January 2020, March 2021*

> General annexes: November 2020, January 2021, March 2021*
> Annex 2: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
> Annex 3: Research Infrastructures, March 2021*
> Strategic plan: November 2020, January 2021
> Model grant agreement: December 2020, February 2021
> Proposal template
> European Research Council: Final work programme
> Widening and European Research Area
> The European Innovation Council: November 2020, March 2021*
> Research missions: February 2021, March 2021*
> Digital, Industry, Space
> Digital, industry and space cluster: December 2020 version, February 2021, March 2021,
March 2021 version 2
> Health cluster: October 2020; January 2021, March 2021*
> Climate, energy, and mobility: November 2020, February 2021, February 2021 version 2*
> Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment: December 2020,
April 2021
> Culture, creativity and inclusive society: October 2020, March 2021*
> Civil security for society: September 2020, October 2020, January 2021*
> Missions: April 2021*
> Euratom: February 2021*
>S lides from meeting of the Shadow Strategic Configuration
with interesting yet financially risky ideas. Of the EIC’s nearly €10 billion budget, hundreds of millions
of euros will go to buying shares in some of these companies – in effect, turning the Commission
into a major tech investor. It also thrusts the Commission into some thorny geopolitical problems.
For instance, what happens if the Commission buys shares in a hot new tech company, and then
a Chinese company tries to buy control? Answer: the Commission can block it, but that constraint
might make it harder for the company to raise additional private capital. Another question: The
venture capital game is, by definition, risky. How much appetite will the EIC actually have for
losing taxpayer money?
Alongside the EIC is its older sibling, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, or EIT.
Its role is to support education and training programmes tailored towards innovation, to support
university spin-outs and to convene partnerships between public and private sector. It operates
through a series of very large, distributed public-private consortia, or “knowledge and innovation
communities”, in specific fields such as health or energy R&D. The EIT also has its own research
agenda defined in another piece of legislation separately from Horizon Europe, even though it will
be funded through the Horizon budget. In contrast to its past, the EIT in future is supposed to put
more emphasis on eastern Europe and integrating researchers and companies in the region into
its Europe-wide networks.
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The other chunk of Pillar III is ‘European innovation ecosystems.’ This portion of the budget
isn’t for competitive grant calls: instead, the money will be spent on efforts to get the relevant
actors talking to one another, such as through events hosted by the Commission. For example,
the legislation says that “as a first step the Commission will organise an EIC Forum of Member
States and Associated Countries” to discuss matters such as “innovation-friendly regulation” and
regional coordination. Exactly how that kind of language will be translated into grants and actions
is, as yet, a mystery still being worked out inside the Commission.
Part 4: Strengthening the European Research Area

The fourth component of Horizon Europe sits alongside the three main pillars, and attempts
to improve the performance of research centres in Europe’s poorer regions, and the European
research community generally. Under the Commission rhetoric, it entails improving the “European
Research Area”, a kind of single market for ideas, with sub-programmes to prevent national borders
from being an obstacle to scientific research in Europe. That means a series of programmes to
strengthen research institutions in the poorer countries, help their researchers network better with
those in the west, and join existing projects if their research is relevant.
Measures under “reforming and enhancing the European R&I system,” meanwhile, apply throughout
the EU, and aim to support a diverse mix of different EU policy ambitions for EU research policy
and the European Research Area. These include – among other things – “strengthening the
evidence base” for R&I policy, predicting future needs and trends, “accelerating the transition
towards open science,” and promoting gender equality.
The details of this part of the programme are only gradually coming into focus. But the motivation
was intensely political. EU budgets require unanimous approval of the members, and what could
possibly motivate the newest, mostly eastern, members to support Horizon if they don’t benefit
from it? The entire region, in Horizon 2020, got just about as much cash as one small western
member, Belgium. Researchers in the US – which last time anyone checked was not an EU member
– actually got more Horizon money than those in Lithuania. To be sure, the eastern politicians
wanted more than the €3.3 billion earmarked for them. But even that required some creative
horse-trading. The final list of eligible countries includes, surprisingly, Greece and Portugal. They
were last-minute additions to break a political impasse in the budget negotiations. In Brussels,
plus ça change…
27
3 The politics of
Horizon Europe
To understand how a massive, portmanteau programme like Horizon gets designed, consider the All politics is
case of water. local.
In early 2019, the any EU member state officials planning Horizon Europe were at last getting Thomas P. “Tip”
down to serious business: how to divide up the bulk of the programme’s budget between various O’Neill, former
industrial sectors. How much for space, how much for digital – and how much for oceans? One US Speaker of
of the broad research “missions” the Commission was planning would be for everything wet from the House of
marine biology to ocean energy and pollution. It may sound like a nice, neutral scientific topic. But Representatives
how the Commission spends the money would affect fisheries, shipping, watershed management,
energy production and other serious industries across the EU. And, in the meetings, member state
officials seemed obsessed – not with the actual euro amounts, but with what to call the mission.
The original mission title was simply “Healthy Oceans.” But it quickly grew longer, as the debates
progressed. Some officials asked: What about seas? And what about tidal rivers? New title:
“Healthy Oceans, Seas and Incoming Waterways.” Wait – a question raised by the Czechs: What
about lakes and rivers? New title: “Healthy Oceans, Seas and Inland Waterways”. Malta next: Does
this cover the coasts? “Healthy Oceans, Seas, Coastal and Inland Waterways.” From Hungary:
What about natural spas and baths? “Healthy Oceans, Seas, Coastal, Inland and Natural Waters.”
Then a bit of Irish sarcasm to end the debate: What about holy water? The resulting title: “Healthy
oceans, seas, coastal and inland waters.” (No surprise: it has changed again since 2019.)
What was this silliness all about? Local politics, of course. Horizon money is supposed to be
apportioned to the best research teams, based on the quality of their grant proposals. There aren’t
supposed to be (many) earmarks for specific countries or organisations. Yet in fact, each country
jealously counts the money its teams win; they each want their juste retour from paying into the
EU budget. And the smaller, newer EU members like the Czechs and Hungarians have been
justifiably annoyed that they don’t get much of the money; after decades of national economic
turmoil, research teams in those countries are often beaten in the grant competitions by richer,
better connected organisations in France or Germany. So, they reason, let’s at least be sure that
the fields we’re good at get written into the plan – better yet, right into the legal title of the plan.
This kind of reasoning pervades Horizon Europe – and has done, since the beginning of the
Framework Programmes in 1984. Then, when these multiannual R&D programmes started, the
game was to be sure the national tech champions would reliably win the research subsidies:
Philips for the Netherlands, Siemens and Nixdorf for Germany, Ericsson for Sweden, Alcatel and
CGE for France, Olivetti for Italy, ICL for Britain, and so on. It was all a matter of heavy corporate
lobbying in Brussels, backed by their respective governments. They shrewdly took advantage of
the anxiety among European leaders in the early 1980s that they were about to be outgunned
technologically by the massive US Star Wars programme and a rising Japanese tech industry.
Work together, as Europeans, with European money. And the Commission, ever on the alert for
a reason to expand its legal powers, enthusiastically piloted what became the first Framework
Programme in 1984. A few years later, the member states – anxious about the Commission’s
growing clout – also created Eureka, a multilateral R&D programme that continues today.
Now, R&D budgets are bigger, the topics broader, the EU larger. But the game is unchanged:
Write your country’s research strengths into the authorising legislation. And each country has its
special priorities: France for aerospace, Germany for engineering and manufacturing, Sweden for
health and education, Italy and Spain for small companies, and so on. In fact, if you carefully read
the text of the hundreds of pages of Framework legislation, you can spot clues to who wanted
what. For instance, in the process of negotiating the latest legislation through the European
Parliament, Horizon unexpectedly gained a whole section of research funding for creative and
cultural industries – the result of strong support from German and other delegations with big
media and cultural sectors.
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Is this bad? No, within reason. After all, taxpayers in each of those EU member states are paying
for this programme; and while advancing science and technology benefit all, taxpayers could
reasonably expect to see some tangible benefits at home. That’s the way it works in every major
country that funds big research programmes: US research legislation is blatantly earmarked by
Congress with money for Iowa farms or Texas energy. But recognising this fact of political life can
be helpful for researchers or entrepreneurs applying for grants. The mere fact that certain themes
are written into the law means some of the money must go in that direction – and so that makes
a bigger target for Hungarian or Czech aquaculturalists to aim for.
There are also, of course, other political issues at play in Horizon. A quick guide:
Cohesion v Excellence. The Horizon programme is about 8% of the total Commission budget
in normal times– and, if you add in the special €750 billion pandemic recovery fund approved by
EU leaders last December, it’s just 5%. That means there are other programmes that come ahead
of research in the budget negotiations – and one of them is the EU’s huge regional development
programmes, or Cohesion money. In 2019, as negotiations got serious over the 2021-27 budget
plan, several of the poorer countries most dependent on that money banded together into a group
they called “Friends of Cohesion” to lobby with one voice. Then, some of the countries most
supportive of Horizon organised themselves into the “Friends of Excellence”, to support funding
for excellent scientific research. By and large, they lost the fight: the Horizon budget ended up
smaller than any of its advocates wanted. Worse, the earmark inside Cohesion for “innovation”
– support for labs and universities in poorer countries – was also curtailed. The whole episode
highlights the weak political clout of the European research community.
Research v Innovation. It isn’t enough that Horizon fans have to battle other groups for money,
but they also manage to waste political capital in endless internecine squabbles. Chief among
these is the rift between basic and applied research – or, in the current Brussels terminology,
frontier research and innovation. The former is advocated by the top-ranked universities that win
most fundamental research grants. The latter is championed by Europe’s huge contract research
organisations that help industry develop new products; joining them are small-business groups
that advocate for SME funding. Multinationals are in both camps: they want the public sector
to fund the basic research on which their new products depend, but they also want the state to
support the long process of bringing an idea to market. This particular argument often bleeds into
a related one, of “bottom up” v. “top-down”: letting researchers propose their own project ideas,
or requiring them to respond to specific needs defined by politicians. Research fans tried in 2020
to point to the amazingly fast development of COVID vaccines as proof of their argument: That
could not have happened without prior years of patient, basic science on vaccines and viruses.
But the ministers didn’t listen: For the most part, the policy-driven, close-to-market money won the
budget battle. That’s hardly a surprise: the main political rationale for the Framework Programme
has always been "jobs and growth”, not knowledge for its own sake. The fact that, in Washington,
the Biden Administration has support for big R&D bucks – for both fundamental and applied
research – rubbed salt in the political wounds in Europe.
The Frugals. The EU budget is a massive income-transfer scheme: By design, rich countries like
Germany pay more into the budget than they directly gain from it; poor countries like Bulgaria get
back more than they pay. The resulting intra-EU trade and jobs creation benefit both sides – up to
a point. In 2020. with so much money needed for the pandemic, some of the net payers ganged
together to limit spending on what they viewed as less-urgent matters like Horizon. Four countries
– Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and Austria – formed “the Frugal Four”; Finland joined them
on some issues, to make it five. The outcome: A relatively modest increase was agreed for the
Commission’s regular budget including Horizon, alongside a massive, one-off pandemic recovery
fund with mostly borrowed money. It was the first time the net payers agreed to back EU debt
on such a scale; some commentators called it the EU’s Hamiltonian moment – a reference to
the first US treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, at the start of federal union. But, again, for
researchers, it felt more like a Waterloo.
30
East v West. The fault line between the EU’s poorer East and richer West runs deep, through
almost all EU policy debates. So Horizon is no exception. Just 5.2% of Horizon 2020’s budget
went to the mostly eastern member states that joined the union since 2004. Almost all the rest
was awarded to researchers in the richer, older EU states. The reasons are complex: decades
of university under-funding in the East make it harder for most of them to compete against rich
westerners for the money. As Horizon negotiations started in 2018, some eastern politicians
vowed to change that. Led by Romanian MEP Dan Nica, they fashioned it into an argument about
unfair pay gaps: under Horizon pay rules, researchers get compensated on whatever their national
pay scales consider normal – leading to a Romanian researcher getting a fraction of the salary that
her German research partner is getting, for the same work. The argument didn’t fly; Horizon is a
research programme, not an income-leveling tool, the western states argued. Instead, the east
got an expanded “Widening” budget in Horizon, of €3.3 billion, to increase the odds of eastern
researchers joining winning project consortia. The debate is far from over, however.
Association. In Horizon 2020, 16 non-EU countries, from Iceland to Tunisia, joined the programme
as “associated” countries. They paid into the common EU pot, based on complicated economic
and development aid formulae, and their researchers could bid for grants on an equal footing
with German or Spanish colleagues. Some were wildly successful at it: Switzerland in the prior
programme, FP7, actually profited from membership – though in Horizon 2020 two years of
partial exclusion over an immigration dispute slowed its winning streak. For Horizon Europe, the
Commission initially planned an even more ambitious “open to the world” policy, and started
sounding out Canada, Australia, Japan and five others far from Europe about membership. But
Brexit was a problem: Because the UK would join Horizon as a non-EU associate, the Commission
didn’t want to negotiate association with any other countries until it knew the final shape of Brexit
(which wasn’t until December 2020.) And then, the pandemic forced a rethink about just how
open the EU wants to be with the likes of Trump’s America or the Chinese government. The result:
The existing associates in the European region will probably rejoin, and cooperation will expand
with non-EU countries – but nothing like what was initially envisioned. And it will be some months
before all the details become clear.
Parliament v Council. Another endless dispute in Brussels is over the respective powers of the
European Parliament and of the EU Council of Ministers. Though the balance shifted slightly
in the last major EU treaty changes, the realpolitik of Brussels is that the Council dictates and
the Parliament protests. In the many budget discussions over Horizon since 2018 – so-called
trilogues with the Commission as third party – the Parliamentary forces led by German MEP
Christian Ehler and Nica of Romania, succeeded in getting many changes to the details of how
the Horizon money will be spent. But on the budget, the Council had the last word in December
2020; all the Parliament could do is complain. Nevertheless, in April 2021, it voted to let the broad,
seven-year research agenda go ahead. But this issue is not finished: There are several points in
the years ahead when Parliament will fight back. If they win, it will mean extra money for Horizon.
RTD v the rest. The Commission is a complicated place, with thousands of bright, multilingual
and dedicated staffers. Each is convinced his or her little piece of the policy world is paramount;
and the Commission’s structure – dividing the staff into subject-specific directorates-general
– serves to reinforce that perception. One of the biggest departments is DG Research and
Innovation, in Brussels still known by a former name, DG RTD (for Research and Technology
Development.) Whatever it’s called, it leads the Horizon file and, through smaller administrative
agencies, manages most of the money. But Horizon is cross-sectoral, meaning it wanders into
territory claimed by DG Agriculture and Rural Development, DG Energy, DG Regional and Urban
Policy, DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology. So if there’s a stray billion to be
spent on digital research, who’s the boss: RTD or Connect? This kind of conflict has led to some
odd compromises – such as packaging money for RTD’s science cloud-computing services with
Connect’s massive IT hardware programme. And RTD and Agriculture are constantly sniping at
one another over the climate impact of farming and what research should do about it. With Horizon
Europe, the Commission has declared all of that nonsense must stop and Horizon strategy will be
worked out in cross-DG committees. Well, few expect the cease-fire to last.
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All good political fun, this recitation of conflicts. But many researchers may ask why they should
care about any of this? Well, when you go to a restaurant, do you care how the kitchen prepares
your meal? When you go to a hospital, do you care how well the cardiology ward works with the
imaging department? Or whether there’s enough money for each to perform well? At the least, the
answer might affect which hospital or restaurant you go to; Horizon isn’t the only R&D programme
in Europe, after all. And at the most, a good knowledge of the system may help you get the most
out of it. If you’re writing a Horizon grant for research on energy from algae, it would help to know
how that field intersects with EU policies for energy, oceans, climate and environment. As every
researcher can attest, knowledge is a good thing.
The making of Horizon Europe

A timeline of key developments – from Science|Business news
It took years to prepare Horizon Europe – in fact, nearly as long as it will take to spend the money.
Inside the Commission, the planning began even as its predecessor, Horizon 2020, was just on
the launchpad in 2014. Hundreds of meetings, thousands of pages, and repeated drafts led to
the Commission’s formal proposal in mid-2018. Then followed three years – and still counting
for some parts of the programme – of often-fraught negotiations among the member states, the
Commission and the European Parliament. Here, we summarise some of the milestones, based
on our live news reporting at the time. And the story goes on, at www.sciencebusiness.net.
News |9 Jan 2018

EU eyes more R&D spending, but battle is on over call for EU27 to pay more
EU leaders are calling for an increase in the

budget from 2020 onwards to pay for more
spending on research and innovation, defence
and controlling migration, in the face of the
UK’s exit and the loss of its €11.52 billion per
annum net contribution.
The European Commission kicked off the

debate on the next seven-year budget at a
meeting on Monday, with Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker urging the remaining 27
member states to pay more.
Leaders speaking at the conference said extra payments would ensure continued high EU
investment in research and innovation, with the budget commissioner, Günther Oettinger saying
he will fight for higher spending on two programmes in particular: the successor to Horizon 2020,
under which the EU is currently spending €77 billion on research, and Erasmus, which funds
student exchanges. “These are two objectives I wish to back,” Germany’s commissioner said.
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News |2 May 2018
European Commission proposes €100B for research programme
The European Commission on Wednesday

outlined a €100 billion budget for its new
research programme, running between 2021
and 2027.
The figure includes €97.6 billion for Horizon

Europe, the EU’s flagship research programme,
and €2.4 billion for the Euratom nuclear
research programme. For Horizon Europe,
that’s an increase of almost 30%– when adjusted for inflation – on the EU’s existing research
programme of €77 billion. Without the inflation adjustment, it’s a less-inspiring rise to €86.6 billion
– though Commission officials are promoting the bigger number.
The Commission sent member states and the European Parliament an overall budget request of
more than €1 trillion, equivalent to 1.11% of the EU27's gross national income. The first post-
Brexit budget, called the Multiannual Financial Framework, included reductions to the two largest
EU spending programmes, farm and regional aid, down 5 and 7% respectively, to make room for
more spending on research and defence. Tougher conditions are also placed on member states
in receipt of funds, including economic reform and adherence to EU “values” such as rule of law.
“Everyone said we want more for research – it’s happening,” the Commission’s President Jean-
Claude Juncker told reporters at the unveiling of the blueprint. The new research programme is
one of the few EU budget lines to go up in the Commission’s seven-year proposal; another is
the Erasmus+ student exchange programme, which sees its budget double to €30 billion. The
Commission also requested €4.1 billion funding for defence research – an increase on the €3.5
billion originally proposed and way up from a current, €90 million pilot programme. The amount,
if granted, would place the EU among the top four defence research and technology investors in
Europe.
News |2 May 2018

Research community (not exactly) thrilled about Horizon Europe budget proposal
“Could do better.” That’s the

first reaction from the ever-
fractious European research
community, as it absorbed the
European Commission’s proposal
Wednesday to boost its research
and innovation budget to €100
billion. Many vowed to push for
more in the months of negotiations
to come.
The part good, part bad reaction was typified by Christian Ehler, a German member of the European
Parliament. “Today’s €100 billion proposal to the research and innovation sends the right signal
to the research community and to member states on the importance of this sector to Europe’s
economy.” Still, Ehler added, it’s not enough. “The European Parliament will fight for increasing
this figure to €120 billion,” he said.
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News |5 June 2018
‘No quick fix’ in Horizon Europe for low success rates, says EU research chief
Even with the big research budget increase

planned for the next EU research programme,
Horizon Europe, there is “no quick fix” for
declining success rates, said Jean-Eric Paquet,
director-general for research and innovation at
the European Commission.
A potential €97.6 billion for research between

2021 and 2027 would not necessarily improve
application success rates, which have fallen to 11.9 per cent under the current programme, because
the extra money may simply stimulate higher numbers of applicants, Paquet told delegates at a
Science|Business conference Tuesday.
“It’s something we need to look at collectively. Funding programmes in national countries are
[being] reduced, so more applicants come to us,” he said.
News |7 June 2018

European Commission publishes its
€94.1B Horizon Europe proposal
EU Research Commissioner Carlos Moedas

sent the European Parliament and member
states a €94.1 billion research budget proposal
on Thursday outlining increases in basic science
spending and a blueprint for a new innovation
council to spawn transformative inventions.
The Commission’s budget breakdown for its next research programme, Horizon Europe, running
between 2021 and 2027, devotes the biggest share of funding, €52.7 billion, to a series of projects
to tackle climate change, boost digital technologies, improve food, handle other ‘global challenges’
and boost industrial competitiveness.
The balance of the €94.1 billion will go to fund fundamental science and innovation. The total for
Horizon Europe represents about 10% of government research funding across the EU.
News |28 June 2018

Industry in race to keep billion-euro EU
partnerships alive
Electric vehicle groups, chip manufacturers,

pharmaceutical companies and other industry
groups are gearing up for a fight to hold onto
their EU funding, as the European Commission
begins a review into the billions of euros it
gives in research incentives to companies.
The EU funds 19 big industry-led partnerships, with beneficiaries from nearly all corners of the
corporate world, encompassing drugs, planes, trains and automobiles. Partnerships include
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Clean Sky, which funds research into cleaner, quieter aircraft, and the European Green Vehicles
Initiative, which looks to develop technologies like longer-life batteries.
The Commission’s legal text for its next research programme, Horizon Europe, talks of
“rationalisation” of these partnerships. “I’m telling you, there will be changes,” the director general
of DG Research and Innovation Jean-Eric Paquet told an audience of industry and research heads
in Brussels on Tuesday, though he did not make a concrete promise on which partnerships would
be kept.
News |28 September 2018
Austrian science minister: governments and EU Commission ‘in conflict’ over

research missions
Austria’s Minister of Education, Science and
Research Heinz Fassmann says the European
Commission and member states are divided
on who gets to choose topics for new research
missions under the €94.1 billion Horizon
Europe programme.
“There is a conflict over who gets to decide

the mission themes. On the one hand the
Commission says we want to decide, and on
the other hand member states also say they want to decide,” Fassmann said in an interview with
Science|Business, on the eve of a meeting of research ministers in Brussels.
Missions are a new form of objective-focused research, envisaged as broad funding instruments
that award a mixture of grants, prizes and loans for defined projects that aim to address intractable
societal problems. Governments want more say in selecting these missions, according to Fassman,
a former geography professor who is leading negotiations for member states on Horizon Europe
during the Austrian EU presidency. Ministers resumed talks in Brussels on Friday, following a
preliminary meeting in Vienna in July.
News |1 December 2018

Research ministers agree outline deal on Horizon Europe
Europe’s research ministers reached an

outline deal on the EU’s 2021-2027 research
programme, Horizon Europe, late Friday,
November 30, in Brussels, but failed to agree
on a number of tricky issues.
Following marathon eight and a half hour talks,

a majority of EU countries held out against
demands from a bloc of central and eastern
countries to cap spending on huge industry
partnerships. Member states also swung behind a proposal to carve out more room for space-
related research in the €94.1 billion programme.
35
European Parliament backs bigger €120B EU research budget
The European Parliament gave its formal

stamp of approval to the EU’s next big research
programme, Horizon Europe – moving forward
legislation for it and calling for a €120 billion
budget, a 27.5% increase on the €94.1 billion
proposed by the European Commission
The vote 12 December, following a lockdown

of the Parliament after a terrorist attack here,
was a necessary milestone on the road to
starting the new programme in 2021. But several member states, led by the Netherlands, have
already come out against the kind of big budget rise that the Parliament espoused – so the vote
sets the scene for what’s likely to be at least another year of arguing among the Parliament,
Council and Commission.
News |6 March 2019

Macron gets behind the European
Innovation Council
French President Emmanuel Macron gave

some much-needed political support to the
European Commission’s plan to create a new
innovation agency.
In an opinion article published in several

newspapers around Europe on 4 March, Macron renewed his call to advance European integration
– and as part of that, urged support for Commission plans to boost job-creating technology
development through a proposed European Innovation Council. He said the EIC should have “a
budget on a par with the United States in order to spearhead new technological breakthroughs
such as artificial intelligence.”
The EIC was suggested in 2015 by EU Research Commissioner Carlos Moedas; and last year
the Commission proposed a €10.5 billion budget, over seven years, to fund it. The agency is to
support small companies, through a mix of grants, loans and investment, to develop “disruptive”
technologies and grow into world-class competitors. But the plan, though moving ahead in pilot
phase, has political question marks over how big it will actually end up being, as EU member-
states battle over how to prioritise budgets.
News |20 March 2019

EU Council and Parliament strike a deal on Horizon research programme
In the early hours of the morning on 20 March,

negotiators for the European Parliament and
the EU Council struck a deal on Horizon
Europe, the EU’s next research funding
programme, improving chances that the
European Commission will be able implement
it on time in 2021.
36
The partial agreement confirms much of the programme, but not its budget or the involvement of
non-EU countries, which will be tackled later. The new draft legal text, seen by Science|Business,
gives Horizon Europe a new section dedicated solely to the cultural sector, confirms the themes
for industry partnerships and focused research “missions,” and tweaks the European Innovation
Council, the new technology commercialisation body.
News |30 April 2019

New-look EU research department aims to overcome bureaucratic silos
EU Commissioners approved on 30 April

details of an experimental new “matrix” design
for their research policy department, which
its chief says will force staff to work together
across bureaucratic lines.
“This is really about establishing an agile,

modern, cross-cutting administration, which
really can elaborate policies and projects
differently,” said Jean-Eric Paquet, director-general of DG Research and Innovation, known
as DG RTD. The reorganisation, effective 1 June, entails more than a third of the department’s
1,463-member staff changing jobs internally, new reporting lines and planning systems, and new
relationships with other parts of the Commission.
News |24 September 2019

Angela Merkel made private appeal to support European Research Council
The European Research Council has lots

of fans, and apparently German Chancellor
Angela Merkel is among them.
At a conference in Brussels, Carlos Moedas,
in his last weeks as EU Commissioner for
research, science, and innovation, said that
Merkel telephoned him once from her plane to
voice support for the ERC.
Discussing the unusual communication for the first time, Moedas said, “At some point, I got a call
from the German chancellor’s airplane. She said that fundamental science is crucial, and [that] ‘I
care personally about the European Research Council’”.
Moedas did not elaborate at the conference, but sources said the brief call happened in early
May this year, and Merkel underlined the importance of maintaining the ERC's autonomy. At
the time, scientific leaders were alarmed that the Commission bureaucracy was trying to take
more control over the agency, which has thrived under the semi-autonomous leadership of its
governing Scientific Council. A few months earlier the agency's director had abruptly announced
his early retirement in protest.
37
News |8 October 2019
EU auditors call for simpler payment rules in Horizon Europe
The European Court of Auditors says the

rules for paying staff costs in the EU research
programme should be simplified, but wants
more checks on payments to small businesses.
The audit report says the main sources of error

in 2018 were “overdeclaring costs, such as
personnel costs, other direct costs, overheads
or ineligible subcontracting costs.” More than
half of errors involved payments to private companies, particularly salary claims submitted by
SMEs. As one case in point, auditors found errors in nine out of ten items examined in a €1.1
million claim by a UK healthcare SME.
Overcomplicated rules could be partly to blame. The auditors said although Horizon 2020 generally
has simpler rules than the previous Framework programme 7, “in some respects the methodology
for calculating personnel costs has increased in complexity, thereby increasing the risk of error.”
News |9 January 2020

New R&D commissioner aims to ‘revitalise’ European Research Area, for east and west
The European Union’s new innovation chief

wants to “revitalise” efforts to create a real
single market for research, education and
innovation, bridging the performance gap
between eastern and western Europe.
In an interview with Science|Business, Mariya

Gabriel, the new commissioner for research,
innovation, education culture and youth, laid
out her plans for R&D policy in the next five years.
Her long term goal: the establishment of a “European Knowledge Strategy” that would try to
integrate policies for the movement of ideas, researchers and students around the EU. This would
include a revamp of the European Research Area, a long-standing – but, critics say, minimally
effective – EU effort to get research communities across the EU collaborating more easily. It
would eventually also incorporate EU plans for a European Education Area, an emerging effort to
coordinate education policies.
Specific measures could include ensuring equal pay for eastern and western researchers moving
around Europe under the Marie Skłodowska Curie programme. She also aims to get busy
implementing plans for measures that could boost east European participation in Horizon Europe
– such as a “hop-on” provision in EU draft legislation last year that would let researchers from
poorer EU member-states get funding to join existing west European research projects.
38
News |19 March 2020
Commissioner vows ‘hundreds of millions’ for coronavirus R&D and calls for swift
deal on EU budget
The EU research commissioner pledged

hundreds of millions of euros for coronavirus
R&D, but called on member states to agree on
the Commission’s long-term budget to avoid
delaying critical research.
In a written interview with Science|Business,

Mariya Gabriel said research and innovation
are “critical to tackle this global crisis” and the
commission is “mobilising hundreds of millions of euro for research projects.”
The EU has already made available up to €137.5 million in funding for R&D projects working
on diagnostics, treatments and vaccines against COVID-19. The commission has announced
another €164 million for startups and SMEs with innovative solutions to tackle the outbreak.
News |27 May 2020

New EU budget proposal foresees €94.4 billion for Horizon Europe
The European Commission proposes allocating

€94.4 billion to research and innovation in its
coming Horizon Europe programme, as part of
a massive €1.85 trillion, seven-year EU budget
plan to help recover from the COVID-19 crisis.
The Horizon number, Commission officials

said, represents an increase in total spending
plans for research and innovation – by €13.5
billion, by their own measure. But inside the Brussels policy bubble this afternoon, a lively debate
broke out over how to interpret the numbers – with some calling it a cut, others an increase, and
yet others no change.
The confusion arose because of the way the Commission announced the news – until the last
minute keeping the key numbers secret even from many of its own senior officials. It certainly
caught key members of the European Parliament by surprise. One of the key Horizon legislators,
Dan Nica of Romania, called it an increase from the most-recent budget plans of the European
Council. The other legislator, Christian Ehler of Germany, called it an “almost suicidal” cut.
News |20 July 2020

Leaders agree on slimmed-down €80.9B for Horizon Europe
EU leaders agreed on a pared-back budget of

€80.9 billion for the Horizon Europe research
programme, in the fifth day of a marathon
summit to debate the EU’s long-term budget
and a post-pandemic economic recovery plan.
39
The final figure – a big blow to research advocates - is significantly lower than a proposal of €94.4
billion put forward by the European Commission in May, as the budget for the R&D programme
has been cut multiple times throughout the summit.
News |23 July 2020

Parliament hits back, vowing to ‘correct’ cuts to Horizon Europe
A flurry of MEPs across all parties came out

to defend Horizon Europe in the first plenary
meeting after EU heads of state agreed to
cut the budget for the research programme
to €80.9 billion, vowing to work together on
finding more money for future-oriented R&D.
The president of the European Parliament

David Sassoli said that in the final stages of
the budget tussle, MEPs should “correct errors” made by EU leaders during their summit last
weekend. “We cannot cut budget resources from research and Erasmus,” said Sassoli.
News |3 November 2020

MEP continues hunger strike for ‘health, research and climate’
The EU budget rapporteur Pierre Larrouturou

entered his seventh day of hunger strike
today, demanding member states approve and
implement an EU tax on financial transactions
to help boost the budget for Horizon Europe
and 14 other flagship programmes.
“I think it is scandalous that we do not invest

money for health, for research, for climate,”
Larrouturou said. He is protesting, “so that a majority of citizens know that we are facing a
catastrophe if we don’t put [up] the money, he told Science|Business. Without the appropriate
investment in health, research and climate, “We will have millions of deaths over the next ten to
twenty years,” the French MEP said.

EU leaders clinch €1.8T budget and COVID-19 stimulus deal
After weeks of bad-tempered negotiations,

EU leaders announced on Thursday evening
a deal with Hungary and Poland that will
unlock the bloc’s new €1.8 trillion budget and
economic recovery fund. On Friday, leaders
found agreement on funding allocations within
the forthcoming Horizon Europe research
programme.
40
Hungary and Poland had been holding up the release of the giant pot of money because they
opposed a mechanism tying the disbursement of funds to respecting the rule of law. Warsaw and
Budapest are under EU investigation for undermining the independence of courts and media.

EU announces budget breakdown for Horizon Europe after 14-hour talks
EU institutions reached a deal at 05:11am

Friday on the bloc’s next research programme
and the breakdown of its budget.
The final agreed budget for Horizon Europe is

€95.5 billion, in current prices, which includes
€4 billion recently retrieved in a compromise
deal with member states and €5 billion to come
out of the EU’s new COVID stimulus fund.
The negotiations, which started Thursday at 15.30 and ran for almost 14 hours, saw member
states and Parliament duel it out over how to allot these budget top-ups. The general outlines of
the giant research programme, which runs from 2021 to 2027, were already well known but a final
deal on the budget wasn’t possible without agreement between heads of state over the shape of
the EU’s overall budget and COVID-19 recovery package (this finally came Thursday night).
Members of the European Parliament were adamant on the need to rebalance the seven-year
Horizon Europe programme among the three main sections or “pillars” of the programme. Before
the negotiating session, the budget had been tilting more towards the big industry-academic
collaborations in pillar two and innovation-focused research in pillar three.
Pillar one meanwhile, the home of funding for early stage research, training and research
infrastructures, was underfunded, MEPs said. One calculation had “frontier science” shrinking
from a 32 per cent share of the total budget under the just-ending Horizon 2020 programme to a
25 per cent share of the total budget in the 2021-2027 Horizon Europe scheme.
Negotiators addressed the issue Friday and restored some of the pillar one spending. The most
notable winner was the EU’s top science agency, the European Research Council (ERC), which
gained an additional €1.1 billion, and saw its budget go just above €16 billion. According to the
ERC, the deal repairs some of the "damage" done to the Horizon Europe budget at a summit in
July. "This is certainly good news, even though we still consider that more ambitious investments
in research were necessary," the ERC said in a statement.

Parliament votes through €95.5B Horizon Europe budget
The European Parliament agreed on the EU’s

2021 - 2027 budget, including €95.5 billion for
the Horizon Europe research and innovation
programme, which now has the money to start
in 2021, with the first call for grant applications
expected by next April.
The budget was approved with 548 votes in

favour, 81 against and 66 abstentions.
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News |2 March 2021
EU to roll out new approach to managing Horizon Europe and R&D policy
The European Commission’s research

directorate (DG-RTD) is to focus more on
policy development and work more closely
with member states in the reform of national
research systems and implementation of the
European Research Area (ERA), following
a reshuffle of the organisation that will see
oversight of the implementation of EU research
programmes delegated to a string of new
executive agencies.
Jean-Eric Paquet, head of DG-RTD told Science|Business the restructuring will help the
Commission align research and innovation policy with global challenges. The new organigram
was approved by the college of commissioners last week and will come into force on 1 April.
News |27 April 2021

Parliament votes to unlock €95.5B Horizon Europe research programme
The European Parliament gave its final stamp

of approval to the Horizon Europe legislation
today, but MEPs are already casting for ways to
increase the budget, with many still bitter over
the failure to secure €120 billion for the seven
year research and innovation programme.
The vote draws a line under nearly three year

of negotiations on the content and budget of
the €95.5 billion programme, after the Parliament’s research and industry committee ITRE gave its
approval earlier this month.
“The glass is half full and half empty,” said MEP Christian Ehler, co-rapporteur for Horizon, calling
on his colleagues to find new ways to add money to the programme. “During this legislative term,
we have to see how we're going to find more funds and more ambition,” said Ehler.
News |6 May 2021

Launch of Horizon Europe work programmes postponed again
The European Commission has yet again delayed

the adoption date of Horizon Europe work
programmes, leaving researchers and MEPs to
worry about a potential funding gap.
Taking advantage of a clause that allowed
researchers to apply for funding before the
Parliament vote, the Commission has already
launched calls for proposals for the European
Research Council and the European Innovation
Council, the EU’s new innovation scale-up agency.
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However, for the rest of the €95.5 billion programme, the Commission is still finalising documents
laying out the timelines, budget and scope of dozens of calls for proposals over the next two
years.
News |20 May 2021

Technical woes are interrupting first Horizon Europe calls
The European Commission’s proposals

submission system is experiencing technical
issues as the first Horizon Europe calls launch.
On Wednesday morning, the EU’s brand new

innovation scale-up funder, the European
Innovation Council, announced a six day
extension to its Pathfinder call for breakthrough
research projects, on the day before the call
was due to close. The reason was an - unspecified - technical issue affecting the Commission’s
Funding and Tenders Portal.
The Commission encourages researchers to submit applications a few days ahead of the deadline.
But this time around, they were welcomed by error messages while trying to upload them. The
Commission has not said what the problem is, but complaints from applicants online allege that
for over a week it was not possible to edit their proposals or add partners to their projects.
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4
Missions,
partnerships and
clusters
The core of Horizon Europe is its applied, or directed, R&D projects. Since the Framework This is a
Programme’s founding in 1984, the EU’s primary objectives have been to increase Europe’s test. If the
global competitiveness and help the economy. More recently, helping the planet and easing social politicians
problems have also risen as objectives. But if you strip away these grand policy goals, the beating
heart of Horizon is found in the thousands of individual R&D consortia, that get anywhere from are serious
thousands to millions of euros to study a problem or find a solution – in energy, health, digital, about this,
environmental, climate, manufacturing and many other sectors. it requires
some
For many researchers or companies, it’s this aspect of Horizon that is most familiar. This is where substantial
an artificial intelligence start-up joins with a pharma multinational and a few medical universities
– in Stockholm, Bern, Bologna and Paris - to test out a possible new way of screening cancer structure to
tissues. It’s where a Swiss robotics lab joins with a German car manufacturer and a dozen of deliver it.
its suppliers and customers across Europe to prototype a new factory process. It’s where low- Connie
carbon jet engines or hydrogen fuel cells are developed. And it’s where a group of academics Hedegaard,
and media companies test out a new disinformation filter, or nutritionists study the health effect former climate
of a Mediterranean diet on people far from Spain or Greece. This part of the programme, boringly Commissioner.
called Pillar II of Horizon, has €53.8 billion, or 56% of the total budget.
To bid for the grants in Pillar II, there are three main entry gates. First is the sectoral “clusters”:
broad programme areas dictated in lengthy Horizon negotiations among the Parliament, Council
and Commission in 2018 and 2019. These are the grab bags stuffed with the different member
state’s direct interests: aerospace for France, cars and manufacturing for Germany, and so on. On
a practical level, the Commission has been for months drafting detailed work programmes that,
sector by sector, spell out the its goals, its available budget, and the schedule on which it will
publish Calls for Proposals to which any eligible groups can respond with an idea.
Second is the so-called partnerships: very big, very formal organisations constituted by the
Commission with (often) industry groups to work on a big, broad challenge. These partnerships
typically bring together industry, universities, research organisations, public bodies, and the
Commission to jointly programme and support research and innovation activities in strategic sectors
or technologies, such as AI, bio-based industries or pharmaceuticals. The hope is to address
market failures and further EU policy in certain fields. There were over 120 such partnerships in
Horizon 2020. Now, the Commission has downsized the portfolio to 49 partnerships, with another
one on pandemic preparedness in the making. On average, however, the individual partnerships
will have bigger budgets and more emphasis on delivering EU priorities such as the Green Deal
and technology sovereignty, and creating synergies with other EU policies.
The 5 Horizon Europe missions
Accelerating the transition Curing cancer Creating Regenerating Ensuring that 75%
to a climate-prepared 100 climate-neutral cities our oceans and waters of soils are healthy
and resilient Europe by 2030 by 2030
Source: European Parliament
45
Third are missions, a new feature of Horizon Europe that attempts to group several projects
together for a few, high-profile goals, like making 100 European cities climate-neutral by 2030.
Confusingly, these three ways of organising the grants overlap with one another: a mission might
pull on results from routine sectoral plans or partnerships. Here, we offer a guide to some of the
key features of the planned Horizon Europe work programmes, partnerships and missions.
A. The missions
There are five missions in Horizon Europe. They are ambitious research ‘moonshots’ that aim
to mobilise scientists, citizens, companies and governments to solve big societal challenges,
such as beating cancer or saving oceans. The missions were first championed by former EU
Research Commissioner Carlos Moedas as “something that will make people on the streets talk
about science.” Now, a few years later, the Commission is finally preparing to launch some of the
missions in the second half of 2021.
Each mission will operate as a portfolio of actions – such as research projects, policy measures or
legislative initiatives - to achieve a measurable goal that could not be achieved through individual
actions. The missions will be largely funded through Pillar II of Horizon Europe, with a maximum
of 10% of the annual budget of the pillar going towards the mission in the first three years of
the research programme. If the missions manage to show results, the funding may increase,
allowing them to grow. But Horizon Europe will not be the only funding pot for the missions.
The Commission has not specified exactly where it will find the extra money, but the European
Investment Bank has been tasked with scoping out potential investment avenues.
The mission goals, each proposed by a separate board made up of 15 experts from around
Europe, stretch all the way to 2030 but tangible results could be expected earlier, before the
current Commission departs in 2024. Yet, the launch has been slow. The boards submitted their
final proposals on what the missions should look like to the Commission in September 2020.
Since then, five directorates-general in the Commission have been working to convert them into
detailed actions, with clear investment strategies and performance indicators. At the end of this
phase, which is expected to come in summer 2021, the missions will be assessed. Only then, if
they pass the bar, they will be fully up and running, and Horizon Europe work programmes will be
updated to include calls for the missions.
Ground work progresses on Horizon Europe missions

The European Commission is laying the ground for the first Horizon Europe missions to start later
this year, with the aim of ensuring work can start immediately after launch, according to a leaked
draft programme.
A Commission insider close to the missions says the promise is a novel demand-driven approach
to innovation, marrying existing research and policy with a concrete political endpoint. What this
means for the structure of the missions is still unclear, as the Commission has yet to polish and
reveal how they will operate. All of this makes them risky both in terms of their content and
their execution. To test the waters, the Commission is investing in feasibility studies, information
campaigns and identifying needs. Each of the five research missions will get a budget of up to €5
million to make these assessments.
In spring 2021 the Commission will launch an open call for projects to address the specific needs
of each of the five missions, plus two horizontal calls dealing with issues they have in common.
The deadline for project proposals is currently set on 9 September.
The Commission is also drawing up detailed plans, investment strategies and performance
indicators for the missions. EU Research Commissioner Mariya Gabriel, speaking at a
Science|Business conference, promised the Commission will put more flesh on the bones of
the plans in July, when it announces which of the five proposed missions will move into the
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implementation phase. In the fourth quarter of the year, the work programme will be updated to
include calls for the selected missions.
The missions are expensive undertakings, and from the start, the Commission has made it clear
the Horizon Europe R&D programme will not be able to fund all the work needed to clean up
European waters, or to fight cancer, among other goals. To fill the gap, the European Investment
Bank will get €2 million to identify possible sources of investment and funding models, before the
launch of the missions.
Engaging citizens is another imperative, with the Commission planning a multi-lingual information
campaign to spread awareness of the missions and their goals. Member state engagement
is also important in making the missions work. To create a common EU vision and ensure all
member states and Horizon associated countries are ready to take up and deploy outputs from
the missions, the Commission will launch a €2 million call for projects, open until 9 September.
Almost half of the mission preparation budget, €25 million, is dedicated to the European Bauhaus,
a separate Commission initiative to shape a cultural and architectural movement around the
European Green Deal. An open call will finance five European Bauhaus demonstrators, pilot
projects for the project, with proposals also due on 9 September 2021. “Linking the two initiatives
can help solidify the concept in the public’s collective conscious that the missions embody
research and innovation’s capacity to positively impact their daily lives,” the leaked draft says.
The Commission plans five open calls for mission-specific projects on 9 September, aimed at
helping the five programmes hit the ground running.
The cancer mission aims to save three million lives by 2030, addressing the full spectrum of the
disease, from research into the causes, to prevention, diagnosis and treatment and the quality
of life of cancer survivors. To support this mission, the Commission hopes to invest €3 million in
developing UNCAN.eu, a new EU-wide platform for cancer research. The project funded under
this call should show the added value of the platform and provide insight into its organisational,
financial, logistical, and cultural feasibility.
There are two climate-related missions, one on cities and another on climate transitions. They
seek to prepare Europe to deal with climate disruption, and support, promote and showcase 100
European cities in a “systemic transformation towards climate neutrality by 2030.” As a foundation
stone, the Commission proposes to invest €5 million to help local and regional authorities better
understand climate risks and how to deal with them, as well as enabling citizen engagement
and mapping out access to funding programmes. The Commission will call for one project to
set up a framework for supporting cities in their transition towards climate neutrality and another
project developing novel collaborative local governance models to engage citizens and different
stakeholders with both the cities mission and the European Bauhaus initiative.
The oceans mission sets out to clean up European waters by 2030, restore ecosystems and
decarbonise the blue economy. With €5 million in funding, the Commission hopes to fund a project
which will develop, test and pilot methodologies for:
> Identifying and selecting good practice, scaling-up feasibility and connecting demonstrator
networks;
> Co-creating with national hubs, citizens and other stakeholders;
> Creating an EU-wide network of citizen assemblies;
> A monitoring programme for mission progress;
> Showcasing the value of demonstrators to citizens.
Finally, for the soils mission aiming to have at least 75% of European soils healthy by 2030, the
Commission is a planning a call for a project to identify soil needs in the different regions, develop
networking and knowledge exchange tools for communities across Europe, develop business
models for demonstrator projects, and leverage existing resources to create one-stop shops for
soil information in each member state.
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The climate transition mission
The new research mission taking up the challenge of adapting to climate change will be a test of
whether the EU can tackle societal issues head on, says the chair of the mission board and former
EU climate commissioner, Connie Hedegaard. “This is a test. If the institutions are serious about
this, it requires some substantial structure to deliver it. Otherwise, it would just be some project,
which is not something that we need now,” Hedegaard told Science|Business.
While the mission on adapting to climate change sets a specific objective, many strands of
research and much work on implementation are needed to meet it. This is why the European
Commission asked 15 experts, headed by Hedegaard, to come up with a route map for the
mission, setting out how to ensure food chains, buildings, transport and governance systems can
be made resilient in the face of changing climate, and to prepare for future climate disasters, such
as forest fires and droughts.
The board suggests a three-pronged approach, assisting communities and regions in

understanding, preparing and managing climate risks; selecting and supporting 200 communities
and regions to set targets and plot how to reach them; and scaling up 100 demonstrators of
resilience across Europe. Demonstrators in one region can inform another region that is struggling
with the same problem, but in order for the knowledge transfer to happen, there must be moves
to systematically share data. This is an area where Europe still has a lot of learning to do, says
Hedegaard. Similarly, at a community level, companies, public institutions and researchers have
to learn to share knowledge. “We have most of the solutions, but somehow the knowledge and
the solutions out there, are out of sync,” said Hedegaard. “[The mission] is about seeing how we
can bring these projects more in sync.”
To succeed, the mission needs clear structures in place, with all 200 regions and partner
communities establishing local governance platforms through which they can systematically
deliver change. Each region must devise a way of enabling knowledge sharing, enabling different
public and private players to set out their pitches for participating in the mission. These pitches
will have to encompass each region’s local climate change challenges and specify innovations
needed to help address them. To kick start the process, Hedegaard says the commission should
select the 200 participating regions in the next six months.
Citizen engagement will play a crucial role, with the moonshot putting emphasis on getting people
to act as local innovators and respond to local challenges. This is something the commission is
very ambitious about, Hedegaard said, though she strikes a sceptical note, “To be frank, that
sounds really nice, but how to do it? How to make real interactive solutions, where people not only
feel included, but are included?” Each region will be required to set out how it is hoped to engage
their citizens with the mission.
Citizen engagement will also play a role in behaviour change, another important aspect of the
mission. For Hedegaard, Europe is great at dealing with climate issues from the perspective of
natural sciences, technology and the economics, but it is not fostering the behaviour change
needed to adapt to the changing climate. She wants research in behavioural sciences to inform
the mission and the regions involved on how to make changes and convince citizens to follow
them. “If [the mission] succeeds, we will have all our municipalities, regions and citizens working
consciously with adaption to climate change,” Hedegaard said.
Although due to start in 2021, it could take a few years before the mission is active on the ground,
if the EU institutions fail to show ambition. That is something we do not have the time for, says
Hedegaard.
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The oceans mission
Experts charged with defining objectives for the mission to restore the health of Europe’s oceans
and waters say the 17 targets they have set won’t be met unless citizens are fully engaged. “The
point is to create emotion. If people are not emotionally involved, they will not do anything to
change their behaviour,” Cristina Pedicchio, a member of the oceans mission board and researcher
at Italy’s National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics told Science|Business.
While researchers are learning more and more about oceans, people are not aware of their findings,
due to what Pedicicchio called a widespread “out of sea, out of mind” mentality.
As one of the EU’s five new research moonshots that are due to get off the ground as part of
Horizon Europe, the oceans mission wants to change this. One of its main aims is to create a buzz
around complex challenges such as microplastics pollution, protecting biodiversity and making
water sources resilient to climate change, to inspire action to tackle them.
The mission board of 15 experts that set out the 17 goals which Europe must meet to restore the
health of its waters calls the project ‘Mission Starfish’. While the number and range of targets
makes the mission complicated, the board wants to ensure it is accessible. “Our mission is so
detailed, but we are trying to make it easy,” says mission board member and former MEP Gesine
Meißner. That led the board to select the starfish emblem. The widely recognised sea creature is
meant to help people develop an emotional connection with the sea, which will be an essential
part of building momentum to translate research into action.
The 17 goals are spread across five main topics, or arms of the starfish. These are: filling the
knowledge and emotional gap; decarbonising oceans; eliminating plastic and sound pollution;
regenerating marine ecosystems; and revamping ocean governance. The mission board estimates
the EU, member states and the public sector will have to invest around €500 billion to reach them all.
The emotional connection will be nurtured through blue schools, blue Erasmus+, a blue European
master’s degree programme, and in events and demonstrator projects in the cultural sector.
There will be a special effort to involve children with Mission Starfish, Meißner said. “If you can
explain it to children and make them motivated, then you have everyone, so to say.” Pedicchio
believes people are willing to learn about the sea and can create an emotional bond with it. Her
research institute recently carried out a survey with 1,500 respondents on their attitudes to seas
and oceans. When asked if they would agree to pay more taxes to help save European waters, 44
per cent of respondents said they would.
The mission’s targets include clearing all plastic litter from European waters, starting with a pilot
in the Mediterranean. By 2030, the board also hopes to have 30% of EU waters highly to fully
protected, to have regenerated 20% of degraded seabed habitats, and to reduce underwater
acoustic pollution by 50%.
In its last big call under Horizon 2020, the Commission is looking for bids to start creating a digital
twin computer model of Europe’s oceans. The digital twin of Europe’s, and eventually all oceans,
will be used for monitoring and research, including simulations of how different interventions
affect the marine environment. The mission board estimates it will cost €60 million to develop this
research tool.
The cancer mission

EU data protection rules are making it hard to share anonymised patient data and impeding
critical health research, Elisabete Weiderpass, director of the International Agency for Research
on Cancer and a member of the board steering the EU’s new mission on cancer, has told MEPs.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is “blocking the way for cancer research in
Europe today,” Weiderpass said in a Beating Cancer Committee hearing. The rules may protect
the personal data of citizens and patients, but they are having “unfortunate consequences for
medical research,” preventing research centres from sharing data efficiently, said Weiderpass.
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Data sharing is key to applying artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to research, and
to enabling the digital transformation of healthcare, to tackle disparities in cancer prevention,
diagnosis, and treatment around Europe. Under GDPR, health data has specific safeguards which
prohibit its processing apart from when the subjects give informed consent for use in specific
scientific research projects. This provision was included in the regulation specifically to ensure
that data could be shared for health research, however in practice it is an onerous requirement
that makes it complicated and difficult to set up collaborative projects.
“We have to build a way in which data can be shared independently of geographical and
socioeconomic conditions. This will allow [us] to find the most appropriate personalised treatment
for each citizen. This is particularly important for smaller and poorer countries that cannot access
large clinical trials and experimental actions that are carried out in bigger countries,” Walter
Ricciardi, president of the Italian National Institute of Health and the chair of the cancer mission
board, told MEPs.
To enable this, Ricciardi said Europe must rapidly build the European Data Space, a single market
for data, where public and voluntarily shared data can be safely used for the common good,
including research. The chair of the Beating Cancer committee, Bartosz Arłukowicz, said this
is one of the European Parliament’s priorities. “We really want to move forward on creating a
common database for all the data. We need to have diagnostics, prevention, all of these aspects
encompassed in a common database,” said Arłukowicz. The idea of a single European data space
was first introduced by the European Commission in 2018, the year GDPR came into effect, but
the commission is only now drawing up a proposal for establishing it.
In a similar vein, the mission board has also proposed setting up a European cancer patient digital
centre, where patients and survivors can voluntarily share their data. Based on the data, patients
will be provided with personalised long-term care plans, while scientists will be able to use the
repository to carry out research, and develop better diagnostics and treatments.
The cities mission

One of Horizon Europe’s five new research missions will strive to make 100 European cities
climate-neutral by 2030, applying a cocktail of research, governance and citizen engagement to
become sustainably green and offering role models for other metropolitan areas to follow. This
will provide a critical input for the EU in reaching its target of net-zero carbon dioxide emissions
across the continent by 2050.
The exact details of the how the mission will be organised are still under discussion, but an EU
official told Science|Business it will “necessarily have to go beyond Horizon Europe,” in particular
when it comes to the implementation of relevant technologies. Within the European Commission,
twelve directorates-general are involved in the planning.
As a first step, the mission board set the overall objective of 100 climate-neutral cities by 2030.
This is an ambitious, yet achievable aim, said mission board member Anna-Lisa Boni, secretary
general of Eurocities, a network of European cities. “We agreed that we need to act now, fast and
in a radical way,” she said.
If its goal is ambitious, the mission is underpinned by much earlier work on reducing the carbon
footprint of urban areas, said another mission board member, Barbara Lenz, head of the Institute
of Transport Research at the German Aerospace Centre. “It’s not radically new. What is new is
this collaboration of the cities, stakeholders from local level and beyond, and researchers as well.”
Boni agrees many of the fundamental ingredients are on hand. “There is a lot already out there in
terms of research and innovation. It’s more about the implementation,” she said.
What is radical in comparison to previous EU-funded smart cities programmes is its size. That
means much more money is needed. “It is billions of euros, that is the dimension,” said Paulo
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Ferrão, professor at the Technical University of Lisbon and also a mission board member. “Citizens
should not perceive this as a cost, they should see it as an investment,” he said.
The Commission has yet to decide how much money it will set aside for the cities mission from
its various funding instruments, including Horizon Europe. But whatever the final figure, the 100
cities will largely have to finance the changes needed to reduce their carbon footprint to zero
themselves. For most, this will involve a mix of local, national and EU-level investment. The current
financing models will not suffice, Boni said. She suggests one job for the mission should be to
develop a new economic model for climate action.
According to an interim mission report released in June, the participating cities “will benefit from
research, innovation and deployment activities supported under various EU programmes,” but
it will be up to them to decide how they use the various tools. “The mission is not prescriptive.
It is for the city to come up with solutions,” said Ferrao. What’s needed is a holistic approach
that embraces all the separate elements which contribute to urban pollution, including domestic
heating, transport and industry. “The single most important thing is that you can break the silos.
In the past, we looked at mobility and buildings [separately], but this is no longer possible if you
want to be carbon neutral,” said Ferrao. “We can only win this battle if we crosscut.”
Technology alone won’t fix the problem, Lenz said. “We need massive behavioural change.
We know from many studies that we will not get the CO2 reduction goals just from [technical
improvements].” While citizen engagement and education is seen as critical to success, the
mission plan is again non-prescriptive. Deciding how to engage citizens with the carbon neutral
mission and educate them on sustainability will be the responsibility of individual cities.
B. Partnerships
The partnerships, linking Commission efforts with other governments and industry, are a central
part of EU strategy to harness science and technology to solve global problems while also
strengthening European industry – a mix of pro bono and pro-Europe policies. Since this type of
formal partnership began, however, it has often prompted controversy, with some critics saying it
gives industry too much say or benefit at taxpayer expense. Others criticise partnerships as too
bureaucratic and wasteful; best to let companies get on with what they normally do.
Public-private partnerships bring the private sector, research foundations and Horizon countries
to fund and shape research in a given sector or area. They employ research as industrial policy
to deal with the challenges in sectors ranging from rail to bio-industries. Partnerships vary in size,
and biggest receive billions each from the EU budget. In Horizon Europe, the 49 partnerships
planned so far (one more is in the works) are centred around five topics:
> Health
> Digital, industry and space
> Climate, energy and mobility
> Food, bioeconomy, natural resources, agriculture and environment
> Others, including the EIT’s Knowledge and Innovation Communities
These public-private projects strive to strengthen EU industry by harnessing the power of science
and providing access to the academic research base. In the last EU research programme, the
Commission had over 120 partnerships with industry and national research funders. In Horizon
Europe, the partnership portfolio has been downsized and simplified to three kinds of structures:
institutionalised, co-programmed and co-funded partnerships.
Institutionalised partnerships: The largest and most lobbied partnerships are the eleven
institutionalised partnerships, also called Joint Undertakings; but before they can start they
must pass Council and Parliament scrutiny. The Commission‘s proposals for ten of the eleven
institutionalised partnerships with industry were sent to the EU Council in February 2020. The
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outlier is the eleventh partnership, EuroHPC for improving high performance computing capacity
in Europe. A separate proposal for that partnership reached the Council in September 2020 and is
working its way through the Parliament. Policymakers hope that having settled on the regulation
for EuroHPC will ease the way for those following on behind.
Co-programmed partnerships: There are 12 co-programmed partnerships between public and

private stakeholders and the Commission. Eleven are due to launch in mid-2021 and start work
straight away. All these partnerships fall in the digital and climate clusters of Horizon Europe,
and cover areas such as AI, transport, and batteries. The 12th partnership on space will have
to wait at least until next year to set off on its mission to boost the European space sector’s
competitiveness; member states weren’t happy with the preliminary planning.
Co-funded partnerships: These are co-funded with other organisations, often state governments.
There are 16 such partnerships on rare diseases, blue economy, animal health and other fields,
mostly concentrated in the health and bioeconomy pillars of Horizon Europe. Some will launch
this year, while seven won’t get off the ground until at least 2023. The list is not definitive yet.
A 50th partnership on pandemic preparedness is being drawn up. The Commission has yet to
decide whether this will be co-funded or co-programmed, but it is investing €2 million in the next
two years to test out the waters. The project has been added to the strategic plan, meaning it is
likely to launch by 2024.
The planning
In early 2021, the European Commission put forward legislation to spend nearly €10 billion on
ten of the institutionalised partnerships on health, climate, digital and other fields, as part of
its gradual roll-out of the Horizon Europe research programme. In a statement February 23, the
Commission argued that the partnerships are expected “to mobilise additional investments in
support of the [green and digital] transitions, and create long-term impacts on employment, the
environment and society.” The EU budget would be matched by comparable sums from the public
and private partners.
The partnerships cover several high-profile technologies, all with bigger budgets than in the past.
In health, two partnerships will involve several governments and companies in European and
African drug development and medical projects. In climate, four partnerships will cover green
hydrogen fuels, a circular bio-based economy, clean aviation and rail networks. In digital, three
partnerships will cover air traffic control, smart networks and electronic components and systems.
A tenth focuses on metrology: methods and equipment for measuring and monitoring.
Partnership projected budgets (in billions)
Partnership Commission Private Member states

contribution contribution contribution
(maximum) (minimum)
Circular Bio-based Europe € 1.0 € 1.0
Clean Aviation € 1.7 € 3.0
Clean Hydrogen € 1.0 € 1.0
Europe’s Rail € 0.6 € 0.6
Global Health € 0.8 € 0.4
Innovative Health Initiative € 1.2 € 1.0
Key Digital Technologies € 1.8 € 2.5 € 1.8
Single European Sky € 0.6 € 0.5
Smart Networks and Services € 0.9 € 0.9
Metrology € 0.3 € 0.4
EuroHPC € 3.5 € 1.0 € 3.5
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The goal is approving the final legislation between the EU Council and Parliament by the end
of 2021 so research can begin in early 2022. Until then, most of the partnerships have smaller,
predecessor efforts operating under old legislation. But in coming months there is likely to be a
lot of horse-trading among the member states, Parliament, Commission and industry over the
legislative details. One partnership, on space research promoted by Paris, has already got so
politically messy that the Commission won’t try to finalise it this year.
Planning for the ten big partnerships began about three years ago. The Commission recently set in
motion another specialised partnership to promote European supercomputing. And Commission
officials expect several other partnerships to get on the road with memoranda of understanding
among the partners, and formal work programmes laying out when and how individual researchers
can start applying for grants.
In the meantime, industry is hoping to convince the Commission to publish draft work programmes
with the calls for the institutionalised partnerships in advance, as early as September 2021. This
would give researchers clarity, ensuring they are aware of the topics before the legislation is settled,
said Sophie Viscido, senior advisor for policy strategy and analysis at EARTO, an association of
research and technology organisations (RTO).
The Parliament’s rapporteur for the institutionalised partnerships, Portuguese MEP Maria da
Graça Carvalho, says the Commission proposal currently being considered by the policymakers
is very much in line with the previous Horizon 2020 generation of partnerships. The big novelty,
according to Carvalho, is the integrated financial management for the partnerships, which means
member state contributions will be managed under the same umbrella. “Myself, I am a bit cautious
about it. I need to analyse it carefully, because the partnerships were working well with separate
management,” she said.
The other key aspect is ensuring the partnerships are open to different players in the research
community. EU Research Commissioner Mariya Gabriel told MEPs that the partnerships must be
easy for SMEs to join. Viscido says non-profit research actors play a key role in these partnerships,
and believes RTOs are essential in helping “steer the wheel in the right direction.” She added that
“the funding rates for non-profit RD&I actors participating in partnership projects cannot end up
[being] lower than in the rest of the Horizon Europe programme.”
There is also a need to maintain a balance between technology readiness levels in the proposed
partnerships. “We need partnerships to cover the whole TRL scale,” Viscido told Science|Business.
In putting too much focus on very short-term near commercialisation activities, “the risk is that
you don’t have the full competence building part which will be crucial in a few years’ time.”
Case study: African health

An example of the Commission’s ambition is the Global Health EDCTP3 partnership, a plan
to combine €800 million to €1 billion of Commission money with matching sums from other
governments and funders around the world to improve healthcare in Africa.
It builds on a smaller African drug development project involving the Commission, 19 EU

member states and 41 African countries – as well as some of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical
companies, including GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Johnson & Johnson. From 2014, that project
has committed more than €800 million for R&D on malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and other infectious
diseases, using money from the Commission and the other governments, plus cash or in-kind
contributions from companies, cash from non-profits such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
and coordination with non-EU funders such as the US National Institutes of Health. Work includes
clinical trials of a typhoid vaccine, better diagnostics for TB, and a series of emergency grants for
COVID-19 R&D in Africa.
The reason for the effort: infectious diseases are particularly devastating in sub-Saharan Africa,
causing twice the percentage of healthy years lost compared to the world averages. According to
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the group’s draft plans last year, more than 25 million in the region have HIV, and nine out of ten
children and adolescents with HIV globally live in sub-Saharan Africa. A fourth of the world’s TB
cases are in the region, and pneumonia is the top cause of death among African children. Yet, in
the past, most big pharma companies haven’t prioritised African diseases – and only in the past
decade or so have governments prodded them into action with grants and other forms of support.
The new project, according to the current programme’s executive director, Michael Makanga, will
supplement the expanded EU budget by inviting more non-EU countries with strong biomedical
R&D as partners – potentially including Japan, Canada and other nations interested in cooperating
more generally with Horizon Europe. The project will broaden its scope to put more effort into late-
stage drug development in phase III and IV trials, rather than the current focus on early-stage
R&D. It will also, he said, “strengthen the capacity for epidemic preparedness” with better disease
detection and response systems on the continent. It will also fund work on antibiotic resistance,
and target specific populations such as pregnant women, newborns, children and people with
multiple ailments.
As for the pharma companies, he said, they “want the intellectual property, but where you have
public funding that has gone into research and innovation we usually protect this so they are not
just handed over. Further, he said, the companies bring expertise in trials and drug approvals, and
“they undertake the liability that goes with the product.” Specific terms for the partnership are still
under discussion, as is the final list of companies to be involved.
Other institutionalised partnerships:
Innovative Health Initiative. Combines EU money with five industry associations, COCIR, EFPIA,
EuropaBio, Medtech Europe and Vaccines Europe, that together will manage a wide range of
health research projects. Since 2008. its two predecessor health partnerships committed €5.6
billion of public and private funds, but was seen by some as too pharma-focused. The new project
will broaden to include medical technologies, diagnostics, and other treatments – basically,
incorporating much of the EU health industry. In a statement, the management of its predecessor
project, the Innovative Medicines Initiative, said IHI will “contribute to a holistic, citizen-centric
model of health care that is fit for purpose.” A spokeswoman declined to comment further.
Key Digital Technologies. Will spend €1.8 billion of Commission money through 2027, matched
by member state governments and supplemented by three electronics industry associations.
The focus is semiconductors, photonics and other electronic components and systems that are
viewed as essential to the EU economy, climate technologies and other EU priorities.
Circular Bio-based Europe. Will build on a prior project to develop the European biorefinery
industry and the chain of goods and services that could get European consumers behind the idea
of a zero-waste economy, with recycling and “circularity” designed into products from the start.
The project will also work at a regional and local scale to get specific circularity projects off the
ground.
Clean Hydrogen. With the industry’s Hydrogen Alliance, it will develop the use of hydrogen fuels
as a cleaner energy source for cars, trucks and factories, replacing fossil fuel. The German and
French governments have made hydrogen a priority for their own green plans, as in principle
hydrogen fuel can be produced cleanly by using renewable energy to split water molecules
and then transport it like natural gas to wherever it’s needed. But key is deploying a cheap and
sustainable way to perform the electrolysis, and then make the fuel available to industry and
roads. At present, most hydrogen is produced from methane, a fossil fuel.
Clean Aviation. Aims to make flying “climate-neutral” – a tall order. It will develop “ultra-efficient
low-carbon aircraft” with new power systems.
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Europe’s Rail. Aims to “achieve the radical transformation of the rail system” so it is more
competitive with other transport modes, and “will support European technological leadership
in rail.” Though rail travel, like all transport, has suffered in the pandemic, in the longer term
climate researchers agree it’s a more sustainable form of transport. At the same time, the formerly
dominant European high-speed rail companies and engineers have lost world market share to stiff
Chinese competition.
Single European Sky ATM Research 3. Aims to make air traffic control more efficient, through
new digital and networking technologies, and help the COVID-battered aviation sector recover.
Smart Networks and Services. Intended as a European answer to Chinese leadership in 5G
wireless and next-generation digital networks. The very first EU research programme, from 1984,
began with support for Europe’s then-nascent wifi industry which through the 1990s was number
one in the world market. But since then, Chinese and Korean companies have taken top spots
for network, devices and applications, and European industry has been clamouring for more EU
support.
Metrology. This partnership involves only public partners, rather than private, and will operate
under a different EU treaty provision from the others. For two centuries, governments have led
efforts to standardise how industry measures things, from atomic weights to tumour size. The
new project continues the collective EU effort, updating for new technologies such as quantum
computing and artificial intelligence.
EuroHPC. The partnership between the Commission, industry, and 32 countries aims to boost
Europe’s supercomputing ecosystem to a world-class level. It launched in 2018 with a budget of
€1.1 billion and already has eight supercomputers under development. The new deal will beef up
the efforts. The ambition is high. Today, Europe houses only two of the world’s ten most powerful
supercomputers, one in Germany and Italy each. Four of them are based in the US, while China
has the largest overall number of supercomputers, with over 200 machines. In the next decade, the
EU wants to shift the scales.
The Commission had
EuroHPC brings together 32 participating countries,
proposed a budget of €8
and 2 private partners in 16 countries
billion to get there, and the
Parliament backed it. But
in late May ministers voted
to trim it to €7 billion. Of
that, the EU will contribute
around €3 billion to the
partnership, channeling
money from three different
funding streams, including
Horizon Europe. Another
€900 million will come from
industry, while another
€3 billion will be provided
by the 32 participating
countries. The agreement
is not final as the member
states must wait for the
European Parliament to
deliver its opinion on the
partnership. It is expected
to be formally presented
in the Parliament’s plenary
in June.

55
Other partnerships
The 11 institutionalised partnerships are just the start of the game; they get the most attention
because they require special legislation. The other 38 partnerships are more in the control of the
Commission, and plans are well advanced.
Several are in the digital sphere. They aim to put more flesh on the bones of EU ambitions to
achieve greater technology sovereignty and to ensure European principles and ethics underpin
products such as robots, machine learning, autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence.
“We are doing this for our European values,” said Thomas Hahn, the president of the Big Data Value
Association (BDVA), the industry group behind the one of the partnerships, in Artificial Intelligence,
Overview of 49 European partnerships
Cluster 6: Food,
Cluster: Digital, Cluster: Climate,
Cluster: Health Bioeconomy,
Industry & Space Energy & Mobility
Agriculture
Innovative Health Initiative Key Digital Technologies Clean Hydrogen Circular Bio-based Europe
Rescuing Biodiversity to
Global Health Partnership Smart Networks & Services Clean Aviation
Safeguard Life on Earth
Climate Neutral, Sustainable

Transforming Healthcare High Performance Single European Sky ATM
and Productive Blue
Systems Computing Research 3
Economy
Risk Assessment of European Metrology Water4all: 'Water security for

Europe's Rail
Chemicals (Art.185) the planet'
Artificial Intelligence, Data Cooperative, Connected and

ERA for Health Animal Health and Welfare*
and Robotics Automated Mobility (CCAM)
Batteries: 'Towards a
Agroecology: 'Accelerating
competitive European
Rare Diseases* Photonics Farming Systems
industrial battery value
Transitions'*
chain'
One Health/Antrimicrobial Zero-emission Waterborne

Made in Europe Agriculture of Data*
Resistance* Transport
Clean Steel - Low Carbon Zero-emission Road Safe and Sustainable Food
Personalised Medicine*
Steelmaking Transport(2ZERO) Systems*
Pandemic Preparedness* People-centric, Sustainable

(co-funded or co- Processes4Planet Built Enviroment
programmed) (Built4People)
Globally Competitive Space

Clean Energy Transition
Systems**
Driving Urban Transitions to

Institutionalised Partnership a Sustainable Future
Co-Programmed
Co-Funded
* Calls with opening dates in 2023-24

**Calls with opening dates not before 2022
56
Data and Robotics, and chief software expert at Siemens. “We have to increase our momentum If we are
in Europe,” Hahn said. “We have to push this forward in a clever way.” The AI partnership has basing all our
set the objectives of boosting new markets and applications and attracting investment, to create
technical, economic and societal value for business, citizens and the environment. “Europe can
future industry
and must be in seven years the pacemaker – and we have a powerful network between startups, on this
SMEs, big companies, research institutes and government doing this,” said Hahn. infrastructure,
the ability to
Similarly, Colin Willcock, chair of the 5G Infrastructure Association, the group behind the influence it is
partnership in smart networks and services, and head of radio network standardisation at Nokia,
said Europe must be able to shape its cellular networks to align with European values in areas
very important
like data protection. “If we are basing all our future industry on this infrastructure, the ability Colin Willcock
to influence it is very important,” he said. Cellular networks are stretching their tentacles into
more and more communication-dependent applications. Faster networks are key to autonomous
vehicles, the internet of things, smart cities and virtual reality. “All of these [are] areas we can apply
these mobile communication and we can get huge advantages,” said Willcock.
C. Unpacking the 6 clusters
So there are missions and partnerships. But for many applicants, the key documents to watch
are the Commission’s sector-by-sector work programmes, spelling out how and when it will invite
grant applications under the Horizon’s thematic “clusters.” The missions and partnerships will
often fit into these work programmes, or at least complement them. But due to the protracted
budget negotiations into December 2020, followed by weeks of infighting over which non-EU
countries get invited to join in, the Commission fell months behind in publishing most of the work
programmes.
As of early June 2021, very little had actually been published – but drafts of the programmes
were circulating widely among researchers and organisations with good Brussels connections.
That’s unfair, as having access to the Commission plans, even if not yet finalised, confers a big
head start over the competition in preparing applications. So Science|Business, after raising the
issue with the Commission to no avail, took matters into its own hands and started publishing
the drafts itself, free, online to all. As it did so, many anonymous readers added to the library,
volunteering drafts they had been passed. We will keep this library up to date, and open to all, on
www.sciencebusiness.net.
Here are a few of the tidbits we gleaned as we read the drafts. The Commission is due to release
most of the final work programmes before the summer of 2021. Some details may vary from the
drafts, but the main points are likely to remain unchanged.
Health
The European Commission has set aside €948 million for health research across six topics, to
lay the foundations for a more sustainable and resilient EU that is prepared for future health
emergencies. The first calls for all six topics, will cover disease prevention, environment and
health, tackling major diseases, innovating healthcare systems, developing digital health tools,
and nurturing a competitive European health industry.
In 2022, the Commission plans to set aside €914.3 million for health research, which will be spread
across nine calls, with many complementing the projects to be selected for funding this year, and
two public-private partnerships. Most 2022 calls are planned to open on 6 October 2021. Some
will be two stage, meaning applicants will be asked to submit short applications by 1 February
2022, and if successful, will be asked to draft a full proposal by 6 September 2022. There will also
be single stage calls for which applications should be submitted by 21 April 2022.
The Commission has allocated €69 million in 2021 for projects aimed at better understanding
how people become ill and how to prevent this. This year, a €60 million call will ask for proposals
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exploring the molecular and neurobiological underpinnings of mental health and illness. Another
three will each fund one €3 million project supporting digital empowerment and health literacy,
creating a roadmap for personalised prevention, and mobilising national contact points in the
health cluster. In 2022, the Commission foresees calls on improving the availability and use of
artificial intelligence tools to predict the risk of chronic diseases. A two-stage call worth €170 million
will ask for proposals to boost mental health, develop AI tools for predicting the risk of chronic
non-communicable diseases and their progression, and obesity prevention. An additional €50
million one stage call, with a deadline of 21 April 2022, will fund projects developing personalised
blueprints of chronic inflammation in the transition from health to disease. The Commission hopes
to fund seven projects worth around €7 million each under this call.
The Commission also wants to fill the gaps in the understanding of environmental impacts on
health, exploring the effects of pollution, chemicals, climate and other factors. This year, a €130
million call will fund projects looking at how the exposure to electromagnetic fields affects health;
the relationship between health and indoor air quality; and the impact of climate change on health,
including the costs and benefits of climate action and inaction. There is another €200 million
allocated for public-private partnerships on the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals. In 2022, a
single stage call closing on 21 April will inject €20 million in five projects developing new methods
for assessing the health-related costs of environmental stressors.
In 2021, the Commission will allocate €262.5 million this year for projects on improving care for
cancer patients, enhancing poverty-related disease research in sub-Saharan Africa, validating AI
treatment and care tools, and understanding individual host response to viruses. Next year, the
foreseen funding is €227 million. A €160 million two-stage call will back pre-clinical development
of next generation immunotherapies, the development of novel vaccines, and new therapies for
rare diseases. A €37 million single-stage call will invest in pandemic preparedness projects and
reducing the risks of non-communicable diseases in young people.
The work programme also foresees a budget of €70 million in 2021 for projects aiming to
enhance the quality of care and patient safety, develop decision-support tools for healthcare and
policymaking, and creating a procurement network. Next year, there will be another €70 million
single stage call for innovation procurement and its economic foresight. A further €100 million will
go towards the public-private partnership for Transforming Health and Care Systems.
To speed up the development of digital health tools, in 2021, the Commission is to launch a €115
million call for projects developing smart medical devices and their surgical implantation, for use
in resource-constrained settings; therapies to treat highly prevalent diseases with unmet needs;
and tools for the use and re-use of health data. Next year, the budget for two single stage calls
due 21 April will be €155 million. Of this, €95 million will go towards optimising the effectiveness
of prescription drugs using biomarkers and exploring new methods for effective use of data. There
is also €60 million for 19 projects looking into computational models for new patient stratification
strategies.
Culture
A new cluster for collaborative projects dedicated to exploring democracy, cultural heritage and
social inclusion will have three calls for projects under Horizon Europe in 2021. Three funding calls
are seeking researchers in the social sciences and humanities researchers working on democratic
governance, cultural heritage, social inclusion. The European Commission is dedicating €147
million this year to multidisciplinary social sciences and humanities projects aiming to provide
knowledge and evidence-based policy options for addressing the three challenges. In 2022,
another three calls will be launched with a budget of almost €149 million. The calls are foreseen
to open on 1 December 2021 and close on 15 March 2022.
To compliment the EU’s new efforts for research in the cultural sectors, in 2022, the European
Institute of Innovation and Technology, will launch a new innovation community for the cultural
and creative sectors and industries, a funding call for which is set to open this year.
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The Commission will allocate this year €52 million to researchers developing “evidence-based
innovations, policies and policy recommendations, as well as institutional frameworks that expand
political participation, social dialogue, civic engagement, gender equality and inclusiveness.”
Most projects will receive between €1.5 and €2.5 million in funding to study trust in democracy,
the impact of inequality on democracy, the future of liberal democracy, the relationship between
politics, culture and economics in European democracies, feminism for a new age of democracy,
and governance in a post-pandemic world. Next year, there will be €49 million to be allocated
across seven topics, such as AI, big data and democracy, examining the evolution of political
extremism and its influence on political dialogue, and the politics of social media.
To increase the competitiveness of Europe’s cultural industries, the Commission has allocated
€44 million to research projects exploring the idea of using green technologies and materials in
conservation and restoration of cultural heritage, as well as look into the way climate change is
affecting cultural heritage and remediation. Other calls will cover topics such as novel approaches
to participatory cultural management and financing of museums and other institutions, impact of
gaming on culture, and using digital technologies to enhance and preserve heritage. There will be
a total of seven topics in this call, with estimated project contributions ranging between €1.5 to
€4 million.
The Commission has also allocated €51 million for a call for proposals on EU migration governance,
education, the functioning of the labour market and welfare state, analysing the effects of ageing
societies, and tracking inequality trends. Each selected project will receive €1.5 to €2.5 million in
funding. Next year, social science and humanities researchers will be able to get a total of €55.5
million in funding to investigate the impact of spatial mobility, propose indicators to measure
social well-being, analyse gender and power dimensions, among other topics.
Civil security
The European Commission will allocate € 134.8 million to improve Europe’s cybersecurity in 2021
and 2022 to build up a more cohesive cyber-defence strategy, as the COVID-19 pandemic has
pushed the EU’s cyber resilience to its limits.
The Commission says the EU, with the help of Horizon Europe, should develop new cybersecurity
tools to protect the EU from cyber-attacks that undermine “the cohesion and functioning of our
democracy.” According to a report by EU’s cybersecurity agency ENISA, remote working has
made cybersecurity professionals obliged “to minimise the exposure to a variety of novel attacks
where the entry points are employees’ Internet-connected home.” But hackers have also been
targeting public institutions. Last year, a cyberattack on the European Medicines Agency leaked
COVID-19 vaccine data and perpetuators then manipulated it to undermine trust in vaccines.
The Horizon Europe draft work programme outlines four topics for this year to achieve the EU’s
cybersecurity objectives: recovery and business continuity after an attack, improved security in
open-source hardware for connected devices, artificial intelligence (AI) and preserving privacy
for cross-border computation. The Commission is planning to fund 16 projects this year, with a
budget of €67.5 million. In 2022, another €67.3 million will go to projects aimed at monitoring and
responding to digital threats, developing methodologies, tools and data security to test insecure
hardware and software, transitioning towards quantum-resistant cryptography and creating tools
used for certification of ICT products, services and processes.
The Commission is planning to allocate this year a total of €56 million on projects aimed at fighting
crime and terrorism. Projects would seek to improve information analysis of crime through travel
intelligence, use 5G, quantum computing and encryption in combatting disinformation, and
improving access to fighting crime and terrorism data. In 2022, a smaller budget of €31 million will
support researchers working on improving crime scene investigations, protecting public spaces
while avoiding mass surveillance, fighting corruption, drugs production and trafficking of human
beings.
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An additional budget of €30.5 million is also available this year for research projects that would
help improve border surveillance and maritime security, and increase the performance of the
European Border and Coast Guard and EU customs authorities. In 2022, researchers can apply
for a total of €25 million for projects that improve underwater detection in territorial waters and
ports, and for detecting fake travel documents.
The Commission has also allocated €20 million for projects that come up with new technologies
for protecting European infrastructures against systemic risks from terrorist groups and agencies
of foreign countries. Another €11 million will be spent in 2022 to study solutions inspired by,
supported by or copied from nature to enhance infrastructure resilience in cities.
This year, researchers will be able to apply for a total of €72 million allocated for projects aimed at
reducing losses that result from extreme weather events and geological hazards, and improving
the standardisation of procedures and technologies in disaster management.
Digital, industry and space

The European Commission plans to invest nearly €3.4 billion over the next two years on industrial
research to underpin a transition to a digital and green economy and promote Europe’s strategic
autonomy. Of the total budget, €724 million will be spent over the next two years to digitise the
manufacturing and construction sectors and reducing their carbon footprint. The calls will prioritise
R&D projects that are very close to the market and which contribute to new hubs for circular economy
applications, such recycling waste and helping industry switch to renewable energy.
According to Commission figures, the EU manufacturing sector employs more than 30 million
people and represents 22% of world output of manufactured goods, while construction employs 18
million people and contributes 9% to EU GDP. These are significant chunks of the overall economy
but both sectors need to significantly reduce their pollution and waste and increase recycling.
Digital technologies are underused in the construction sector. In manufacturing, only 12% of
companies in the EU use big data technologies, while only 1 out of 5 small and medium enterprises
is highly digitised. EU companies are lagging behind counterparts in the US and China in the
uptake of new digital technologies. To reverse this, the Commission will spend €759 million over
the next two years on R&D projects to help the EU achieve strategic autonomy by developing
its own digital technologies. The Commission will also launch calls for projects to help the EU
decrease its dependence on imports of raw and advanced materials. Another €346 million is
foreseen for R&D projects to help EU companies standardise and share industrial data.
Over the next two years, the EU will invest another €733.5 million in projects to develop new
generation wireless communications, artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing. As the
fifth generation (5G) of wireless communications technology is being rolled out across the world,
China has already sent its first 6G satellite into orbit. The Commission hopes the EU will catch up
and develop its own version of the technology and implement it by the end of this decade.
The EU also lags behind in the use of AI, with less than 50% of European companies having
adopted AI technologies. In healthcare, only 2% of companies use AI at 80% of its potential. A
dedicated research call will address that gap. In addition there will be research funding calls for
ultra-low power processors and innovation leadership in electronics and photonics.
A proposed €290 million call will fund projects to devise new ways of using data from the European
Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency and from the EU’s earth observation programme
Copernicus, to help the transport sector develop new mobility services and reduce congestion
and car emissions. The Commission is also looking for projects which help the EU secure a larger
share of the global market for space launch services. Projects submitted for Horizon funding under
the space research call would have to come up with new ways for reducing the production and
operation costs of rockets, including the development of green propulsion technologies, by 2030.
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Climate, energy and mobility
Over the next two years, the EU is to spend €383.5 million on energy storage research in a public-
private partnership aimed at developing a new generation of batteries to help Europe shift its
transport system away from fossil fuels and towards electric vehicles.
The EU is bent on drastically cutting CO2 emissions over the next decade and aims to make Europe
the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. For that to happen, the European Commission has
included a flurry of research programmes in Horizon Europe aimed at developing new technologies
in clean energy production, electricity storage and new fuels for heating and transport.
With its Horizon research calls on batteries, the Commission wants to build a competitive battery
industry in Europe, based on advances in production of the chemicals and metals used in their
manufacture. Research organisations can join EU member states and associated countries,
companies and foundations to apply for the first round of funding until September, while a
second round will end in October 2022. The calls are a continuation of previous initiatives by the
Commission in this field. In 2017, the Commission launched the European Battery Alliance and
subsequently adopted a strategic action plan for batteries in 2018.
All battery-related calls in Horizon Europe are expected to contribute to a new public-private
partnership on batteries. Projects are expected to deliver cross-sector results in batteries and
hydrogen that enable zero greenhouse gas and negative emissions in energy and transport.
The Horizon calls are aimed at research groups that can help the EU reduce its dependency on
imported chemicals and raw materials needed in batteries manufacture and to increase refining
capacity for battery grade materials in the EU. The transition to more self-sufficient battery
production requires new, cost-effective extraction technologies that allow for battery-grade
materials such as lithium hydroxide to be competitively produced and refined in the EU. Projects
are also expected to develop advanced materials for increasing the capacity of batteries.
The Commission will also make available €210 million over the next seven years for projects in
clean energy transition. The budget for the calls that are to be launched this year is €35 million,
with another €35 million to be allocated in 2022. The calls for applications under the clean energy
transition package are aimed at projects that improve the efficiency of clean energy technologies
and integrate “first of a kind” technologies.
The Commission has also launched a climate adaptation strategy urging countries and private
investors speed up the rollout of technologies and innovations that help mitigate the effects of
rising temperatures, deforestation, soil erosion and limited access to fresh water. According to a
study by the World Bank, the number of climate adaptation inventions in 2015 was roughly the
same as in 1995, despite the fact that innovation on climate mitigation nearly doubled over the
same period.
Food, bioeconomy, agriculture

Horizon Europe is to allocate €5 million for projects aimed at understanding the benefits and risks
of genome editing technologies in agriculture over the next two years. The move is in support of
the ‘Farm to Fork’ plan to reduce the use of fertilisers by 30% and turn 25% of agricultural land
over to organic farming. To reach these objectives, the Commission says the EU needs to “enable
major advances in the life sciences and biotechnology, in new genomic techniques, such as gene/
genome editing.”
Plans for the €5 million call come after EU agriculture ministers called on the Commission to enable
the use of “new innovative ingredients and techniques” to boost sustainable food production,
once they are shown to be safe for humans, animals and the environment. The headline figure for
the call is only indicative, and the Commission could fund proposals that go beyond this figure.
In 2020, French scientist Emmanuelle Charpentier, director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection
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Biology in Berlin, and her collaboration partner Jennifer Doudna, were awarded the Nobel prize in
chemistry “for the development of a method for genome editing.” But as things stand, precision
breeding of plants with gene editing technologies cannot be used in the EU, following a 2018
ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which founds genome editing is subject to the 2001
EU directive banning genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
In an early post-Brexit move, the UK launched an industry consultation on gene editing, as it

seeks to move away from EU regulations on genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Depending
on the outcome, there will be a second consultation on changing the definition of a GMO. The UK
government view is that organisms produced by gene editing or by other genetic technologies,
should not be regulated as GMOs if they could have been produced by traditional breeding
methods.
The proposed €5 million for genome editing research is a small part of a total of €1.83 billion that
is to be spent in 2021 and 2022 on Horizon Europe’s sixth cluster on food, bioeconomy natural
resources, agriculture and environment.
While agriculture ministers expect the Commission to complete a study of the status of novel
genomic techniques under EU legislation by April, the Horizon call is still asking researchers
to align their proposals with existing EU laws, including the ECJ ruling of 2018. Proposals are
expected to advance “new genomic techniques in bio-based innovation” and to “assess potential
critical impacts and bottlenecks with respect to the EU and international governance frameworks.”
The Commission is planning to allocate €404 million over the next two years for research projects
supporting its Farm to Fork strategy. The Commission is also looking for proposals to explore the
evolution and spread of microbiomes in the wild and their relationship with biodiversity loss and
the growing risk of epidemics.
A €15 million call will be reserved for projects developing innovative digital tools tailored to the
needs of small- and medium-sized farms. The Commission wants farmers to increase their uptake
of digital technologies and prevent an increased digital divide between small and large farms.
The Commission is also planning to allocate €230 million over the next two years on projects
addressing the EU’s push for a ‘circular economy’, by significantly reducing waste and promoting
continuous recycling of natural resources. The projects are expected to improve material selection
and product design, but also to promote new value chains and business models focused on the
upgrade, refurbishment and remanufacturing, of products to reduce waste.
Some calls will be dedicated to projects that seek to make EU’s industry more sustainable and
reduce its dependence on resources, by lowering the use of primary non-renewable raw materials.
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63
5 Horizon Europe’s
funding agencies
Generally speaking, the key policy and programme decisions about Horizon are decided in-house We,
by the Commission’s civil servants – mostly in its 1,200-staff Directorate-General for Research Europeans,
& Innovation. But for big parts of the programme, it subcontracts to a small group of executive are excellent
agencies or institutions the routine work of handling grant applications and contracts. Some, like
the Research Executive Agency, have a very low public profile and focus on the paperwork of
[at] making
Horizon grants. But three are very visible and politically important. science with
money. But
Among these showpiece agencies is the European Research Council (ERC), applauded as an we are not
European success story. It funds frontier research and has thus far supported seven Nobel Prize so good
winners. It was established in 2007, and in 2021 named its 10,000th beneficiary. Through clever
management and an unusual charter that gives scientists a direct say in its policies, it has made
[at] making
its grants a badge of honour across the research world. Its grants are also fairly sizeable (up to €5 money out of
million) and can go to an individual scientist, rather than a typical Horizon club of researchers. It science
is the place to find a new theory of life, the universe and everything – with its nearest international Commission
analogue the US National Science Foundation. Researchers around Europe fought hard to get a President Ursula
budget top-up for the ERC in Horizon Europe, albeit largely unsuccessfully. von der Leyen
The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), established in 2008, fosters
innovation networks around Europe. Its goal is to boost Europe’s innovation ecosystems to better
commercialise technologies and produce more high-growth start-ups through entrepreneurship
and innovation training and education. After a rocky start – dinged by the European Court of
Auditors at one point – its mandate has sharpened to facilitate networking, training and innovating
in sector-specific clusters. And in Horizon Europe, it has special orders to help fix the innovation
gap between Europe’s rich west and poor east.
The third high-profile agency is the new European Innovation Council (EIC). It promotes innovation
by funding start-ups and close-to-market research projects through grants and equity investments.
It has two main programmes: The Pathfinder to spot and fund promising tech companies and
projects, and the Accelerator to help tech companies scale up. The goal, as enunciated by its
advocate-in-chief, former Research Commissioner Carlos Moedas: To produce more European
unicorns, or innovative companies valued at more than $1 billion each – themselves, precursors to
Europe’s next generation of science and technology multinationals. Its special weapon: a venture
capital fund that, in a few years, will be one of the biggest tech investors in Europe.
A. The European Innovation Council
The EIC is the newest of the Horizon-supported funding institutions. It helps start-ups and innovative
researchers bring their ideas to the market. Providing bottom-up funding for innovation, it is the
EU’s response to growing technology competition. The EIC ran as a pilot project under Horizon
2020 between 2017 and 2020. Now, with the launch of the EU’s next research programme, the
new agency has become a full-fledged €10 billion project.
It is also the only Commission programme able to invest directly in companies. Promising,
innovative companies can apply for standard grants, or for equity financing of up to €15 million.
If they are selected for funding out of thousands of other applicants, the Commission can acquire
up to 25% of their shares. The hope is this attracts private investors, which then feed money
into the selected companies, allowing them to grow further. If everything goes to plan, the equity
function will make the Commission a hot shot tech investor in Europe.
The new mode of financing comes with its own politics. There have been fears it will distort the
tech finance market, making life hard for the pitifully small number of private VCs in Europe. Others
have questioned whether EU bureaucrats have the nose for this stuff; after all, if a professional
VC counts on most of its investments flopping in hopes of a few big wins, how is a group of civil
servants going to do any better – even if they are advised by the European Investment Bank and
some professional VCs? Will the European Parliament and Council really sit quietly by while some
65
of the EIC’s biggest bets, with taxpayer money,
come up losers? And the last issue: geopolitics. Between 2018 and 2020 the
If the Commission is a direct investor in a hot EIC Accelerator…
European unicorn, what happens when a > Funded 5500 companies
Chinese or Russian state investor wants to buy > In 39 countries
in, also? The Commission has said it reserves > Distributed €2.78 billion in grants
the right to block undesirable acquisitions. Will > And €582 million in equity investments
it have the nerve? Will it become a tool of EU
foreign policy? Its first headline-grabbing move,
as COVID worsened in early 2020, was to join a successful effort to block the Trump Administration
from taking over a hot German vaccine maker, CureVac.
Such dramas aside, the main work of the EIC so far has been supporting 6,448 projects, running
matchmaking exercises and hackathons. The EIC’s quick mobilisation during the pandemic
attracted an additional €150 million after a surge in applications. In early 2021, the EIC made its
first equity investments in start-ups. The Commission expects to hold on to its shares in companies
for seven to 10 years before they can fend for themselves.
The EIC pilot was managed by the EIC Taskforce inside DG Research and Innovation. In Horizon
Europe, the EIC has merged with the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises,
which managed the EU’s SME support programmes, to form EISMEA (European Innovation
Council and SME Executive Agency). This new agency is headed by the former chief of the EIC
Taskforce, Jean-David Malo. After its three-year pilot, the European Innovation Council (EIC) was
launched in early 2021 as a full-fledged €10 billion agency, kicking off with three calls worth a total
€1.5 billion.
“We, Europeans, are excellent [at] making science with money. But we are not so good [at] making
money out of science,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “The new European
Innovation Council is there to help resolve this paradox,” she said at the launch.
The €10 billion sounds like a lot of money but more funding is needed to match the ambition, said
Christian Ehler, MEP and rapporteur for Horizon Europe. Success rates have been as low as 2%
for some of the calls in the EIC pilot phase. “It’s a thirsty new crowd, but it will be a successful
crowd.”
EIC Accelerator: The agency’s highest-profile programme is its Accelerator, which funds start-
ups that need capital to develop products. It is the only EU programme offering blended finance
in the form of grants and direct equity. Companies get EIC equity investments of up to €15 million,
alongside grants of up to €2.5 million. There is a total of €592.5 million in 2021 year for start-ups,
with an additional €495.1 million for challenge-driven targeted calls in certain areas of health,
digital technology and green deal innovations. In the EIC pilot phase, the Accelerator backed
293 companies. It was largely successful, drawing interest from European start-ups, but received
criticism for a long and complicated application process. The process will be simplified in Horizon
Europe, with companies invited to submit short applications, including a five-page form, a pitch of
up to 10 slides, or a three-minute video, at any time. The successful candidates will be invited to
prepare a full application with support from the EIC. Companies that fail will be able to revise their
applications in line with feedback from EIC. In the case of another rejection, companies will have
to wait 24 months before trying again. If a pitch gets a positive evaluation but does not get funded
because the money has run out, the company will be awarded a “Seal of Excellence” – a badge
of honour that some member states have said they will consider when awarding national grants.
EIC Pathfinder: This funds high-risk projects with breakthrough potential, and will accept
applications for research in any field. A total of €168 million will be awarded in grants of up to
€3 million in its first bottom-up, open, call in 2021 – in which applicants can pitch any topic. For
another call later in 2021, there is €132 million for research consortia to apply for grants of up to
€4 million by 27 October in five specific areas:
66
> Awareness inside (projects scrutinising the idea of artificial intelligence consciousness);
> Tools to measure and stimulate activity in brain tissue;
> Emerging technologies in cell and gene therapy;
> Novel routes to green hydrogen production;
> Engineered living materials.
EIC Transition: Grants in this part of the EIC are for translating EU-funded research to market.
In 2021 there is €59.6 million for a bottom-up call and another €40.5 million call for innovation
targeting medical devices and energy harvesting and storage technologies. The projects must
build on previous EIC Pathfinder or European Research Council proof-of-concept projects.
Researchers, SMEs and small consortia can request up to €2.5 million.
EIC Prizes: Competitions celebrating Europe’s capital of innovation, women innovators, social
innovators, and procurers.
Women TechEU: A service providing promising female entrepreneurs with coaching, mentoring
and financing. First call is set to launch at the end of June 2021, offering support to 50 female-led
start-ups. In addition, the scheme is open to female innovators and researchers that have already
received funding from the EIC.
Business Acceleration Services: EIC-supported projects and companies can get access to
coaching, mentoring and other services.
After 2021, the EIC will change and evolve based on experience and expert advice. It will draw
up annual funding programmes, giving it the flexibility to respond to circumstances. One possible
change will be the introduction of new financing instruments, such as reimbursable advances
and loan guarantees. Other measures in the works are an EIC Fellowship Scheme, Inducement
Prizes, and additional support measures for innovation procurement in the EU. The EIC draft
programme also set outs goals for green funding, gender equality and geographical balance.
At least 90% of the companies supported by the Accelerator will need to be support the United
Nations sustainable development goals, and 35% will have to be led by women.
News|7 January 2021

EIC announced first equity investments in start-ups
The European Investment Council (EIC) fund

has announced it will directly invest around
€178 million in 42 start-ups, acquiring 10%
to 25% stakes for between €500,000 and €15
million each. These will be the EU’s first ever
direct investments in SMEs, marking a step
towards the EIC becoming one of Europe’s
biggest venture capital funds.
Until now, EU funds, such as the European Fund for Strategic Investments, have shied away from
directly investing in start-ups and only provided grants, loans or guarantees, while the European
Investment Bank has put money into venture capital firms’ funds, but has not taken a direct role
in deciding how this is invested. The move to make equity investments is driven by the ongoing
problem that while it has world-leading science, Europe has consistently failed to translate this
through to commercial success. One of the key reasons for this is seen as the lack of venture
capital available for start-up companies to scale up.
“We came to the conclusion that it was time to test something else in comparison to what we
did until now,” a senior Commission official said. “That is not just to invest in VC [venture capital]
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These funds like we already do, but […] to provide direct investments in these companies to de-risk them
companies by taking the first risk and attracting investors.”
when they
The goal is to leverage three to five times the initial EIC investment by attracting private capital. In
start to scale subsequent funding rounds EIC will maintain its holding but will not follow-on. Exits are likely to
up need a take from seven to ten years.
lot of money
and here, we Matti Hiltunen, senior advisor at Business Finland, the country’s agency for innovation investment
have a lot of and trade promotion, says the EIC promises to deliver much-needed muscle for Europe’s start-up
ecosystem. “These companies when they start to scale up need a lot of money and here, we have
money a lot of money,” he said. The key to success will be treating companies on a case-by-case basis,
Matti Hiltunen Hiltunen believes. Equity funding should support companies that are further away from the market
and having any turnover, meaning they cannot attract investors. “Every company is different and
has to be looked at on an individual basis. One size does not fit all,” said Hiltunen.
The secondary goal of the fund is to act as an anchor investor that can pull in more private
investment, growing Europe’s venture capital market as a whole. That requires the Commission to
strike the right balance, and not squeeze private money out of the most attractive opportunities.
“The EIC Fund is a lot of money when you look at the whole picture of the European VC market.
If its run badly, it could adversely affect private VCs,” said Hiltunen.
Håkon Haugli, CEO of Innovation Norway, an innovation agency, hopes the new fund will facilitate
more cross-border investments and “draw in large numbers of private investors from all over
Europe, introducing them to companies they otherwise would not be exposed to.” This way,
the EIC Fund could help private VCs, which today largely operate national or even regionally, to
expand “beyond their normal operating theatre,” says Haugli.
Norway also welcomes the new approach of mixing grant and equity financing. While grants can
boost development, the promise of an equity investment allows the entrepreneurs to focus on
bringing their products to the market without the added stress of searching for investors. Enabling
investors to come in, “the EIC Fund should act as a safeguard and guarantee for the investment,
giving the companies the clarity and runway they need to succeed,” said Haugli.
The EIC selected the first investee companies in December 2019 and has 159 companies lined
up for equity investments. SMEs can request either grant or blended, meaning grant and equity,
support. But to receive funding, they first must go through a tough selection process. From the
applicants, the EIC picks out the most promising ones and invites the CEO to an interview with
six investment, technology and law experts. The panel then makes it recommendations to the
Commission, which then selects the winners. The next step is deciding on the mix of funding
and how much, a decision made by seven investment experts and a Commission representative,
which then must be again approved by the Commission. The company is finally ready to receive
investments. The first of the investment in convertible stock comes with no strings attached, but
after 18 months, to get the second tranche, a company must show that it has attracted a similar
amount of money from private funds.
“Our intention is not to replace the market, crowding out private investors, but on the contrary, to
attract private investors and to create crowding-in conditions,” a senior Commission official said.
The process for securing grants will be changing in Horizon Europe. For one, the applicants will submit
a short pitch, which will be used to draw up a shortlist. In the second round, selected start-ups will
submit a full application with the help of the EIC business acceleration services. The Commission is
also considering changes to the due diligence process but what these will be is still unclear.
In most companies, the EIC will acquire up to 25% of the shares. However, in certain strategic
companies, ownership could go over 50% to secure a “golden” share, a contractual provision that
gives the Commission a veto right in the company. The term was coined in the 1980s, when the
Thatcher government was privatising scores of UK state companies, but wanted to discourage
any politically incorrect mergers the companies might later attempt.
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While the EIC is unlikely to do this in the very beginning, “We reserve the possibility. It doesn’t Our intention
mean that we will do it each time,” said a Commission official. Whether and when to invoke the is not to
option will be decided on a case-by-case basis, by monitoring the origin of the different investors replace the
in EIC-funded companies. If investors from countries that do not partake in the EU’s research
programme, Horizon Europe, have significant influence in any given company, the EIC may step market,
in and purchase more shares. The aim is to ensure that foreign investors do not have the last crowding
say in the future of strategically important companies. “If the only way to do that is to acquire a out private
golden share, we are going to do it,” the official said. But this is the last resort and only meant for
investors,
companies that work in strategic sectors, such as cybersecurity. but on the
Hiltunen says the right to reserve golden shares is “a wise precaution” that could be invoked if the contrary, to
EU is about to lose an important asset. “In principle, we should not be naïve. It is wise there are attract private
possibilities to intervene,” he said. investors
and to create
crowding-in
News|11 May 2021 conditions
EIC unexpectedly freezes submissions for €1B start-up fund
The European Innovation Council (EIC) on

Friday unexpectedly halted new submissions
from start-ups for the 16 June round of the
2021 €1 billion call for funding from the EIC
Accelerator.
Entrepreneurs who have planned but not yet

submitted their pitches ahead of the 16 June
cut-off date were left stranded as submissions
closed without warning. While they can still apply, they will now have to wait until 6 October for
the next chance to secure funding – a long-time for a struggling start-up.
The reason for freezing submissions was timing, said Jean-David Malo, the director of EISMEA,
the EU agency behind the fund. Flooded with applications, EIC realised it was not possible to
evaluate all the proposals in time for those who were successful with their initial pitch to submit a
detailed application before 16 June.
B. The European Research Council
It isn’t often that the European Commission gets applause from anyone – but did so in 2007 when
it launched the European Research Council. The idea of a pure-science agency – in contrast to
the applied research that had previously characterised most EU R&D funding – had been kicking
around in Brussels for years. Finally, in the optimistic politics of the Millennium, as member states
were blithely (and, as it turned out, futilely) promising big R&D budgets for the new century, the
EU agreed to give it a try. The agency would be unusual for Brussels: By design, it would have a
governing board of scientists, not bureaucrats or politicians, advising on policy and supervising
the all-important grant evaluation process. The Commission bureaucracy was to support the
mission and handle all the administrative details. The emphasis was to be on one word: Excellence
– in the quality of the science, and the ambition of the grantees. It was, in the words of then-
Commissioner Janez Potočnik, to be a “Champions League” of science, a continent-wide contest
pitting the best of the best against one another for grants that, by most national standards, were
big, long and stable.
And it quickly succeeded. In the first call for bottom-up grant proposals, it was inundated with
eager applicants – so much so that its first secretary general, former German Research Council
President Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, was faced with the bureaucratic equivalent of a stroke as the
69
agency staff and scientific reviewers struggled to cope. In that first round, just 3% of applicants
won the money – a success rate that, at first, the Commission thought so depressingly low that
the enterprise would die. But in fact, it had the opposite effect: It immediately branded the grant
competition as a new kind of Nobel Prize – but with more money, and more chances to win. Today,
an ERC grant is a coveted achievement to add to a researcher’s CV, and European universities
routinely issue press releases about their latest winners.
So far, so good. But the internal strife, between the career Eurocrats and the Scientific Council,
has become an enduring problem. Repeatedly, the Commission’s central management has tried to
disenfranchise the Council – both in successive rounds of legislation, and in operational details. In
the bureaucracy, the 22 scientist-councillors are viewed as loose cannons, out of control. Among
many councillors, the career civil servants in the agency’s parent, DG Research and Innovation,
are viewed as control freaks whose meddling endangers the quality of science. This conflict has
broken out publicly a few times. After he stepped down as secretary general, Winnacker wrote a
short memoir in German excoriating the central Commission administration. In 2019, the agency’s
long-time director, Pablo Amor, resigned noisily with an email to staff chronicling the pettiness
of that central administration (of course, the email went viral). And then, in early 2020, its new
president, Italian nano-biologist Mauro Ferrari, resigned after a unanimous Council vote telling him
to leave. Depending on which side you believe, the fight was either over the agency’s role in the
COVID-19 crisis, or over the new president’s suitability for the job.
In the wake of that scandal,

The ERC in numbers
the agency recalled its
former president, French >€ 16 billion, 7-year budget, 17% of Horizon Europe budget
mathematician Jean- > 1
2,000 projects
Pierre Bourguignon, and > 1
0,000 grantees
buckled down to fighting > Over 200,000 articles published in scientific journals
for its share of the Horizon > Over 75,000 postdocs, PhD students and other staff working in
Europe budget. The result ERC grantee-run research teams
wasn’t great; after all, when > G
rantees hold 7 Nobel Prizes, 4 Fields Medals, 9 Wolf Prizes
pitted politically against
farmers, regional politicians and other EU budget claimants, what chance does a bunch of elite
scientists really have? In Horizon Europe, the ERC will continue more-or-less as it did in Horizon
2020. Measured in 2018 prices (the yardstick the Commission used when it first proposed Horizon
Europe), the ERC seven-year budget will rise from €13.1 billion to €14.2 billion (in current inflation-
adjusted prices, the new budget is €16.1 billion). It got nothing from the €750 billion EU pandemic
recovery fund, despite the fact that its scientists were among the heroes of the COVID vaccine
drive.
The ERC will have to work with the budget it has for now. The next hope is a budget increase
based on contributions from non-EU countries that join Horizon, like Israel and Switzerland. Once
they pay in, the money pot will expand. While the sums are unclear, any top-up is better than
nothing. The ultimate goal is to fund as many excellent proposals as possible and to boost funding
rates which have fallen as low as 8% in the last Advanced grants call in Horizon 2020.
ERC 2021-2022 Calls calendar

Grant Opens First cut-off Second cut-off Closes Budget
date date
Starting Grant 23/09/2021 13/01/2022 757 million
Consolidator Grant 19/10/2021 17/03/2022 784 million
Advanced Grant 20/01/2022 28/04/2022 561 million
Synergy Grant 15/07/2021 10/11/2021 300 million
Proof of Concept 15/07/2021 14/10/2021 25 million
round one
Proof of Concept 16/11/2021 15/02/2022 19/05/2022 29/09/2022 25 million
round two
70
News|5 February 2021 At the launch
of Horizon
ERC cuts back from five to three funding rounds in 2021 Europe in
February,
Facing a clamour from researchers asking for details on how ERC
and when they can start applying for 2021 grants, the European
president
Research Council (ERC) published the work programme and the
first call for proposals ahead of the Commission’s official rollout. Jean-Pierre
Bourguignon
The ERC will only open three calls for proposals in 2021, two less stressed the
than in 2020, because both synergy and proof of concept grants need “to
have been suspended this year.
inform the
At the launch of Horizon Europe in February, ERC president scientific
Jean-Pierre Bourguignon stressed the need “to inform the community
scientific community as soon as possible about the pending grant as soon as
competitions,” and called for a timely opening of the calls. possible
about the
The first ERC-Horizon Europe call for proposals this year were for Starting grants, which support
young researchers in any field setting up their first independent research teams or programmes; pending grant
to be eligible, applicants should have received their PhD between 2014 and 2018. As in previous competitions
years, they were able to request up to €1.5 million for five years and a potential add-on grant of
up to €1 million. The total budget for the call is €619 million and it is expected 413 projects will
be funded.
The call for Consolidator grants for mid-career researchers closed on 20 April. The €633 million
on offer will fund 317 research projects. Each grant will be worth up to €2 million for five years,
with an opportunity to get a €1 million top-up. This call will finance fundamental research in any
field and must be led by a researcher who was awarded a PhD between 2009 and 2013.
Researchers with a significant track record over the last 10 years can submit proposals for an
Advanced grant by August 21. A total of €626 million will fund an estimated 250 projects. Starting
this year, the principal investigators in projects that reach the second step of the selection process
will be invited to present their proposal to an evaluation panel of senior scientists from around
the world. Until now, this step was reserved for Starting and Consolidator grant applicants. Each
applicant can ask for up to €2.5 million for the next 5 years, with the option to request a top-up
of up to €1 million.
Synergy grants, which fund groups of up to four principal investigators, have been suspended for
this year due to the late transition to the new research programme, Horizon Europe, but are likely
to be reinstated in 2022. Proof of concept grants, for demonstrating the commercial feasibility
of ERC-funded research, are currently under revision.
Through the three bottom-up funding calls with a total budget of almost €1.9 billion for 2021,
the ERC expects to back 980 projects, compared to 1,213 in 2020. Two-thirds of the funding is
earmarked for early- to mid-career researchers. The funding will also support jobs for an estimated
6,860 postdoctoral researchers, PhD students and research staff employed in ERC-funded teams.
The European Research Council (ERC) reported a 42% increase in Advanced grant applications
in 2020, compared to 2019, fueling protests that cuts to the Horizon Europe budget for the next
seven years will undermine ERC’s ability to finance fundamental research. Greater demand for
ERC grants means the success rate for applicants will go down and many excellent projects will
not get funded. With the current success rate already a miserly 12%, “We know we are going
to miss a significant number of excellent projects,” said Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, recently re-
appointed interim president of the ERC.
71
Our ambition News|6 May 2021
was to have a
much higher ‘We’ll manage’: ERC grapples with the aftermath of budget negotiations
success rate
(for grant The ERC has awarded its 10,000th grantee. But
applicants) the fundamental research funder's situation is
anything but certain as it grapples with its new
but for that seven-year framework.
we needed
a bigger “Our ambition was to have a much higher
budget, success rate (for grant applicants) but for
which we that we needed a bigger budget, which we
only partially got,” ERC President Jean-Pierre
only partially Bourguignon told Science|Business. He chided European leaders for not supporting the Horizon
got Europe programme budget last summer, especially during a pandemic, although the cuts were
ERC President partly reversed after long negotiations with the European Parliament. This attitude contrasts with
Jean-Pierre US President Joe Biden’s big science budgets. “When we are talking about frontier research,
Bourguignon you have to take ambitious views seriously and properly support them, which is what the ERC is
doing,” Bourguignon said.
It’s no surprise that Bourguignon, a French mathematician who has led the agency for nearly
seven of the past eight years, would still be urging more support for frontier research in Europe.
After a long fight between the Parliament and the EU Council, EU policymakers assigned a budget
of €16 billion to the ERC for the next seven years. After accounting for inflation, that’s only a slight
increase from its prior seven-year budget. To be sure, it will be supplemented by top-ups from
several non-EU countries like the UK and Israel that will also contribute to the programme. But the
exact amounts are still to be determined.
Boosting funding for basic research, he argues, is key to ensuring Europe’s ability to innovate
and address future challenges. Investments in basic research enabled the rapid development of
COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. Breakthrough research in other areas will be key in tackling future
challenges, such as climate change. Funders such as the ERC, which launched its first calls this
year in February, give scientists the means to pursue their ideas – to propose research projects
on their own, “bottom-up”, rather than applying for money from research programmes whose
priorities are set by politicians, “top-down.”
n a show of its continued commitment May 6, after 14 years of service, the ERC named its
10,000th grantee, Inga Berre at the University of Bergen in Norway. Her research aims to boost
the potential of geothermal energy in Europe’s low-carbon future. In the coming seven years, the
agency hopes to finance another 10,000 projects. “We’re going twice as fast,” said Commission
President Ursula von der Leyen in her award ceremony address. “This kind of innovation will be
even more necessary in the years ahead.”
Bourguignon, while expressing gratitude for such sentiments, says support from Brussels isn’t
enough. EU funding represents less than 10% of total government research funding in the EU,
and the ERC cannot save frontier research in Europe on its own. The lion’s share of the job rests in
the hands of the member states, on whom Bourguignon calls to prioritise support for fundamental
research, taking a long-term vision. “A European initiative alone cannot have an impact,” he said
in the award ceremony. “Scientists must have the freedom to develop their vision and the means
to pursue their ideas.”
Another major research funder is the private sector, which the pandemic has put in a difficult
financial position. Many companies may cut research spending to rebalance budgets, warns
Bourguignon. This will in turn affect research and research careers in the EU. In the end, investing
in fundamental research means taking a long-term vision, and the ERC president continues calling
on EU leaders to do so. As other countries scramble to support basic research around the world,
72
the EU risks being left behind. US President Joe Biden recently proposed a $50 billion top-up for A European
the National Science Foundation, the US equivalent of the ERC. China is also moving fast in terms initiative
of funding and quality. Falling behind is dangerous. “That’s why we fought” for a bigger budget, alone cannot
Bourguignon said. have an
The ERC’s goal is to support as many excellent frontier research projects as possible. But with
impact...
a limited budget, supporting all worthy proposals and thus keeping success rates up is difficult. Scientists
The average has been around 12%, but in the last ERC call for Advanced grants for experienced must have
researchers, the success rate was merely 8% after an unprecedented spike in applications. A low the freedom
success rate could discourage excellent scientists from applying because the competition is too to develop
tough. But Bourguignon says the fluctuations are manageable.
their vision
The big uncertainty is how many applications will be submitted each round. Usually, there is a and the
spike in applications at the start of a programme. Unsurprisingly, this year, the ERC recorded a means to
24% increase in applications from early-career researchers and 5.6% increase in applications pursue their
for Consolidator grants for mid-career researchers. But even here, the applicants threw a few ideas.
curveballs. Applications from the UK fell to 12% of the total applicant pool, from 20% previously
- possibly owing to the uncertainties concerning the UK’s participation in Horizon Europe post- ERC President
Brexit. Jean-Pierre
Bourguignon
Another uncertainty is how big the agency’s staff will be. The Commission is generally planning a
15% productivity rise across all executive agencies over the next seven years. But, Bourguignon
argues, the ERC is already highly efficient, having avoided major disruptions to funding flows
during the pandemic.
Yet another uncertainty: non-EU countries – last year, 16 EU neighbours – that regularly contribute
to Horizon so their researchers can also apply for grants. Some of that money gets passed to
the ERC, but the agency doesn’t have a clear view yet of how much that will be. In 2019, this
“associated country” top-up amounted to €120 million, which can, for example, support around 40
more Advanced grants, increasing success rates by multiple percentage points, Bourguignon said.
Success rates, “instead of being catastrophic (low), would be mediocre. It makes a difference,”
said Bourguignon.
Distribution of ERC Starting Grants, by Country and Discipline since 2007
73
In Horizon Europe, associated country contributions matter even more since the UK is now one.
In Horizon 2020, according to Bourguignon, 20-22% of ERC grants regularly went to UK-based
scientists. If the trend persists, that could mean a 20% top-up for the ERC regular budget coming
from the UK. “We don’t know exactly how much money we are going to get” from the associated
countries. “Of course, it is going to be much more than in the past for the reason that among the
associated countries now there is the UK. It’s not a small thing.”
In case the success rates become unmanageable, the ERC could introduce re-applications
restrictions to deter scientists from submitting weak applications, he said. This is something the
ERC did in 2014. There is also potential for expanding the Seal of Excellence programme, which
helps unsuccessful yet excellent applicants secure alternative funding from their own governments,
sometimes paid for by dipping into a separate EU funding programme, the Structural Funds. But
that, too, is uncertain as EU officials work out the details of how they will manage that money.
News|29 October 2020

Exclusive: A look inside the last days of Mauro Ferrari at the ERC
Mauro Ferrari’s last days as president of the

European Research Council were dramatic
and bad-tempered.
The Italian-American researcher, one of the

world’s leading nano-scientists, fired off an
angry resignation note to the Financial Times
on April 7, 2020, only three months after taking
up the job. In the face of “a tragedy of possibly
unprecedented proportions”, Ferrari claimed he had tried and failed to convince the ERC’s
governing Scientific Council, and the European Commission president, to establish a special ERC
research programme directed at combating the COVID-19 pandemic.
This much has been reported before. But documents released to Science|Business following a
freedom of information request to the agency shine a new light on the inner workings of the EU’s
chief funder of basic science, and in particular on a significant couple of days in March 2020,
when the agency’s management had to decide how to tackle the growing COVID-19 crisis. The
documents don’t rewrite the history of what happened. But they do show a united and unyielding
front against a president seen as distracted in his post and seeking what one council member
called “a public relations stunt” in the middle of a crisis.
What they also confirm, in more detail than was previously reported, is a fundamental disagreement
between Ferrari and his board over their proper mission: whether, as the ERC’s enabling legislation
provides, to fund basic research selected solely for its scientific quality regardless of topic, or to
attempt adding a special effort targeted at the pandemic.
This issue, of “bottom-up” research driven by a scientist’s own instincts vs. “top-down” research
prompted by a funder’s policy goals, reverberates across the science world. While some funders,
such as the ERC, by law focus on investigator-driven research, others take a broader view. For
instance, on October 20, the Wellcome Trust in the UK – the largest charitable research funding
body in Europe – announced a new strategy that, while continuing “discovery” grants, will also
encourage research on three specific health problems: infectious diseases, global warming and
mental health. “Science alone is not enough. It needs support from many areas of research and
innovation,” the new strategy states.
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This bottom-up methodology is a feature cherished and doggedly protected by the Scientific
Council. Indeed, it’s written into the law: “Scientific excellence shall be the sole criterion on which
ERC grants are awarded. The ERC shall operate on a 'bottom-up' basis without predetermined
priorities.” But Ferrari was advocating for a big change inside the ERC in March: target some
money to COVID-19. “If the ERC is seen as detached from the most tragic of priorities and needs
of the community, and unwilling to adapt its ways to help at these tragic times,” Ferrari warned his
council at the time, “it will be near impossible to find anyone willing to defend us on the nuances
of Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down research.”
That dialectic is on full display in the ERC documents released to Science|Business. In an urgent
message to the 19 active ERC Scientific Council members on March 18, Ferrari presents his
impassioned argument for setting up a temporary research programme to help tackle the pandemic.
It is, he said, “an extraordinary health care tragedy” that “is an adversely transformational event
in human history.”
The deliberations took place over email, when Ferrari was himself holed up in the US awaiting the
results of a COVID-19 test. The written council member replies to Ferrari’s proposal – many of
them terse rejections – came on March 18-19, and prompted an extraordinary row that would see
the EU’s top scientist leave his post a few weeks later.
“Making a call specifically on COVID-19 won't solve the immediate problem and won't bring in
outstanding applications, rather mediocre ones from opportunistic scientists. It will be seen by
many members of our scientific community as a public relations stunt not worthy of the ERC,”
wrote Margaret Buckingham, emeritus director of research at the French National Centre for
Scientific Research and professor at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.
Buckingham’s response also hinted at wider frustrations with Ferrari’s management of the agency
– frustrations that would soon spill out into the open. “I am surprised that one of your major
preoccupations is not how to keep our grant system going, which our colleagues in the agency
are valiantly trying to do, under very difficult circumstances,” she writes. Her comments reflected
a growing feeling inside the ERC that Ferrari was not engaging sufficiently with his post and was
spending too much time in America, where he continued some part-time industry and academic
roles.
“I appreciate your wholehearted initiative, my answer is a clear NO,” wrote another member,
identified as Manuel A. in the documents. Council member Manuel Arellano, professor of
econometrics at the Centre for Monetary and Financial Studies in Madrid, did not respond to
a request for comment. “If anything, the unprecedented emergency in which we are immersed
reinforces my belief that allocating resources to foster undirected scientific breakthroughs is a
critical ingredient for the ability of our societies to face the unpredictable,” Manuel A's email reads.
“True, the house is on fire, but even in those circumstances [every]body has to do their [jobs] for
the benefit of all, and ours is to keep the ERC going for what it is,” adds council member Manuel A.
A few days later, on March 27, all the active members of the Scientific Council “individually and
unanimously” requested that Ferrari resign. In the ensuing drama, Ferrari sent his letter to the
Financial Times – the equivalent of a ‘you can’t fire me, I quit’ move – and the normally quiet
agency found itself the centre of a political and PR hurricane. The council published a blistering
rejoinder, but then clammed up, declining interview requests.
Following Ferrari’s departure, his predecessor Jean-Pierre Bourguignon was parachuted back in
to the ERC’s top seat, with an urgent mission to draw a line under a rocky few months and pull
the agency through a looming budget fight. “Actually, the pandemic provided a very valuable
opportunity to verify the relevance of this bottom-up approach – so not instructing researchers
what to do but on the contrary trusting them and giving them the freedom to cut new ground
wherever it may lie,” Bourguignon said.
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Ferrari’s next move, to complain publicly in the Financial Times, shocked the council members.
They issued a damning statement on April 8, saying that he “displayed a complete lack of
appreciation for the raison-d’être of the ERC to support excellent frontier science, designed and
implemented by the best researchers in Europe.” The EU had other research tools beyond the ERC
that it was already throwing at COVID-19, under its Horizon 2020 R&D programme. By the end
of 2020, officials say more than €1 billion will have been spent on coronavirus-related research.
But there were other reasons for the noisy divorce. The council also accused Ferrari of being “at
best economical with truth” and of a breach of protocol by going over their heads to approach
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. And, though allowed to spend 20 per cent
of his time on outside activities, his other appointments – including on the board of US biotech
Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals – bothered council members. “Professor Ferrari was involved in
multiple external enterprises, some academic and some commercial, which took a lot of his time
and effort and appeared on several occasions to take precedence over his commitment to ERC,”
the council stated.
Ferrari, from his side, accused the EU of failing to live up to its ideals in dealing with the pandemic,
writing that he “lost faith in the system itself”. The pandemic was like an X-ray of Brussels, allowing
him to see all its defective parts. “In time of emergencies people, and institutions, revert to their
deepest nature and reveal their true character,” he said.
Today, Bourguignon, the interim ERC president, says the agency should continue to “take the long
view and focus on frontier research. One needs to get prepared for the next crisis, and of course
nobody knows which form it will take. Focusing all efforts on one topic is the best way of not being
prepared for it,” he said.
The search is ongoing for a new ERC president. “For me, the Mauro Ferrari episode is closed
and the page has been turned,” says Helga Nowotny, ETH Zurich professor emerita and former
president of the ERC, who is heading the recruitment panel for the Commission. To find the right
fit, she promises that, “This time, we will have to closely scrutinise any potential conflict of interest
even beyond its legal definition and in terms of scientific openness.” Nowotny also suggested she
wants to find someone who will commit fully to the ERC way of doing things.
“Especially in post-COVID-19 times, the necessity to invest in basic frontier research is

indispensable, a fact that is not acknowledged everywhere. The temptation to focus only on
immediate, short-term remedies and benefits seems overwhelming,” she says.
C. The European Institute of Innovation and Technology
The EIT began, and has often continued, in controversy. In 2006, then-Commission President José
Manuel Barroso posed a provocative question: Where is Europe’s MIT? For most of the prior 50
years, European politicians had looked uneasily across the ocean at US dominance in technology;
and while they prided themselves on European science, Barroso and other politicians felt that
most European universities weren’t set up as in the US for handling the D in R&D. His question,
however, immediately riled the European academic establishment, making instant enemies. The
Chancellor of Oxford University huffed that “Europe already has one or two institutions which
do as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.” Likewise, the League of European
Research Universities thundered: “It is perverse to contemplate a new institution of doubtful utility
when Europe already has a spectrum of powerful research-intensive institutions, from which,
with appropriate competitive funding, there is the potential to create the cohort of internationally
leading universities throughout its regions that Europe needs.”
But Barroso persisted, and after a lot of frantic planning inside the Commission, pushed through a
virtual rather than brick-and-mortar institution. The EIT model is based on networks of universities,
companies and research institutions which run innovation activities in eight different fields, such
76
as health, digital and urban mobility, called Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs).
Operating as members of the KIC, universities offer courses for entrepreneurship and innovation,
work with companies on new products and services, and generally try to promote innovation,
start-ups and new talent.
Its first budget, however, hit static inside the Commission; it was considered a political and
budgetary distraction inside DG Research, and was delegated to a smaller department, DG
Education. In the end Barroso ordered that the EIT funds be taken from various budget lines inside
the Framework Programme budget – a kind of extraordinary tax that set up years of bureaucratic
animosity. Then, in 2016, the European Court of Auditors published a report outlining weaknesses
in the EIT structure, based on its activities from 2010 to 2014. Auditors said that the Institute did
not thoroughly evaluate the performance of the KICs and had “rarely rejected costs based on the
lack of performance.” In response, the Commission ordered an independent investigation, which
largely confirmed the auditor’s findings.
Many problems have been addressed since then and the EIT keeps expanding. But to ensure
proper work of the KICs, in 2018, the Commission put forward a proposal for changes in the
EIT regulation, together with its new strategic innovation agenda for 2021-2027. The proposal
then went through the Council and the Parliament. The institutions reached an agreement in
January 2021, enhancing the EIT’s mandate in higher education and tackling regional innovation
disparities in the EU. The proposal emphasises the EIT’s role in Europe’s innovation landscape
and “confirms the institute delivers substantial impact through its unique knowledge triangle
integration model,” the EIT said. As part of the new legal base proposed by the Commission there
will be a simplified funding model for the EIT, which is designed to encourage additional private
and public investment. To continue its work, in Horizon Europe, the EIT will have a seven-year
budget of €2.96 billion (in current prices).
In Horizon Europe, there will be ten EIT KICs, The members in 60+ hubs:
each focused on what its name implies:
> 269 higher education institutions
> EIT Climate-KIC
>1 284 companies
> EIT Digital
>1 93 cities and regions
> EIT Food
>3 10 research centres
> EIT Health
> EIT InnoEnergy The impact:
> EIT Manufacturing >1 3,000+ jobs created
> EIT RawMaterials >€ 3.3B investment raised
> EIT Urban Mobility > 3,200+ ventures supported
> EIT Cultural and creative sectors and industries >1 ,170+ new products and services
(to launch in 2022) > 3,100+ graduates
> EIT Water (to launch in 2026)
News|29 January 2021

EU reaches agreement on revamp of EIT legislation
EU policymakers have reached agreement

on changing the legal footings of the EU’s
innovation agency, the European Institute of
Innovation and Technology, giving public-
private partnerships more control over their
own budgets. The deal also sets EIT’s priorities
for the next seven years.
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More After a year and a half of talks, EIT emerges with a budget of €2.96 billion for the next seven
flexibility over years as part of the EU’s next research programme, Horizon Europe. The new legislation gives
EIT’s Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs), large-scale partnerships between higher
funding and education, business and research organisations, more flexibility and control over their funding.
content will Current annual grants will be replaced by multi-annual agreements, enabling the communities to
also enable plan long-term and reducing bureaucracy.
KICs to better
respond “After visiting a number of KICs in my home country, the Netherlands, I discovered the current
yearly model has been burdensome and impractical for the KICs. We have taken steps to lower
to crises, the administrative burden,” said Eurosceptic MEP Rob Roos.
such as the
COVID-19 More flexibility over funding and content will also enable KICs to better respond to crises, such
pandemic as the COVID-19 pandemic. After the health crisis broke out last year, “We thought we could not
continue business as usual,” said Maria da Graça Carvalho MEP.
Maria da Graça
Carvalho MEP But in return, the KICs will have to work harder for their funding, proving they are worthy of EU
money. There will be a performance-based model for allocating grants to the KICs, to encourage
them to attract more private investors and third party finance. These assessments of the KICs’
financial sustainability and openness will ensure EU funds are not being wasted. If any of KICs
fail the test, their financing may be cut. The assessment will also ensure the KICs are open to
new members, inclusive and transparent, something that EIT has been criticised for failing to do
in the past, most notably, in a 2016 report by the European Court of Auditors that criticised its
administration and questioned its value for money.
Carvalho says one of the aims of the newly enhanced monitoring is not to increase bureaucracy
once again. “We do not see transparency as more paperwork,” she told Science|Business.
“We want transparency from the stakeholders. We want more open calls, more negotiations for
partners, not paperwork.” In a win for the Council, member states will also have a stronger role
in the governance of the agency, with a group of member states representatives having a say in
strategic decisions.
In the next seven years, the EIT will be expanding. In 2022, it will launch a new KIC for the cultural
and creative sectors and industries, with a funding call set to open this year. In 2026, another KIC
will be launched for the water, marine and maritime sectors and ecosystems, which the Parliament
fought hard for. “In a certain way, it was the missing area in the EIT,” said Carvalho. “Almost all the
other big challenges are represented in the EIT.”
The EIT will also continue expanding geographically, reaching more entrepreneurs in less innovative
regions. The Regional Innovation Scheme, aimed at widening the EIT’s regional activities, will have
a set budget, with each KIC spending from 10 to 15% of its funding on widening activities. “The
EIT always had this criticism that it was too concentrated and there was not enough geographical
diversity,” said Carvalho. With a binding budget for regional innovation, “We strongly reinforced
the regional component.”
On the education front, the KICs will run a new pilot project, centrally managed by the Commission,
supporting innovation in higher education institutions. “[The new strategy] will see us increase our
impact to more innovators, entrepreneurs, students and citizens across Europe and beyond,” said
Gioia Ghezzi, the chair of the EIT Governing Board.
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News|15 April 2021
EIT to launch call for creative industries
The EIT is drawing up the framework for a new

network to foster innovation in the creative
and cultural industries. It will invite universities,
industry and research organisations to submit
their roadmaps. The new KIC will be the EIT’s
ninth network, providing training, business
acceleration services and funding for the
sector across Europe.
The EIT is currently drawing up the framework for the KIC and will invite universities, businesses
and research organisations to submit proposals to bring the new community to life. The best plan
will get funding to become a full-fledged KIC in September 2022. The European Commission
first proposed to set up a creative and cultural industries innovation community in 2019. Less
than a year later the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns have brought the creative and cultural
industries to a standstill.
Martin Kern, director of the EIT, says the new KIC will help an industry which has seen a 30%
decrease in activity during the pandemic to recuperate. “That is a key opportunity now for the EIT,
for innovation to make a difference here,” he said.
There are no set criteria on who can apply to form a KIC, but Kern says, when the EIT was
setting up its other eight KICs, they had consortia of around 50 partners at the proposal stage.
“It shouldn’t be so much about the number, but rather how the partners participate,” Kern said.
There is no set budget. The new KIC will get a fixed amount for start up and then funding will
gradually grow if the new community performs well. Over the next seven years, together with a
future KIC for the water sector, it can get up to 10% of the EIT’s €2.96 billion budget.
The new KIC will sit alongside the European Bauhaus, another EU project marrying innovation and
the culture with the aim of turning Europe’s Green Deal into a cultural and architectural movement.
It is unclear whether the two projects will have synergies, but the efforts reflect the EU research
system’s newfound interest in the cultural and creative industries.
News|13 October 2020

EIT and EIC to integrate and streamline
services for start-ups
The EIT and the EIC have signed a letter of

intent to coordinate efforts to strengthen
Europe’s innovation services. The two agencies
want to help start-ups “make the business
case happen earlier, bigger and de-risked”,
a commitment that could potentially involve
them co-investing in companies. The exact avenues of cooperation have not been decided yet,
but some are currently being tested in three €1 million pilot projects.
“They are very complementary organisations, and I think it is really important that we integrate and
develop these complementarities and synergies to provide the best service to innovators,” Mark
Ferguson, chair of the EIC advisory board and Ireland’s chief scientist, told Science|Business.
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We want The effort involves the EIC and the EIT’s oldest and most established Knowledge and Innovation
transparency Communities (KICs), in digital, energy and climate innovation. Once the cooperation is operational,
from the the EIC is ready to open up the collaboration to any EIT KICs, starting, for example, with EIT
Health and EIT Raw Materials.
stakeholders.
We want While the primary objective of the cooperation is to deliver better support to European innovators,
more open a secondary political goal is to demonstrate both agencies bring something to table, says Marja
calls, more Makarow, member of the EIC advisory board and former member of the EIT governing board.
negotiations “Both programmes must prove their necessity. If there are overlaps, one starts asking if we are
paying twice,” Makarow, director of the research network, Biocenter Finland said. “But this is not
for partners, the case. The EIT and EIC have very different ways of working, but share the mission, translating
not Europe’s research strengths into jobs and growth.”
paperwork
The climate, energy and digital KICs that signed the letter of intent were each awarded €1 million
Maria da Graça
to test potential synergies. Meanwhile a joint EIT/EIC board is exploring ways to cooperate.
Carvalho MEP
Makarow said potential avenues include:
> EIT KICs’ advisory services for start-ups and SMEs should be available to EIC-funded companies;
> EIT KIC supported start-ups should get access to the EIC’s coaching services;
> Start-ups created in the EIT KICs should get help to apply for EIC funding;
> Co-investing in companies using the EIC equity fund and KIC funding raised from investors and
stakeholders.

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6 Widening 2.0,
or East v West
In 2019, EU research ministers agreed to ring-fence 3.3% of the €95.5 billion Horizon Europe
budget for a new “Widening” programme designed to help them plug the East-West research and
innovation performance gap. About €3.3 billion for this – intended to “widen” access to Horizon
for poorer member states – may not seem like much compared to the eye-popping numbers
normally tossed around in EU Council meetings. And it wasn’t as much as eastern members
wanted. Still, it was seen as a big victory for MEPs and countries that had been pushing for years
to create a more level playing field in the EU’s research programme.
With the notable exception of Estonia, EU data indicate R&D performance is below the EU average
in all member states that joined the bloc since 2004. The Commission hopes the Widening
programme will help them catch up. Achieving this requires the Commission to coordinate with
national governments on national R&D budgets, and on measures to retain home-grown talent by
increasing salaries and improving working conditions. Among the key provisions:
> In a break with the past, member states are now allowed to spend up to 5% of Structural Funds,
a separate EU budget for regional development, on research and innovation projects that meet
Horizon Europe standards, but which fail to win grants because of the high level of competition.
At the same time, state aid rules are to be relaxed, allowing member states to use Structural
Funds for science-based start-ups.
> The Commission has allocated a significant share of the Widening calls to projects that promote
reform of national R&D systems, aligning them with EU policy objectives. It wants member
states to use money from Widening to set up multiannual joint calls funding collaborative R&I
projects.
>Research organisations in Widening countries can get funding for initiatives to help research
management staff gain greater understanding of EU networking and mobility schemes for researchers.
> A “hop-on” scheme will back efforts to help institutions in countries with weak research systems
take part in Horizon Europe collaborative research projects. The scheme will be introduced
before summer 2021, but won’t be fully implemented until 2023, once the Commission gathers
proof from the first projects that research institutions are able to host additional partners.
These measures fit into a planned revamp of the European Research Area (ERA), a strategy to
create a single market for research and innovation, that was never fully implemented and has had
a limited impact on the EU’s R&D performance. The European Commission says Horizon Europe
will fund projects that help universities attract and retain talent, reducing brain drain from member
states with weaker research systems. The Commission also wants to establish a framework for
research careers and a common academic career structure, to promote widespread recognition
of the competences PhD students and postdocs in various stages of their careers have obtained,
both within and outside academia, and regardless of sector, discipline or location.
Mind the gap

Researchers in central and eastern Europe say a scaled up Widening scheme in Horizon Europe
and a renewed European Research Area (ERA) could reduce the R&D gap, but member states
need to do their part too, improving their research and innovation systems by adopting strategies
that have worked in richer countries.
“We lag behind and we know that we must catch up and take what’s good from the west,” said
Zlatuše Novotná, head of strategic partnerships and international relations at the Central European
Institute of Technology in the Czech Republic. Novotná is coordinating Alliance4Life, a project in
which stakeholders in central and eastern Europe assess policies and strategies that could help
close the research and innovation divide with the west.
Research institutions and universities are working on projects to attract young, talented scientists
working abroad back to their home countries. In addition, in-house researchers have received
help making contacts and getting involved in collaborative projects in western Europe, by opening
up “closed clubs” to promote talent to western partners, said Novotná. “Our goal is to submit
projects originating from [central and eastern European] know-how”.
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Despite these efforts, the gap between east and west in terms of research capacity and excellence
“is not decreasing, but is slowly increasing,” said Toivo Maimets, director of the Institute of
Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Tartu in Estonia. For Maimets, the new Widening
scheme and a better functioning ERA are a good step forward, but member states should also
step in and contribute more. “We have blamed Brussels but we should ask what we could do
ourselves,” he said.
Under the previous EU research programme, the University of Tartu got €63 million. But Horizon
Europe is probably the last Framework Programme in which Estonia will be eligible for Widening,
given that economic forecasts put the country’s GDP growth at levels beyond the threshold
for taking part. “Our aim in the Widening programme is to reach a point where it’s not needed
anymore,” said Maimets.
Novotná says the new ERA and Widening package is “quite big and complicated.” But, compared
to 2013 when the EU’s seventh Framework Programme drew to a close, researchers in member
states are collaborating more and are working on bigger projects. “I am quite optimistic that the
situation will be better if you have open minded people who are motivated to make some good
improvements,” she said.
Maimets says his university has enough experience to feel confident about its success in the
Widening scheme in Horizon Europe. Perhaps the “hop-on” scheme will not be useful for Estonian
organisations, which now have the capacity to form research consortia on their own, as the
country has ramped up public investment and improved its R&D system. “We should be strong
enough to be a full player right from the beginning of projects, without needing to hop on later,”
said Maimets.
A large chunk of Structural Funds – the second biggest EU cost after farming – is meant to be
spent on research and innovation. Countries decide how that happens, but researchers say some
governments make it difficult for universities and research institutes to access the money. “In the
Czech Republic they always say they try to make it easier, but in practice it is not,” said Novotná.
By comparison, rules for participation in Horizon are clearer and hardly change over a seven-year
period. If rules for structural funds change too often, applicants get confused and the resources
of universities and research institutes are exhausted more quickly. Universities have also raised
the alarm over changes introduced to the research and innovation portion of structural funds. With
the COVID-19 crisis still unfolding, the EU is pushing for short-term innovations and encourages
member states to use structural funds for projects that are closer to market and include industrial
partners. Researchers warn that this strategy will leave universities without a substantial source of
funding for fundamental research and to build regional capacity. “We are afraid that we move too
much [towards] the application side and we leave the creation of new knowledge a bit out,” said
Maimets. “If you don’t have good fundamental research, then there is nothing to apply.”
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16
Regional Innovation Scoreboard 2019
Figure 2: Regional performance groups
News |18 May 2021

Newer member states facing conundrum in extracting value from Horizon Europe
With a struggle to attract foreign talent due to

low salaries, and pandemic-driven economic
crisis sparking cuts in national science budgets,
researchers in EU13 countries are puzzling
over how to tap new research programme to
strengthen R&D systems
Over the next seven years the EU is to spend

3.3% of the €95.5 billion Horizon Europe
budget on increasing participation by the EU13 newer member states, whilst at the same time,
the European Commission is looking to encourage member states to coordinate R&D policies and
boost national funding.
For Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Luxembourg and Malta, performance group membership is identical to that in the EIS 2019 report. For these countries, the corresponding
colour codes for middle one-third regions have been used.
But with the full-on launch of Horizon Europe in limbo and the Commission’s pact for research
At the level of subgroups, there is more diversity in performance of
regional innovation systems within countries. In Germany, there are seven
five different subgroups, and in Czechia, Finland, Italy and Norway there
are four different subgroups. Table 7 shows that capital regions, which
different subgroups, with the Strong Innovators the largest subgroup. In include the larger metropolitan capital areas, tend to perform better than
and innovation still on the drawing board, research elites in EU13 countries are struggling to see
France, Spain and the Netherlands there are six different subgroups, in
Denmark, Greece, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom there are
other regions in the same country. For instance, in Czechia, Praha (CZ01)
is a Strong Innovator, while all other regions are Moderate Innovators.
how they can break the vicious circle of low pay and impoverished research systems, to capitalise
on the EU’s new research programme. Low pay means the struggle to attract talent from abroad
will continue, while the economic crisis sparked by the pandemic is an excuse for cuts in national
R&D programmes.
For Samo Ribarič, head of the Institute of Pathophysiology at the University of Ljubljana, recruiting
expert researchers from abroad for a European Research Area Chair grant has been very difficult.
These grants, awarded under the outgoing Horizon 2020 research programme, were designed to
help research institutions and universities in the so-called ‘widening countries’ with poorer R&D
systems to bring outstanding academics from abroad, as the lynchpin of international research
teams.
But in public research institutions in Slovenia and other EU13 countries, Horizon 2020 salaries are
calculated from a base sum equivalent to the average pay for a civil servant, which is far below
what leading scientists in the west of Europe earn. “Salaries are not competitive if you wish to
employ an expert from abroad,” Ribarič told Science|Business. “It would be helpful if you could
get permission that this salary can be outside the scale for civil servants,” he said.
Horizon grant holders argue it is unfair to pay researchers on a fixed contract the same as a
public servant with lifelong job security. “For such a call you advertise abroad for an expert with a
professorship level qualification and you know the difference between the base salary and what [a
researcher] could get in Germany for a comparable junior professor position is two or three times
higher,” said Ribarič.
Jaroslav Koča, the new chair of the Czech Science Foundation, says salary gaps should be
addressed on a case-by-case basis. “Comparing averages many times generates nonsense,” he
said. Koča was formerly the director of the Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC),
an institution involved in several widening projects aimed at boosting cooperation with research
centres in richer European countries, in life sciences, advanced materials and nanotechnology. As
director of CEITEC, Koča hired some 20 new group leaders from abroad. Salary was an issue in
10% of cases. For the rest, “it was the second or third question,” he said.
Some Czech institutions can offer salaries that are competitive with other countries in Europe,
with the exception of the UK and Scandinavia maybe, where the cost of living is much higher.
“Yes, salaries are important, but averages would not tell you anything,” said Koča.
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The pact for research and innovation is part of the Commission’s ambition to revive the European
Research Area (ERA) plan to create a single market for research in the EU and encourage “brain
circulation” between member states. As things stand, a number of EU programmes don’t support
that goal. While Marie Skłodowska Curie (MSCA) fellowships for PhD students offer competitive
salaries, other Horizon grants are still tied to base salaries in national institutions. “If they could do
this for MSCA, they could do it for other categories,” said Ribarič.
Slovenia takes on the presidency of the EU Council in July, when one focus will be on helping
young researchers build successful careers in their home countries. It will push for academic
exchange schemes to be improved so that institutes in poorer member states can attract talent
from abroad with competitive salaries. During the 2008 -2009 financial crisis governments in
central, eastern and southern Europe bowed to continent-wide austerity measures and slashed
R&D budgets. Some countries have yet to reach funding levels from before the crisis.
Koča believes these countries will not repeat the same mistake in the wake of the coronavirus
pandemic. “The two crises are completely different,” he said. While one was a global financial
crisis, handling the pandemic is highly reliant on science. Governments will continue to make
investments in R&D to deal with the health emergency. “Politicians wouldn’t be too clever to say
we cut the budget for science,” said Koča.
Slovenia’s national research agency faced cuts after the 2008 crisis and still has a limited budget,
all of which is spent on competitive calls.
“I still feel that more money should be allocated to research and innovation,” said Ribarič, noting a
bigger budget would help researchers and innovators develop new products and services, while
a banking reform would enable banks to provide loans for funding start-ups and small companies
that are trying to commercialise research. “If those start-ups don’t get seed money, they may just
move to the US, or not succeed,” Ribarič said.
The revamped ERA strategy encourages member states to put more money into research and
innovation. However, Koča argues national R&D budgets should also be linked to the quality
of science, to avoid wasting resources on projects there isn’t the capacity to deliver. “If you
overpay scientists, you probably waste money, but if you underpay scientists, you waste human
resources,” he said.
Another problem for the Czech Republic is that it disperses R&D money through about 15 different
institutions, including the ministries of health, education and agriculture. “Maybe a single provider
is not a good idea,” but 15 is certainly too many, Koča said.
News|4 February 2021

EU auditors scrutinise widening efforts in Horizon 2020
The European Court of Auditors is assessing

if measures in Horizon Europe to reduce the
EUROPEAN east-west innovation gap have had any impact,
COURT with a report expected by the end of the year
on the Widening programme.
OF AUDITORS
Over the past seven years, the EU has invested
€1 billion to help member states improve
weak R&D systems through funding capacity-
building, and creating international links between leading research institutions and low-performing
regions. As part of the programme, the Commission allocated €43 billion (in 2014 prices) from
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structural funds to research and innovation. But many Widening countries report hurdles to Doubling
participation, and low success rates have dampened expectations. the funding
is not a key
“I think that the Romanian institutions have applied, but, indeed, the application rate was low and
the success rate was also low,” says Daniel David, rector of the Babeș-Bolyai University in Romania.
solution that
will change
Similarly, Lithuania has only one ERA chair, an outstanding EU-funded researcher whose brief is everything.
to help the country’s institutions to attract and retain high quality researchers. In the EU Twinning We need to
programme, designed to support transnational relationships between institutions, Lithuania did not think more
win its first grant until the last call in Horizon 2020. Meanwhile, in the Teaming programme, which
finances the creation or updating existing centres of excellence, the country received funding to
holistically
develop a business plan for a research centre, but has not received support to implement it. about what
“Lithuania did not take full advantage of the programme,” said Brigita Serafinavičiūtė, head of the measures we
Lithuania RDI Liaison Office in Brussels. need to take
Looking at the core components of Widening, David identifies five issues, starting with weak Brigita
dissemination and difficulty understanding the different mechanisms of the programme. When it Serafinavičiūtė
came to funding, many participants had trouble securing matching funding from other sources,
such as national and EU structural funds.
Universities found it particularly difficult to engage in the projects, many of which require a
business plan and a commercial outlook. “Our legislation is not encouraging commercial activities
for public universities, despite the fact that, on paper, in theory, the third university mission [of]
socio-economic impact, is supported,” said David. “Because of such ambiguous legislation, the
universities are very cautions to be engaged in large projects.”
A key issue appears to be the general lack of public investment in university research in Romania,
where most funding goes to research institutes independent from universities. As a consequence,
David says, universities are cautious about entering big European projects demanding excellence
and sustainability.
Some of the institutions in Widening also had a hard time convincing western counterparts to
participate in the programme, as they did not see the €1 billion funding as worth their time. In the
end, Serafinavičiūtė says, the programme “reinforced the links with existing partners, but I doubt
many new networks were formed.”
Despite the Widening programme, since 2012 the innovation gap has barely narrowed and remains
far larger than the gap for most other economic indicators, such as GDP per capita. An interim
Commission report on the effectiveness of Widening found progress is slow and uneven, with little
change in the newest member states.
In the face of this, funding for Widening in Horizon Europe will almost triple, with 3.3%, or €2.8
billion (in 2018 prices), of the overall budget dedicated to closing the gap. Starting in 2023, there
will also be a new “hop-on” programme allowing research institutions in Widening countries to join
Horizon Europe collaborative research projects.
But Serafinavičiūtė said it will take more than this to address the imbalance. “Doubling the funding
is not a key solution that will change everything. We need to think more holistically about what
measures we need to take.” For one, she says, if Horizon Europe is intended to address societal
problems, excellence should not be the only measure by which projects are assessed. Challenges
exist everywhere and often require local measures to deal with them. “The question is what we
are hoping to achieve with this programme,” said Serafinavičiūtė. “If we want more countries to
participate, we have to admit that excellence should not be the only criterion.”
The EU auditors will take the changes in Horizon Europe into account in their evaluation of the EU
Widening efforts in Horizon 2020, looking at the likely impact on research excellence imbalances
87
in this decade. Meanwhile, the EU must also maintain other programmes that aim to bring more
geographical balance to the research ecosystem. David says Romania has had more success
in the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) programme, another scheme
encouraging cross-border networking.
And waiting for help is not enough. Widening counties should roll up their sleeves and do their
homework, believes Serafinavičiūtė. “We can’t expect the EU15 to drag us along with them, and
why should they? Who wants new competition?”
News|27 May 2021

EU13 countries to boost academic exchange programmes with EU funds
Alliance4Life, an association of biomedical

research institutes in central and eastern
Europe has announced the launch of an EU-
funded project aiming to improve the culture,
strategic management and overall conditions
for scientific excellence in the region.
The alliance was formed in Vilnius back in 2019

by ten founding institutions. Two new member
universities from Bulgaria and Romania were invited to join the consortium this year. The partner
institutions are planning to continue investments in career development of researchers and to
attract talent from around the world. “Together we can implement best practice faster across
central and eastern Europe and make the research and innovation system in the whole region
stronger,” said Alliance4Life coordinator Zlatuse Novotna.
Over the next seven years, the EU is to invest 3.3% of the €95.5 billion Horizon Europe budget
to encourage research cooperation in central, eastern and southern Europe. At the same time,
EU commissioner for research and innovation Maryia Gabriel is spearheading a reform of the
European Research Area (ERA), a plan to establish a single market for research where researchers
would be incentivised to work in institutions located in less developed EU member states.
Slovenia is about to take over the rotating presidency of the EU council and will focus on finding
new incentives for young scientists in central and eastern Europe to take part in international
exchange programmes. Funding agencies, universities and research institutes in these regions
have recently increased their efforts and are now working on projects to attract young, talented
scientists working abroad back to their home countries. More recently, Portugal’s national funding
agency for science, research and technology, together with the Polish National Agency for
Academic Exchange opened a competition for the exchange of researchers for joint projects from
2022 to 2023.
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89
7 Going global?
Up to a point…
90 Preparing for Horizon Europe: The essential guide

When officials began drawing up plans for Horizon Europe, the stated objective was to make it the
most global EU research programme yet. Then-Commissioner Carlos Moedas talked of it being
“open to the world.”
That would be unusual: Most capitals, from Beijing to Washington, fund mainly their own citizens
or institutions. Taxpayer money pays for those grants, after all. But Brussels has long taken a more
globalist approach to science and technology. In Horizon 2020, about 10% of the money - €6.3
billion – went to non-EU members. The vast bulk of that went to 16 EU neighbours “associated”
to the programme, including Switzerland, Norway, Israel and Iceland. They pay a mandatory
contribution into the central EU money pot, in exchange for the right to access grants in the same
way as the 27 EU states. These non-EU countries add billions of euros to the bottom line, so it’s
little wonder that the EU saw a great deal of interest in extending its association-offer more widely
to the world. And who wouldn’t want to do research with the best scientists in places like Canada
and Japan anyway?
The plan read well on paper, but politics has since found a way of intervening. Now, despite
the warm rhetoric around unleashing the programme all over the world, the concern for Horizon
Europe promoters is that some of this ambition will have to be sacrificed to reality.
Already, the world’s science superpower, the US, has distanced itself from the programme (the
other big research powerhouse, China, is not even on the invite list for Horizon Europe, for reasons
explored later). Meanwhile, research-intensive nations on the EU’s doorstep such as Israel and
Switzerland, which are accustomed to full access to European research programmes, are yet to
find out how much access they’ll be granted to Horizon Europe. Key officials in Brussels have
proposed to bar the two countries, as well as the UK, from space research calls and quantum
computing projects. And for Switzerland, a surprise decision to pull out of comprehensive talks
with the EU on trade, immigration and other forms of cross-border cooperation, throws its Horizon
status up in the air. These countries are all highly successful in EU research programmes, so
proposals to limit their reach across the programme have proved highly controversial.
The UK, which officially left the EU in January 2021, has successfully held on to its right to access the
bloc’s research programmes, but researchers say there are many aspects of the new relationship
with Britain that remain untested – like, for example, the question of whether researchers who
spend a spell of time in the UK will be on the hook to pay the country’s costly ‘immigration health
surcharge’. According to the post-Brexit treaty, the EU can suspend the UK from Horizon Europe
if it substantially increases fees associated with researcher travel.
Australia, Canada, Japan, Singapore and New Zealand are some of the other rich non-EU countries
with which the European Commission has raised the possibility of full partnership. Several
governments, and notably Canada and Japan, have expressed strong interest in the EU’s next
research programme. But with Horizon Europe already kicking off, they are still awaiting details of
membership terms from the Commission. Their politicians had both talked about creating small
budgets, at most around €10 million a year, for expanded cooperation with Europe. But even that
is now in doubt.
Time is also a factor. Bound up by its own budget arguments, the EU has barely begun serious
discussions with its existing partners, never mind the likes of Canada or Australia. Depending
on the nature of the deal, it may be many months before it could be cleared in those non-EU
countries, with politicians needing time to study any text in detail before agreeing to it (the severe
global budget pain brought on by the COVID-19 crisis, of course, has further crimped countries’
room for manoeuvre). And the longer the diplomacy takes, the less Horizon budget will be available
for non-EU partners.
So what started out as an arms-open approach to global collaboration has since morphed into
something a little more cautious. Some would say protectionist, or even Europe-first.
91
“Strategic autonomy” and “technological sovereignty” have become watchwords among EU
officials, who argue the bloc should domestically produce technologies they consider strategic
for the future. The broad policy shift has influenced the Commission’s research policy department.
From the old “open to the world” language, the message under the current Commission has subtly
shifted: access to the next EU research programme will only be extended to countries that respect
that openness themselves, and even here, partnership conditions will be strict. Behind this, in
particular, is opposition from the French government, which since the days of De Gaulle has been
the loudest voice for European technological autonomy. Its commissioner, Thierry Bréton, has led
the charge inside the Commission to limit access in strategic areas. This will all come to a head in
early 2022, when Paris is due to hold the rotating Presidency of the EU.
Foreign countries are watching these policy debates in Brussels with some concern. What this could
translate to – or so the fear goes – is less opportunity for collaboration. In words that appear to
confirm some of these fears, EU research director-general Jean-Eric Paquet (also French) has said
the bloc will become more “specific, nuanced” on how “we open our programmes to the world.”
For example, while the UK post-Brexit will be granted broad access to Horizon Europe, it will be
excluded from certain aspects of the European Innovation Council, a new funding agency aimed at
facilitating the transfer of inventions and research into goods and services. If foreign countries face
additional exclusions in Horizon Europe – which seems to be the intent behind the Commission’s
space/quantum proposals – researchers fear they may abandon their interest in participating entirely.
Why does this matter? Because there are, potentially, thousands of researchers and projects
from Montreal to Mumbai that stand to gain or lose eligibility for the EU money. Of course, they
could continue their existing collaboration with EU colleagues as they always have: Find their own
money, from their own governments. Researchers at MIT or Stanford have been doing that for
years with counterparts at Oxford or Heidelberg. But the whole idea of Horizon association was
to make global cooperation easy, rewarding and the default in science – and thereby encourage
other countries to reciprocate. The potential result: Any field would become, like COVID vaccines,
a global endeavour, with huge payback for humanity. Something like this could still be the result,
and there’s no doubt association will go forward with the UK, Norway and other EU neighbours.
But the diplomatic mood music has certainly changed over the past few years.
As detailed negotiations with foreign countries on Horizon membership get off the ground –
with signed agreements not expected before the second half of the year – this chapter explores
the evolving view in Brussels on global research collaboration, and how an ambitious vision for
Horizon Europe grew steadily more complicated over time. This compilation is based on excerpts
from our live news coverage. Of necessity, some of this has since been overtaken by events. But
politics happens over time, and we think the journey towards global cooperation tells a lot about
the possible destination.
The cast of characters:
Canada: It’s a bit complicated. Its French-speaking province, Québec, has long wanted full
membership in Horizon, and the prospect grew more attractive across the country as the interest
in global cooperation has risen (and the love-hate relationship between Canada and the US turned
nasty during the Trump years.) Now, the federal government is waiting for the Commission to put
its cards on the table and spell out possible terms of a deal. Will it be association in all, or part, of
Horizon Europe? What cost, on what formula?
China: In its rush to global scientific prominence, China now produces more academic articles
than any other nation except the US, and has more laboratory scientists than any other country,
and outspends the entire EU on research and development. And yet, “China does not appear
to be an obvious candidate” for association, Paquet said in 2020. European officials are wary
about Chinese intentions in the world, and recent years have seen frequent sparring over cheap
Chinese-made solar panels and intellectual property. Further, the key Horizon legislation implicitly
bars China from full membership, as it requires “fair and equitable dealing with intellectual property
92
rights, backed by democratic institutions”. But that doesn’t mean there can’t be individual projects
on which Chinese scientists collaborate, with funding from their own government.
Israel: Israel has been participating in Horizon 2020, and is keen on having full access to Horizon
Europe. But EU negotiators appear ready to drive a hard bargain with Israel, a country that excels in
winning European Research Council grants. Further, in parts of Europe there has been a backlash
against Israeli institutions, following the devasting 11-day war of May 2021. But, on other side,
there’s the history: the country was the first non-European country to formally associate to the EU
Framework Programme back in 1996. Israel also has a roaring venture capital scene, and if the
European Innovation Council really is intended as a better bridge to the financial world, there will
be a compelling argument to involve the country in the competition.
Japan: Years of economic problems, now capped by pandemic disruption, have weakened the
Japanese science world, and its biggest tech companies have been surpassed by rivals in Korea
and China. But it remains one of the biggest research powers in the world, and a good candidate
for deeper collaboration with the EU. Though the country’s research establishment has long been
inward-looking, lately that position has been changing: for instance, the country’s top research
institution, RIKEN, now has a Brussels office, and EU Research Commission Mariya Gabriel has
had regular meetings (by video, thanks to COVID) with her counterpart in Tokyo. As one leading
German research chief, Leibniz Association President Matthias Kleiner, put it in 2019: “I love
Japan. think it would fit in an excellent way as a partner in European research.”
Norway: Norway’s full access to Horizon Europe is secured by dint of its membership of the
European Economic Area, which puts it inside the single market. That means it skips most of the
budgetary and legal hurdles other associates face, and its main research establishments are better
plugged-into the Brussels grant machinery than most EU universities. Of course, in Norwegian
politics there have been occasional grumbles that the EU fleeces the oil-rich country (Norway
pays more into the EU than it gets back.) But there’s no real drama here: There will be a deal, soon.
South Africa: Formal association to Horizon Europe appears unnecessary. South Africa already
gets special access to Horizon grants through various EU aid and cooperation budgets, and so
far its leaders haven’t heard a strong argument about the advantages of full association. As the
biggest science player in Africa, South African researchers won more than 200 grant agreements,
and received €52.1 million from Horizon 2020. These included efforts to develop new medicines
and vaccines for malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS, to improve satellite earth-observation systems,
and to study the south Atlantic Ocean. The EU also co-funded the planning for the country’s
biggest science project, the Square Kilometre Array, to be the world’s biggest radio telescope.
Switzerland: Here, there’s nothing but drama – indeed, for Swiss researchers, this is one show
they wish they could switch off. There’s no question the Swiss research establishment wants to
continue its formal association with Horizon; the country’s science and technology strategy is
based heavily on collaboration with its neighbours. But the problem is that the country’s bid to
maintain full access to the EU programme is tangled up in a wider political fight. The Commission
has been insisting that research be part of a broad, EU-Swiss cooperation agreement covering
everything from finance to migration. But that hits the Swiss on a sore wound. Swiss voters
periodically back anti-immigrant, anti-EU referenda (much to the polite consternation of the staid
Swiss political elite.) One such referendum, after Croatia joined the EU and the prospect of free
work and travel between Zagreb and Zurich bothered voters, led to the Swiss being barred from
most of Horizon 2020 for a few years. Though that fight was eventually patched over, a new one
opened: In May 2021, the Swiss government announced it is pulling out of the broad cooperation
agreement negotiations. What it means for Horizon participation is unknown.
UK: Brexit apparently doesn’t really mean Brexit. At least in research, the UK will continue its
participation in Horizon. As with the Swiss, so with the Brits Horizon association became a hostage
to the fortunes of wider treaties with the EU; but the down-to-the-wire Brexit terms, agreed in
December 2020, removed that obstacle. It’s just as well, for both sides. The UK was consistently
the second-biggest winner of Framework Programme money after Germany, and the loss of that
93
lucrative grant channel would have left Britain’s top universities high and dry. (The UK government
promised to fill the gap, but scientists could be excused for doubting its sincerity.) The loss would
have been at least as great for EU researchers, thousands of whom work in the UK and thousands
more in collaborations with UK counterparts. German scientists, in particular, worried publicly
about the possibility of losing their two most important partners – Switzerland and the UK – in
messy divorce proceedings. But, despite the happy outcome, there is still plenty of paperwork to
be finished as negotiators in Brussels and London go through the fine print of British association.
The UK will continue to have a role in four other EU programmes: the Euratom nuclear research
programme, the ITER project to build the world’s first functioning nuclear fusion system, the earth
monitoring project Copernicus, and EU satellite surveillance and tracking services. In the absence
of defence cooperation, the UK will not have access to Galileo encrypted military data.
US: The world’s biggest science and technology power will almost certainly never be a formal
member of Horizon – but that doesn’t mean it won’t continue, and most likely expand, its
collaboration with the EU. As it is, American researchers are already among the most frequent
developed-country participants in Horizon projects – but only rarely with EU money; usually,
their involvement is funded by US agencies. A special “implementing arrangement” to facilitate
this was signed by Washington and Brussels in 2017; but in the waning days of the Trump
Administration, US officials claimed the EU wasn’t honouring the deal properly (the Commission
refutes that.) Generally, American science agencies prefer to work directly with science agencies
in the individual member states, such as Britain, Germany and France. US officials say they find
it simpler to collaborate that way, rather than negotiate the complex legal and administrative
procedures of the Commission. But the Biden Administration has big, bold plans for science
budgets and collaboration, so EU officials are awaiting more details.
News |13 Oct 2020

Science|Business survey: Swiss, Brits, Norwegians and Canadians top list of
Horizon wannabes
Q. Which non-EU countries should be given priority to participate in Horizon Europe?
Source: Science|Business online survey 18 Aug. – 24 Sept. 2020. 502 respondents.
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If the EU’s Horizon Europe programme were a popularity contest, the winners for most-desirable
research partners would be Switzerland, UK, Norway and Canada, according to a survey by
Science|Business.
Of 502 respondents to an online survey from 18 August to 24 September, 2020, 72% said
Switzerland should continue as a formal non-EU partner in the next R&D programme, Horizon
Europe, starting January 1. Nearly as many, 71%, said the UK should stay in the programme,
despite its Brexit from the EU overall. Norway, already a Horizon partner, came third in the rankings
at 64%, while Canada topped the list of countries that could become new Horizon members, at
43%.
For years, the EU has allowed select non-EU countries to join in its research projects; at present,
there are 16 such “associate” members, including Switzerland, Norway and Israel (38% back its
continued participation, not exactly a ringing endorsement.) So that their scientists can apply for
grants on an equal footing with EU researchers, these countries contribute cash to the central EU
pot based on a somewhat messy formula taking into account the size of their economies.
For Horizon Europe, the European Commission is proposing to change the formula and expand the
partner list to include some more rich, scientifically powerful countries – such as Canada, Japan,
South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. The rationale: working with other science powers would
benefit the EU, as well as the world.
Yet the politics of this have proven messy. Because of Brexit and budget battles, the Commission
has stalled any serious negotiations with non-EU members for months. Some EU members –
particularly in Eastern Europe – worry the newcomers could take grants away from their own
researchers. And the terms of membership are still vague, with the commission so far saying only
that there should be a fair balance of money in for money out, but no explanation yet for how that
would work. That ambiguity, dating to 2018, has started to give some potential new entrants cold
feet.
All this uncertainty is reflected in the comments from survey participants, who are all
Science|Business readers offering their anonymous views. One commented that any deals with
non-EU countries, including the UK, should be allowed “only if they contribute – and allow us to
participate in their (own national) calls” for grant applications. Another wrote that eligible partners
are “those countries who contribute financially AND share EU values and principles, excluding
security-related calls.”
Others see it in more geopolitical terms. “Partners are needed to form a third world science centre
competitive with the US and China,” wrote one respondent. In the survey, just 22% said the US
should be allowed to join, and 12% that China should. In fact, US officials have indicated they
aren’t likely to try to join. China has been pushing to join Horizon projects with its own money, but
the draft Horizon legislation bars countries that don’t share the EU’s “democratic” values. As for
Russia, just 7% thought it should be allowed to join.
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The Great Game: geopolitics and Horizon
Trump may be gone, but his impact is still echoing in Europe. What was once a near-unanimous
view that Horizon Europe should be open to as many good partner-nations as possible has, in the
past year, become a knife-fight between protectionists and globalists in EU technology. We have
no idea how this story will end. And it affects thousands of potential Horizon Europe projects that
would normally have Swiss, British, Israeli and perhaps Canadian or Japanese partners. So, here,
we simply reprise some of the main headlines in this absurd quarrel.

EU promises ‘flexible’ deals for foreign research partners. But beware the fine print
The EU’s biggest ever R&D programme,

which will run for seven years from 2021, will
offer “more flexible” entry terms for foreign
countries, according to the Jean-Eric Paquet,
director-general for research and innovation.
“Our goal for association is very ambitious
and aimed at making it much more agile and
palatable for a broader range of partners,”
Paquet told a Science|Business conference in
Brussels.
Paquet says he expects 20-30 countries will seek association (16 countries, including Switzerland
and Norway, have this status already), but added that, “China does not appear to be an obvious
candidate.” According to the Horizon Europe legal text, associated countries must demonstrate
“fair and equitable dealing with intellectual property rights, backed by democratic institutions”.
International participation is held down by financial and legal issues. US officials, for example, have
in the past complained that the EU programme has too many legal and bureaucratic differences
from similar American programmes to make a formal association work. Some European politicians
are also pushing to make Horizon Europe a “Europe first” programme, meaning EU interests
should be foremost, and outside entry extremely selective. “Europe First is a concept that’s
gaining ground. But no doubt our DNA is to be open,” Paquet said. “From the outset we should
not limit possibilities for participation.”
And yet, while the EU’s stated goal is to be ‘open to the world’, the advice is to read the fine
print carefully. Geographically close countries fear they will be left with less privileged access
to Horizon Europe than they have had to past R&D programmes. Scientific communities in
Israel and Switzerland are concerned that they will be cut out of a particular raft of innovation-
focused programmes. According to the Commission’s legal proposal for the programme, “with the
exception of EEA [European Economic Area] members, acceding countries, candidate countries
and potential candidates, parts of the programme may be excluded from an association agreement
for a specific country.”
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Israel, Switzerland and UK to join Horizon Europe by end of year
Horizon Europe agreements with the UK, Israel

and Switzerland could be finalised by the end
of the year, EU officials told a Science|Business
conference.
Margrethe Vestager, the European

Commission’s executive vice-president for
digital affairs, said the EU and the UK are
coming closer to finalising a draft agreement
for the UK to become an associate country in the EU’s seven-year research programme. “There's
agreement in principle on this draft version,” she said. In the meantime UK organisations are able
to participate in Horizon Europe calls, providing the association agreement is officially adopted
before the grants are signed. “I think we're on a good track here,” said Vestager.
The European Research Council has already announced it will welcome ‘conditional’ applications
from researchers based in the UK, and from Switzerland, Israel and other countries that were
associated in Horizon 2020, despite the fact that the participation rules for these countries are yet
to be settled. There’s also the non-small matter of a long-running disagreement between Bern and
Brussels on the ground rules for their future relationship – which one EU official has warned will
make Switzerland’s Horizon application “difficult”. [NB: This issue broke open dramatically just
three months after this conference.]
Simona Kustec, Slovenia’s education and science minister, noted Norway and Iceland will also be
associated countries in Horizon Europe, by virtue of their membership in the European Economic
Area, by the time Slovenia takes over the helm of the EU Council in July 2021. Agreements with
Israel and Switzerland are likely to be concluded later in this year, during Slovenia’s mandate.
“Cooperation with the rest of the world needs to be put into the heart of our further work and
activities,” said Kustec.
While association agreements have broad provisions that are the same for all countries – mainly
to prevent money laundering, the financing of terrorism and tax avoidance – Vestager said
the association process is slow because of country-specific political, economic, research and
innovation relationships between the EU and its partners. “We don't think that that one agreement
fits every political purpose,” said Vestager. For example, the UK will not have access to financial
instruments through the European Innovation Council. “That sort of follows the logic that the UK
will not be part of the European Union's financial framework and the financial instruments for the
next long-term budget,” Vestager said.
Researchers in Australia, Canada, Japan, the US and other countries have been involved in the
past in individual research projects funded through the EU’s framework programme, but these
countries have never signed an association agreement with the EU. Kustec said that is still a
possibility, but did not give details as to when and how it could happen. “Having them as full
partners on equal footing with other EU member states, that would be my dream to come true,”
she said.
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Washington to Brussels: We don’t like the Horizon deal you’re offering
The Trump administration fired a diplomatic

shot across the European Commission’s bow,
with a public warning that it may reject an offer
for the US to join the EU’s next big research
programme.
Reading a prepared statement at a

Science|Business conference, Constance
C. Arvis, at the time director of the US State
Department’s Office of Science and Technology, said that EU-US cooperation in research “is
not where we would like it to be” and that the terms the commission has offered for joining its
programme “give us pause.”
The EU had also raised the possibility of the US joining – and while few people expected the Trump
administration to say yes, given the strained state of US-EU relations, the sharpness of the official
US response this week took several diplomats in Brussels by surprise. The conflict, however,
pre-dates the current team in Washington. The Obama administration had raised objections to the
EU’s standard contractual terms to grantees, saying they could compromise intellectual property
rights and raise legal problems for US researchers who join Horizon projects. As a result, many
US universities have avoided the programme. To try resolving the issue, in 2016 the two sides
negotiated an “implementation arrangement” to make clear that Americans who join EU projects
without taking the EU money don’t have to sign the standard EU contracts. Many researchers
outside Europe participate in EU projects on a pay-your-own-way basis, with funding from their
home governments.
But the Americans say they still aren’t happy. “We worked very hard to achieve that [implementing]
arrangement,” said Arvis. “We thought the terms were fair. We thought they were flexible. We
thought they met a lot of the concerns that we were expressing. But we have found there’s
something not implemented. It’s their words on paper…but is not used in situations where it
could be.”
In response, EU officials have insisted that they are in fact honouring the agreement, and point
out that in any case scores of American companies with European offices – including IBM and
GE - are participating in Horizon and signing the contracts without objection. And EU-US science
cooperation goes well beyond Horizon. The US and most EU member states already have bilateral
or multilateral deals for specific joint research projects and programmes that, collectively, add up
to far more grant money on both sides of the Atlantic than Horizon alone would entail.
In her statement, Arvis said the Commission’s proposed Horizon terms are “not an incentive to
associate”. They also don’t allow an international associate any oversight. “In other words, we can
pay in, but we don’t get to decide how it’s used,” she said. In addition, the terms would allow the
commission “unilaterally to exclude” associated third countries from elements of the programme.
“Taken together, these are significant obstacles,” Arvis said.
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News|6 November 2019
Japan eyes possible €10M a year for Horizon Europe partnerships
The Japanese government might budget

about €10 million a year for greater scientific
cooperation with the EU on climate, agriculture,
artificial intelligence and other strategic
areas, according to Japan’s vice minister for
innovation policy.
In an interview with Science|Business, Koichi

Akaishi said his government wants to expand
R&D collaboration with Europe – perhaps by becoming an associate member of Horizon Europe.
“We might start with some very small funding, maybe €10 million” a year, he said, adding that
he hopes for an EU-Japanese agreement on Horizon Europe by April 2020 [NB: The pandemic
played its part in wrecking that timetable].
In any case, the legal details of how the collaboration happens are less important than the fact that
it does happen somehow, said Akaishi. It might also be possible to collaborate in simpler ways
than formal Horizon membership – for instance, jointly planning calls for research proposals on
specific topics. “In this very difficult global situation, including a struggle for hegemony between
economies, we think it’s critical to have good cooperation with the EU” in R&D, Akaishi said. “We
do not care so much about the modality, as long as there is a substantial cooperation.”
Japan is still waiting for the commission to make its terms clear. ”I am very much interested in
discussing the possibility to become an associate of the EU’s [Horizon Europe],” Akaishi said.
“But the problem is that it seems that the EU has not decided what an associate is.”
News|24 September 2020
Paquet: China needs to open up more to European researchers
China has to open up a lot more for European

researchers, EU research chief Jean-Eric
Paquet told the EU’s Research and Innovations
days virtual meeting. “The relationship is
perceived – and I think rightly – on the European
side as unbalanced,” Paquet said. “There is
really, essentially, full access to Europe but very
cumbersome and formally limited access to
resources on the Chinese side.”
China is not obviously eager to open its research up for collaboration with Europeans. “[The
Chinese] are impressive in finding where we excel and this is where [they] then concentrate. That’s
all fine. But when we want to cooperate in the areas that [China is] starting to excel in – and there
are many – this proves to be much more difficult. Reciprocity is very difficult to find,” he said.
Paquet’s sharp comments – the like of which are rarely heard during carefully managed EU
conferences – signal the rising frustration in Europe over Chinese policies and behaviour — from
trade to human rights and the new crackdown in Hong Kong. China is keen to work with Europe
on ICT, quantum and artificial intelligence research. “But then there are many other areas where it
proves to be much more difficult,” Paquet said.
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European frustrations with Chinese policies have become much more visible since the pandemic
took hold, with Paquet saying the EU and China “could and should” have done more to tackle
COVID-19 together. Access to Chinese scientific data is another frustration. “The [internet] firewall
is one illustration of the difficulties to have this balanced and reciprocal relationship,” Paquet said.
Meanwhile, “Our data is essentially always available [to the world]”, even if “it’s not always easy
to find or perfectly curated.” Researcher flows are also uneven. The director-general said Chinese
researchers come to Europe “in great numbers, and you’re bringing a lot of knowledge and you’re
taking a lot [of knowledge] as well. But our researchers really don’t go to China in these numbers,”
Paquet said.
Both China and the EU pledged to co-invest up to €630 million in joint research between 2016
and 2020. Of this amount, the EU committed €500 million, with China making up the remainder,
said Charlotte Roule, vice president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China. “We have a
discrepancy here,” said Roule, speaking at the session.

Talks on future science partnership with China ‘not an easy exercise’
The effort to establish new rules for science

collaboration with China is “not an easy
exercise”, according to the EU lead negotiator,
Maria-Cristina Russo, director for international
cooperation in research and innovation at the
European Commission.
Russo said that, EU “red lines” means “a lot

of work needs to be done” before there is a
new roadmap for research cooperation. Discussions with China aim to set up “new framework
conditions” for science cooperation, with the EU determined to get better access and opportunities
for its researchers in China, Russo told a League of European Research Universities (LERU) event.
One bone of contention is what the EU sees as disadvantages facing European research institutions
and companies operating in China, compared to home grown counterparts. Access to Chinese
scientific data is another frequently cited frustration. By comparison, Europe is much more open
to Chinese researchers, in the view of EU officials. Brussels wants “clear commitments” from
China for a “fair, non-distortive innovation ecosystem; clear reciprocity and a level playing field;
and high ethical standards for research,” Russo said. “The Chinese initially were not so keen on
these conditions.” Russo noted there are, “evident divergences on research integrity standards
that makes agreement on this point quite tricky.”
The attempt by Brussels to establish stricter rules on research with China follows on from the
highly contentious investment agreement struck between the EU and Beijing at the end of 2020.
EU officials said the deal would open up China's manufacturing sector to EU companies, as well
as construction, advertising, air transport and telecoms. But many members of the European
Parliament oppose ratifying the accord because of what they see as China's increasingly
authoritarian approach to both pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong and Uighur Muslims in
Xinjiang.
Green MEP Reinhard Bütikofer, chair of Parliament’s delegation for relations with China, said any
deal the EU seeks with China on research has to confront these realities. “Even the most fundamental
research cannot just ignore geopolitical implications. Cooperation and interdependence can be
weaponised,” he said. “I’m not saying every STEM researcher has to inject ‘human rights’ every
10 sentences [into a research project]. But unless you can guarantee your institution can also deal
with critical issues, you should re-consider the relationship,” Bütikofer said.
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News|11 March 2021
EU prepares new global research vision fit for post-COVID world
EU officials are preparing a global research

agenda that will champion new or expanded
forms of cooperation with big foreign players
and reinvigorate the partnership with an EU-
friendly American president.
The plan, which is still being hashed out by the

Commission before its scheduled publication
before the summer, will set out a broad vision
of where the EU sees its place in the world and how it wants to interact with research players going
forward. EU research commissioner Mariya Gabriel trailed the strategy at a Science|Business
event in 2021, saying it was about telling the bloc’s partners that EU values and principles “are
not only simple words.”
EU officials argue the world has changed a lot since 2012 when the most recent EU global
research strategy was published. “The trends identified at that time - the doubling of the share
of the emerging economies in global expenditure on R&D and the development of a multipolar
system - have accelerated further, notably through the rapid rise of investment in China,” says the
early draft, which has circulated widely in recent months.
Among other things, the plan promises:

> A shift to cooperation around new strategic goals, such as the dual green and digital transition.
The EU will adapt cooperation with particular countries and regions in light of this approach,
giving priority to cooperation with countries in the wider European neighbourhood, to Africa,
and to “like-minded” industrialised and emerging economies.
> To weigh openness against the EU’s evolving pursuit of strategic autonomy, which could mean
revising and limiting cooperation with certain foreign actors.
> “An international dialogue” to agree fair and open global principles for cooperation on research
with relatively closed countries like China. The EU “should use its convening power to lead a
broad, multilateral discussion on the framework conditions necessary for greater openness to
principled and values-based R&I cooperation,” the draft says.
> To boost the involvement of member states in setting the EU’s global science path.
The draft is candid about the opportunity the EU sees to revive and expand several multilateral
research schemes in partnership with the Biden administration. “The change of administration in
the US has opened up the possibility of a renewed partnership which can support a global alliance
of like-minded partners,” it says. There is also a sense of optimism that the world can build on
the super-charged spirit of cooperation fostered in a year of reckoning with the pandemic. “The
numerous international partnerships conceived to respond to the pandemic testify to the potential
for broadening and deepening this collaboration,” says the draft.
More than that, however, the plan will articulate a platform for a changed EU – one that promises
to be choosier over who it collaborates with, and for what reason. The old ethos of “open to the
world” is gone, replaced by the mantra that “the EU must no longer be naïve”. As the draft says,
“The global balance of political, economic and cultural power has shifted markedly in the last
decade. Global relationships are rapidly changing, due to the increasing influence of countries with
economic and political systems based on values very different from those in Europe, putting into
question the established multilateral order and long-standing assumptions about EU interests.”
Behind this wary language is the relatively new fear of dependence, exposed horribly last year
as Europe scrambled to secure basic medical supplies against COVID-19, and as witnessed
more generally in the debate over limiting collaboration with close EU neighbours such as
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Israel, Switzerland and the UK in sensitive fields such as quantum and space technology. Critics
worry this is the start of a more inward-looking EU, and tension with allies including the UK and
Switzerland is apparent.
News|2 April 2021

UK announces €250M towards Horizon Europe participation cost following scientist
revolt
The UK government, under pressure from

science advocates, in April promised an extra
€250 million to help pay for the country’s
association with Horizon Europe.
Leading figures from the science establishment

had been warning of a hit to the country’s
main funding agency, UK Research and
Innovation (UKRI), should it be made to cover
the estimated £2 billion per year bill to participate in Horizon Europe from its £9.1 billion annual
budget. The government had apparently taken the view that if researchers wanted to stay part of
EU funding programmes after Brexit, they should foot the bill. The cost of participation had before
been met from the UK’s overall membership contribution to the EU.
In a bid to quell growing anger from researchers, the government announcement on April 1 said
it will provide an extra £250 million to the research budget this year. It was not clearly spelled
out how the government intends to make up the balance of the Horizon Europe association fee
payable this year, but Universities UK, the collective voice of 140 UK universities, says the amount
will come from “repurposed funding which had not yet been allocated”.
Government officials estimate the cost of Horizon Europe participation over the programme’s
seven year lifetime will be around £14 billion, but that the amount due to be paid upfront this year
will be around £1 billion.
Researchers welcomed the extra government commitment after weeks of uncertainty, but
Royal Society President Adrian Smith was among those striking a cautious tone, warning that
the announcement was “very opaque”. “It remains unclear how the government expects the £1
billion costs of association to Horizon Europe this year to be covered in the wider context of its
commitment to deliver 2.4% of GDP for R&D and increasing the spend to £22 billion. There remain
significant questions to be answered which we will urgently seek to clarify with BEIS [Department
for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy],” Smith said.
Researchers are still upset from a sudden cut to overseas research grants funded by the UK’s
foreign aid budget, which is forcing the cancellation of many projects. For this reason, the
additional money for Horizon Europe was not universally celebrated. “For those of us deeply
affected by the [overseas budget] cuts this sure does feel like money shuffling and a massive kick
in the teeth,” tweeted Clare Horwell, professor of geohealth in the Department of Earth Sciences
at Durham University.
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News|28 January 2021
Life after Brexit: As UK starts new research

partnership with EU there are many wrinkles to
iron out
The UK is months into its new relationship with

the EU, and while many of the bad-tempered
arguments of the last four years have died
down, what remains is a litany of potential
headaches and red tape to sort through.
UK researchers will be allowed to both lead and participate in future EU science projects, according
to the terms of the EU-UK trade deal struck in December. But after decades collaborating inside
the EU’s customs union and single market, it’s likely researchers will confront myriad changes and
challenges, a Science|Business conference heard.
“I still think there’s a big legacy around all this,” said Hilary Lappin-Scott, president of the
Federation of European Microbiological Societies. “I want this to work. How do we get everything
quickly working? How can we clearly show it is all open?”
Participants raised the logistical, regulatory and administrative wrinkles still to sort through.
According to Ronald de Bruin, director of the European Cooperation in Science and Technology
(COST) Association, post-Brexit visa requirements, and changes to passenger and healthcare
rights, will make things more cumbersome for researchers traveling across the Channel. Brexit
ended freedom of movement between the UK and EU, although visits of fewer than 90 days
remain visa-free - for the most part. So if a researcher wants to attend a conference or a meeting
in the UK, no visa will be needed. However, if a researcher is invited to the UK as a paid expert
for longer than a month, for example to give guest lectures at a university, a work visa will likely
be needed.
“What about those mobility projects that go beyond 90 days – what happens then?” de Bruin
asked. (Though it’s hard to see that researcher travel won’t be affected everywhere so long as the
pandemic continues to take a toll on the world.) UK officials say a ‘Temporary Worker Government
Authorised Exchange visa’, which allows researchers to do work experience, research or a
fellowship in the UK for 24 months, would appear the most appropriate option.
Some officials in Brussels are concerned about healthcare costs for researchers who plan to do a
spell in the UK, pointing to the country’s Immigration Health Surcharge. According to the post-Brexit
treaty, the EU can suspend the UK from Horizon Europe if it substantially increases fees associated
with researcher travel. For UK scientists who want to spend more than 90 days in the EU, there’s
a patchwork of national immigration schemes to navigate – no single EU-wide visa for scientists
exists. “These are not show-stopping issues but they require some attention,” de Bruin said.
Another big issue left to sort out is cross-border data flows, said Christian Ehler, MEP, noting
that a short-term agreement between the two sides runs out in June 2021. The UK still needs an
‘adequacy ruling’ from the European Commission demonstrating its data protection standards
match Europe’s GPDR legislation. Without this, UK entities like universities that depend on sending
and receiving personal data from the EU would have to resort to alternative arrangements. That
could mean a considerable price tag added to a growing stack of GDPR red tape.
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News|9 March 2021
Israel, Switzerland and UK face exclusion from major EU quantum and space
research projects
Brussels is preparing to exclude researchers

based in the UK, Israel and Switzerland from
major quantum and space research projects, in
a significant step that researchers and officials
warn could have broad implications for science
collaboration across Europe.
According to the latest draft plans for Horizon

Europe, restrictions will be placed on the EU’s
closest research partners in several quantum and space competitions. Until now, these projects
were open to the association countries, which have negotiated access to EU research programmes.
The proposed move, which came from the European Commission and is now under discussion by
member states, was greeted with dismay and sadness from researchers and officials, who said
curbs would hurt all of Europe.
“Everyone’s shocked; we’ve never seen anything like this. This is not good for us, not good for the
field, and not good for the EU,” said Klaus Ensslin, professor of solid-state physics at ETH Zurich.
The draft text argues that the move is necessary so the EU can protect its research base in rapidly
developing fields. The language highlights just how much the EU’s thinking has shifted when
it comes to striking the balance between research collaboration and competitive interests. The
proposal would see fewer resources in key scientific areas go to associate countries, and more
resources dedicated to developing these sectors at home.
“There have been certain indications that something like this had been building up. But this was
quite dramatic,” said Nadav Katz, a quantum physicist who runs the Quantum Coherence Lab at
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “This is not in Europe’s interest,” he said.
News|23 March 2021

Germany backs ‘full participation' of Israel, Switzerland and UK in EU quantum and space
projects
Germany backs the "full participation" of the

UK, Switzerland and Israel in multi-billion euro
EU quantum and space projects, according to
the country‘s parliamentary state secretary to
the federal minister of education and research,
Thomas Rachel.
The three non-EU science powerhouses

face exclusion from key projects that have
previously been open to association countries, which have negotiated access to the bloc‘s research
programmes. "The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research supports full participation
by Switzerland, Israel and the UK in Horizon Europe as associated countries," Rachel, a Christian
Democratic Union member of the Bundestag since 1994, and parliament secretary supporting
Germany’s science minister since 2005, told Science|Business.
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News|25 March 2021
Over 500 academics call on EU to keep Israel’s Ariel University out of research
projects
Over 500 academics from more than 20

European countries and Israel in March
published an open letter condemning any
involvement of Israel’s Ariel University in EU-
funded research projects.
The university is located in the West Bank, an

area Palestinians seek for their future state. The
EU and most of the international community
views permanent settlements on this land as illegal under international law, though Israel disputes
this. The letter notes “with grave concern the ongoing failure of the European Union to ensure
that its taxpayer-funded research programmes are not used to legitimise or otherwise sustain
the establishment and the activities of Israeli academic institutions in illegal settlements in the
occupied Palestinian territory (OPT).”
According to participation rules for Horizon 2020, the EU’s most recent science programme, Israeli
entities may only receive grants from EU programmes if the projects concerned do not take place
in settlements occupied by Israel since 1967. The Commission says “all its projects are closely
monitored” and undergo a “rigorous ethical evaluation”.
The letter says that Ariel University hosted a dissemination event for the BOUNCE project in June
2020. In addition, a professor from Ariel University is listed as a co-researcher on the project,
“raising serious questions as to whether research activities were carried out in the OPT,” the
letter says. Ariel University is also listed as involved in the Horizon 2020 earth observation project
GEO-CRADLE, the letter notes. The academics allege that, “multiple cases demonstrate failures
of the Commission to properly instruct against, monitor for, and rectify project management
transgressions against these EU positions.”
In response to the letter, Nicole Greenspan, head of international research and public relations at
Ariel University said, “The inconsequential issue raised is that of the participation of a single Ariel
University professor in an online event. The researcher is not funded by the EU.”
News|24 May 2021

Brussels stands firm on plan to limit foreign access to ‘sensitive’ R&D projects
The European Commission is standing firm

on its plan to exclude researchers from the
UK, Israel and other non-EU countries from
“sensitive” parts of the bloc’s upcoming €95.5
billion research programme.
In a note issued to member states, dated May

19, the Commission reiterates the need to
restrict access to some of its major quantum
and space projects. The proposed restrictions, which are broader than those seen in previous
seven-year cycles of R&D funding, will cover projects that touch on “sensitive Union assets”, such
as the Galileo and Copernicus satellites, “the disruption of which would have a significant impact
for the EU as a result of the failure to maintain those functions,” the note says.
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However the plan, which has been revised following a backlash from member states, presents a
smaller list of restricted areas than initially proposed several months ago. The Commission now
wants to limit participation of non-EU entities in 49 actions in the main 2021/22 Horizon work
programme, which sets out funding priorities and competitions for the first year of the bloc’s new
seven-year science scheme. This figure has been reduced from an initial longer list of 77 actions
and represents 4.2% of the actions in this work programme and less than 3.1% of the total 21/22
budget of Horizon Europe, the note explains.
The Commission points to a new legal basis in Horizon Europe, Article 22(5), that foresees the
possibility to limit the participation of entities established in non-EU countries that that pay
to affiliate to Horizon Europe. The proposed curbs would leave countries like Israel with less
privileged access to Horizon Europe than it have had in past R&D programmes. For the UK, too,
which formally left the bloc at the end of last year, the move would see a big downgrade of its role
in key EU projects. Norway and Iceland, two countries inside the European Economic Area, also
face exclusion from a number of space research areas, the note says.
Key Commission officials believe exclusions are necessary so the EU can protect its research
base in rapidly developing fields. But according to one non-EU official who has seen the new
Commission note, “It will be really difficult for research teams to assess which country is eligible
for what.” The whole debate, which has dragged on for months, has repeatedly delayed the
launch of Horizon Europe calls.
The Commission document stresses that the vast majority of the programme will be open to
EU neighbours and the rich, democratic “like-minded” countries. “The default approach… is of
openness to collaboration with researchers and research organisations from all over the world.
Nevertheless, the Horizon Europe regulation provides a greater emphasis than its predecessors on
the pursuit of reciprocity with third country partners and on the protection of EU assets, interests,
autonomy and security,” the note adds.
The Commission dangles the possibility that it may still permit the participation of close partners
in projects deemed sensitive, provided specific criteria can be met. “The starting point should be
that entities established in associated countries should not be eligible unless certain conditions
are met by the associated country,” says the note, which is now being studied by member states.
Here, the note talks about EU officials needing “confirmation that such participation would not
present a risk to the Union’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy and security”. Also talked about
is the need to guarantee that EU entities will have access to equivalent programmes in non-EU
countries, as well as an obligation for non-EU officials “to report on and consult the Commission
on any possible cases of planned foreign investment or takeovers by non-eligible entities of
enterprises”.
News|24 May 2021

Switzerland ditches EU treaty talks, leaving question mark over research ties
Switzerland has pulled the plug on seven

long years of negotiations to upgrade its
relations with Brussels, in a move that casts
a shadow over the country’s participation in
the EU’s €95.5 billion Horizon Europe research
programme.
Both sides have spent years thrashing out

an over-arching treaty. Officially, talks on this
new accord have nothing to do with science
106
collaboration, or with Switzerland’s attempts to renew its place in the EU’s research programme
as an associate member. However, speaking after the decision by the Swiss Federal Council to
end talks, an EU official said Brussels would now weigh the “value added” of Swiss participation
in the Horizon Europe scheme “against the state of the overall relationship.”
“We are very concerned and call on the European Commission and the Swiss government to find
solutions to associate Switzerland to Horizon Europe,” said Olivier Küttel, head of international
affairs at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. “We would like to remind the
EU that there is no formal or legal link between Switzerland‘s association to Horizon Europe and
the Swiss-EU treaty. The Commission is making a political link, so a solution should be possible
assuming political will. If we are not associated, the EU and Switzerland loses,” Küttel added.
Swiss universities sounded the alarm over the EU-Swiss treaty on May 15, calling its completion
“of central importance” for Swiss research. “The EU has clearly signalled that it considers
progress towards the conclusion of a framework agreement to be a prerequisite for Switzerland's
participation in the research and education programmes,” the statement from the swissuniversities
association said.
News | 4 Jun 2021

White smoke? EU deal over quantum, space research lets Horizon Europe proceed
Researchers from Israel, Switzerland, Britain

and other non-EU countries may be allowed
to join the EU’s quantum and space research
projects, under a deal between representatives
of member states and the European
Commission reached this week.
The agreement could end months of

uncertainties around international participation
in sensitive R&D projects in Horizon Europe,
the EU’s new €95.5 billion R&D programme. The Commission has yet to confirm the deal. In a
statement emailed to Science|Business a spokeswoman said “discussions on this matter are still
ongoing, we won’t comment on these discussions.”
According to officials involved in the negotiations, member states and the Commission were
able to find a compromise between opening up the calls to associated countries and ensuring
the EU’s strategic interests in quantum and space technologies are protected. Member state
representatives called the agreement “a fair compromise.”
According to the agreement, eligibility to participate in 21 quantum and space research calls could
be extended to include legal entities established in candidate associated countries which provide
necessary assurances concerning protection of the EU’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy or
security.
Quantum and space calls will be frozen until associated countries provide those “necessary
assurances” that their participation will not violate the EU’s strategic interests. These are to be
settled within individual association agreements which are being negotiated bilaterally by the EU
and interested countries over the next year.
It is unclear at this moment what kind of criteria associated countries would need to provide to fit
the Commission’s bill for “necessary assurances”.
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8
So you want
to apply….
Appearances notwithstanding, winning a Horizon Europe grant is not a lottery. Yes, the success
rates are low: for Horizon 2020, the odds of winning were around one in nine – but with huge
variations from one part of the programme to another. And yes, the effort of applying is enormous,
with some economists estimating the cost of all failed Horizon 2020 applications at more than
€6 billion. But the benefits of Horizon participation are many – to individual researchers, their
institutions or companies, and the economy overall. The money aside, the less-tangible benefits of
networking, collaboration and excellence are noteworthy; indeed, many companies that participate
in Horizon do so mainly for the contacts and trust that can develop No other programme in the
world places so much emphasis on cross-border partnerships which, in our global economy, are
essential for science and industry alike.
But winning a grant takes skill and knowledge. Science|Business isn’t in the business of advising
applicants. And the Commission’s web site is crammed with thousands of pages of documents
explaining it all in excruciating detail. But our staff includes quite a few people knowledgeable
about Horizon, as does our network of 70+ universities, companies and research organisations.
So here we try to convey a few key points – in essence, a travel advisory for anyone contemplating
a trip to the Horizon.
We focus on what has always been the core of any Framework Programme: the multi-partner R&D
projects that, in Horizon Europe, are in Pillar II described earlier. Other parts of the programme,
such as the European Research Council or the European Innovation Council, are parallel universes
that have some special procedures and rules of their own.
From idea to project: Tips

By Roy Pennings, senior advisor to Science|Business
Every grant starts with an idea – of what you want to do, or think you can do, based on your
expertise. The first challenge in Horizon is finding a part of the programme that could fund you or
your organisation. And that requires a bit of humility.
For the bulk of the thematic Pillar II grants – the focus of this commentary – the Commission’s
periodic Calls for Proposals tend to reflect particular societal or political needs or problems, and not
a desire to fund an interesting scientific idea or concept as such. This means that there will almost
certainly not be a Call that exactly reflects the research topic you as a researcher have in mind or
your organisation can fully cover. To be even more specific: to access EU funding, applicants must
first accept that their research field only constitutes a small part of a bigger project; hence the need
for collaboration to create sufficient expertise to cover all aspects of the Call. Their concept must
be embedded in this wider EU political or societal need. In Pillar II, the Commission essentially acts
like a client: It knows what it wants. It is just looking for the best supplier of a scientific-technological
solution to the given issue. It’s as simple as that. If you want full scientific freedom to follow your
dreams, try other parts of Horizon like the European Research Council in Horizon’s first Pillar. If
you have a cool tech start-up and want some EU cash to help develop your first product, try the
European Innovation Council in Pillar III. But the core of Horizon is the multi-partner, multi-national
collaborative research projects intended to solve a specific problem set by the politicians and
bureaucrats. This is where most organisations end up working in Horizon. The skill in applying is
finding a bit of the programme that’s compatible with what you do.
Defining your project

And finding that is grunt work: search, network, think. If you’re at a big university or research
technology organisation, you can probably get some help on any stage of the grant process
from its grants department. Or you can try your National Contact Point, an organisation officially
designated to help applicants in your country. You could try a private consultant, or a colleague
who has done Horizon before. But you should probably be conducting this first search phase on
your own, as you know best what you can do.
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So when investigating Calls, one
approach is to write down 10 to 15 Technology Readiness Levels
keywords that describe your field of > TRL 1 – basic principles observed
interest. Do not make the keywords > TRL 2 – technology concept formulated
too narrow, but also not so generic > TRL 3 – experimental proof of concept
that anything and everything could fit. > TRL 4 – technology validated in lab
Then go to the Commission’s online > TRL 5 – technology validated in relevant environment
Funding & Tender Opportunities (industrially relevant environment in the case of key
portal, a formidable database of enabling technologies)
Horizon Calls for Proposal, projects, > TRL 6 – technology demonstrated in relevant
rules and more. Look for the “open” environment (industrially relevant environment in the
and “forthcoming” Calls (skip the case of key enabling technologies)
“tenders”; that’s for commercial > TRL 7 – system prototype demonstration in operational
contracts.) Next step: enter the environment
keywords into the search bar, and see > TRL 8 – system complete and qualified
what comes up. The result could be > TRL 9 – actual system proven in operational
Calls in any of the six broad sectoral environment (competitive manufacturing in the case of
areas of Pillar II, the “clusters” key enabling technologies; or in space
described earlier in this guide. For Source: European Commission
instance, you might be surprised at
how many health research topics
are actually in the Cultural Heritage cluster. This mixing of disciplines is a feature, not a fault, of
Horizon; the Commission wants to encourage cross-fertilisation of disciplines, sectors, countries
and people to get the best possible solutions. The broad topic may not obviously fit you, but for
the right project inside that topic you could be a very interesting addition to a broader consortium
because your niche expertise covers a particular element needed in the Call. The portal will let
you scroll through the open and forthcoming topics. As they usually cover a period of two years,
the effort of spending half a day entering keywords and checking the scope of the Calls is well
worth it. And if in first instance you do not succeed, change your keywords and try again.
All grant applications should start with a healthy dose of self-doubt. Is my idea good enough? Am
I a sufficiently credible scientist to be considered by the evaluators as a leader in my field? My idea
only covers part of what is being requested, so who will want to work with me? Are the possible
collaborators up to the job? Am I?
Everybody – newbie and experienced project leader alike - has these doubts every time they start
this journey. Why is it important to ask yourself these questions? Because once the development
starts, it will take up a large part of your time. So checking running commitments or holiday
schedules is a must. The period from the very first concept to proposal submission has a
significant cost in term of time and effort by all participating organisations that will collaborate
in the project. The value of total time and effort needed by a 10-party consortium to submit
a single-stage application can approach €100,000, with a disproportionate share of that falling
on the coordinating organisation. So management commitment and support from each partner
organisation is an absolute must. And you, yourself, have to really believe you can win.
Now let’s imagine there is a Horizon Call topic in Pillar II that your keywords flagged. First point
to consider is whether you understand the reason(s) why the European Commission has actually
published the Call. Always keep in mind that in Pillar II the Commission is looking for actual
solutions to its problems and cares a lot less about scientific curiosity. So an investigation into
some of the publicly available policy documents related to the Call (search in the Commission’s
main website, ec.europa.eu) is a good idea. It can help you later in the process when you position
the relevance and importance of the proposal.
Next step is to check the technological novelty of your own concept against what the Call is asking
for. The Commission uses a standard international yardstick for grading technology by its stage
of development, the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) ladder. To push the research community
110
towards more ambitious research and innovation, the Commission often expects applicants
to jump over one or more TRL levels – for example, from basic principles (TRL1) to proof of
concept (TRL3). You should assess your initial research concept against the state-of-the-art and
ongoing technology trends. Verify that your idea does not simply constitute the next obvious step
in development; that’s “incremental research.” While that does sometimes get funded, it isn’t a
good bet for your time. Use scientific publications, trend analyses from specialised technology
consulting companies, or even development strategy documents published online by many large
corporations for this purpose.
The Horizon fine print: Who can apply?

The law is pretty straightforward on who is eligible for funding. To start with, it’s any legal entity
– company, university, research organisation, individual or whatever – in the EU, its members’
overseas territories, or in a country “associated” to the programme. In Horizon 2020, there
were 16 such associated countries, meaning that their governments cut a deal with the EU to
contribute to the programme so their researchers could compete for funding. They were all EU
neighbours like Switzerland, Norway and Israel. For Horizon Europe, association negotiations
have barely begun, but most of the 16 will probably re-enlist. Britain, now Brexited, will associate,
at least for now. New associates could include Morocco, Canada, Japan and a few others.
Beyond that safe list, a legal entity in other countries can get funded if the Commission for its
own policy reasons names that country in its detailed Horizon work programmes – for instance,
in its agricultural research plans, an Egyptian food company might join a big Mediterranean-
area project with Italy, Spain and others. And the Commission can fund if it decides a particular
non-associated organisation is “essential” to the success of a Horizon project. Example: A
Canadian lab with a unique gene database needed by EU researchers.
That’s eligibility for funding. But, strangely in Horizon, it’s also possible to “participate” in a
project without getting money. Surprisingly, this happens a lot: several thousand researchers
from around the world have this no-money status in Horizon 2020. They are usually being
funded by their own governments, which want to encourage collaboration with Europe. And
the Commission also encourages this, sometimes by agreeing with other governments that
they will draft a call for grant proposals together but handle the grant paperwork separately. For
instance, some international ocean research gets funded this way, with Canada, the US and
EU all pushing money towards the same big Arctic research projects. This kind of collaboration
also gives the non-EU participants access to the project results – but, it should be noted, not
everybody welcomes this. Some big US universities, such as the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, only participate in special cases; normally, their lawyers don’t like some of the
standard Commission contract terms.
The Horizon 2020 associates

• Iceland • Israel
• Norway • Moldova
• Albania • Switzerland
• Bosnia and Herzegovina • Faroe Islands
• North Macedonia • Ukraine
• Montenegro • Tunisia
• Serbia • Georgia
• Turkey • Armenia

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Building your consortium
Once you are - still - convinced that your initial concept fits the Calls and is sufficiently novel,
you will also realise that the demands in the Call text are significantly wider than your specific
expertise alone. So finding partners to cover the gaps is vital.
A major pitfall for many researchers is that they tend to look primarily to already known colleagues
and friends at other institutes to form a consortium. The reason is simple: you already know
them. You know what they do. You know they are reliable. But be honest: Given the intense
competition in Horizon, are your friends really the “best of the best” for this project? If not, go
find the most credible and most experienced partners possible. There are lots of ways: check
conference agendas, publication citations, technology trend reports, even the Internet; there, you
can often get ideas for industrial partners. There are also online platforms on which you can post
your interest. But be advised: with the un-specialised platforms like Linked-In, the traffic can be
pretty far from what you actually need for your project. And beware: when communicating with a
potential partner, you will want to tell them enough to get their interest, but not so much that you
risk your own plans. After, some of these people may be your competitors.
If you join an already-forming consortium, your main task will be to remodel your technology
concept in a way that fits the ongoing discussion. If, on the other hand, you are the lead, you need
to expand your initial description to meet the wider requirements of the Call. That means organising
a meeting with a few possible project partners that could become your core consortium members.
The meeting will also highlight other gaps in expertise needed to satisfy the Call requirements.
Luckily, your meeting partners will also have existing networks that may be relevant. The result
could be a list of other organisations to email about possible participation.
Your email to these organisations should be clear: this is the opportunity, this is the current
consortium composition, this is why the targeted organisation may be of interest. Invite them to
a meeting, online or in person (at their cost), to discuss the project in detail. The email invitation
should be clear that it is not to be taken as automatic acceptance of that organisation in the
consortium. In the meeting you will see that there are overlaps in expertise, non-committal
organisations, non-relevant organisations. Some will be only interested in getting hold of the grant
money. So you end the meeting by confirming that the core consortium will analyse the meeting
results and inform partners whether they can be included in the consortium or not. At this point,
the ball is back in your court. It is your task to rework the input from the meeting into a new
document: the proposal baseline document. This will guide the actual proposal writing.
Your final step before writing the proposal is to decide whether you wish to continue as the coordinator,
or whether to hand this responsibility over to another organisation with more experience. You should
consider whether the Commission’s evaluators will find you credible enough to act as coordinator.
A good rule-of-thumb is that you should have participated in EU research projects at least a few
times (climbing from participant to task leader and then work package leader) before attempting to
steer such a large process yourself. The coordinator often gets the biggest share of the money; but
that’s because there is a lot of work involved, for which you may need extra staff. Indeed, the whole
process of writing the application requires you to specify – in detail, with budgets – what each of the
partners will do; some will lead an individual “work package” inside the project, such as prototyping
or dissemination. Usually everybody’s reasonable about their expectations, but sometimes the
negotiations can feel like a game of “Prisoner’s Dilemma.”
The moment of truth

All Horizon Europe proposals, provided they were submitted before the Call’s deadline, are
assessed for their quality and suitability to receive grant funding. How does that happen?
Again, focusing on Pillar II: The proposals for a Call are judged not by the Commission staff
itself but by external evaluators paid by the Commission. Anybody can register to become an
evaluator for Horizon; they just go to the Horizon portal and sign up. There are 20,000+ experts
on the Commission’s database; and for each Call, the responsible Commission official will invite a
112
number of them to become evaluators. These officials make a serious effort to select experts that
are from or close to the Call topic’s research area. But that can be difficult in a new or obscure
field: some evaluators have real knowledge of the technology, and some are focused mostly on
understanding the intended societal or economic impact of the project’s outcomes. By contrast, in
popular fields there can be more experts than proposals. In that case, the Commission appears to
rely more on a group of established leaders, rather than increasing the stream of new evaluators.
This is, however, not necessarily a bad thing: Some newbie evaluators register mainly to learn on
the job about good proposal writing, and using them would risk annoying applicants
The evaluation process
Exactly how the judging occurs differs by the part of Horizon involved. Most start online, reading
the proposals and filling out evaluation forms. In some parts of the programmes, like the ERC,
the evaluators are a panel of bona fide, internationally recognised experts who interview the best
applicants in person or (during COVID lockdowns) online. At the EIC, a formal pitch session can
be organised for the best applicants. But for other parts of the programme, the entire process
happens online, with the evaluators working individually before coming together for a virtual group
meeting.
The 3 evaluation criteria
113
The Horizon fine print: Consortia, money and terms
Generally, Horizon Europe is designed for partnerships in research and innovation. The law,
adopted by the European Parliament 18 April 2021, lays out the default position: to get funding,
a group just have at least one “independent legal entity” in an EU member state, and at least two
other independent entities in different member states or countries associated with Horizon. That’s
the rule for a bit more than half of Horizon, the sector-specific Pillar II. But there are big exceptions.
The European Research Council for frontier research, the European Innovation Council for small-
business support, and various training or mobility programmes only needs at least one legal entity
so long as it is in the EU or an associated country (“or, in exceptional cases, in another third
country.”)
But there are lots of extra conditions that the Commission can apply. “For actions related to Union
strategic assets, interests, autonomy or security”, the Commission can limit participation to EU
members or selected associates; that particular clause led to months of internal bickering in early
2021 over whether to let the Brits, Israelis, Swiss or other non-EU countries join sensitive projects
on quantum or space technologies. (The compromise reach June 3: it’s for country-by-country
negotiation with the Commission, rather than a blanket rule.)
There are other caveats. No human cloning (surprise), and countries like Poland can ban human-
stem cell projects from their borders. An application must include an ethics policy, which the
Commission will screen for possible problems (important for health projects, among others). For
sensitive projects, a security assessment may be required. Public organisations above a certain
size must have a formal gender-equality policy. And the list goes on.
Then, if a project is accepted, comes the Commission’s contractual terms. On Intellectual

property, the law says grantees “shall own the results they generate.” Two or more grantees
own results jointly if they generated them together or can’t figure out a way to divide the rights
up. And grantees can transfer or license results to others (exclusively, if they wish) provided the
other partners and the Commission don’t object. Results must be disseminated “as soon as
feasible” and the Commission can (and does in most cases) require they be published openly;
it just launched a new publishing service for that. The underlying data should be “as open as
possible, as closed as necessary” (figure that one out.) Those are among the general terms, but
there are lots of exceptions and special rules for parts of Horizon like the ERC and EIC. And, it
should be noted, all these caveats bother some corporate and university lawyers, especially in the
litigation-obsessed US. So, read the fine print before signing a contract.
But what about the money? For the classic Pillar II project, a so-called Research and Innovation
Action, the grant covers 100% of “eligible costs.” For another type, Innovation Actions for close-
to-market work, non-profits get reimbursed 100% of their costs, but for-profits only up to 70%.
For so-called co-funded actions between the Commission and member-state governments, the
Commission will pay up to 30% with rest up to other funders. But what’s an “eligible cost?” In
short, it includes the time staff spend on a project, using their standard national pay rate (meaning
researchers in expensive Germany get more money than next door in the Czech Republic – a
source of much political conflict. Relevant travel, conferences, lab supplies and the like are
eligible. But overheads, like a lab’s share of its university’s building costs, are off limits; instead,
the Commission pays a flat 25% premium to cover any overheads. That percentage is criticised
as too low by some big organisations, but at least in Europe most sign up anyway. One change
in Horizon Europe welcome by many: grantees can use their own standard accounting practices,
rather than adopt special Horizon rules.
But what are these people evaluating? As in Horizon 2020, for Pillar II projects there are three basic
criteria: excellence, impact and implementation. The first is how cool or exciting the technology
or idea really is. The second is how much it will matter to anybody if the work succeeds. And the
last is whether the group looks like it can actually do what it’s promising. There are, in Horizon
Europe compared to Horizon 2020, a few new wrinkles. For instance, in judging excellence, there
needs to be a clear description of how “Open Science” is an integral part of the project’s scientific
114
methodology. Public sector applicants must show they have a formal gender-balance policy. The
application must include a so-called Key Innovation Pathway, through which the Commission
wants to force consortia to be more specific about the types of impacts they hope will result, and
how they will be measured. But evaluators won’t any longer need a long “management of the
project” section, which in the past largely ended up being a copy-paste from other applications.
It is the responsibility of the assigned Commission official and the panel chair to ensure that the
panel arrives at an agreed score for the proposals. Each of the three criteria can earn a maximum
number of points, and the sum of them all can rise to 15 points. Each Call has a “threshold”
number of points needed to get serious consideration; but hitting the threshold doesn’t mean
you get the money. There are more “above threshold” proposals than budget available. We don’t
know yet how tough Horizon Europe competition will be, but the agreed programme budget is a
lot less than the Commission first proposed to the tight-fisted member states. In Horizon 2020, it
was entirely possible that a proposal scoring 14.25 points out of the maximum 15 (with a threshold
at 12.5 points) still didn’t win the grant. At some point, trying to rank already excellent proposals
truly becomes an exercise in futility or absurdity. This is visible in many Evaluation Summary
Reports (so-called ESRs), where evaluators are forced to arbitrarily use terms like “shortcoming”,
“weakness” or “minor weakness” to justify choosing between proposals that differentiate by no
more than 0.2 points. If this continues, or gets worse in Horizon Europe, the programme could
become a victim of its own success. It could repel top-level European researchers or companies
from submitting proposals at all; after all, national, foundation or private funding might be easier.
To cope, the Commission introduced a “Seal of Excellence” for great projects it couldn’t fund, in
the hope national programmes would step in.
What happens if you’re rejected, and you want to fight? Up until now, the only option was to file an
official redress request for non-science issues related to the proposal, like a perceived conflict of
interest on the part of an evaluator. The success rate of redress procedures has been very low, so
do not get your hopes up that you could save your grant that way. So by way of responding to an
often-voiced criticism that the evaluators completely misunderstood an important argument in a
proposal, a new rebuttal process will be piloted, as will a “blind evaluation of 1st-stage proposals”.
Running an EU-funded research project

Being the scientific coordinator of a European research project is a tough job. To be blunt: you are
likely to do relatively little research in your own project, because much of your time will be taken
by managing your consortium, reviewing the quality of project deliverables, writing technical and
administrative progress reports, filing contract amendments, sorting out IP management conflicts,
cajoling partners that do not deliver what is expected of them, organising consortium meetings
including social events, and more and more and more. Project coordination means that you must
love solving other people’s problems, day by day, every day. So know what you will be getting
yourself into.
But then… Being a scientific project coordinator creates a certain reputation. After all, as you
lead the project, you have the power to direct where the project is going. But do not fool yourself:
the margins for project modifications are within bounds (namely: the Grant Agreement); and the
Commission – in the form of the project Coordinator – is a strict task master who holds you to
what you promised. Both the consortium partners and the Project Officer will look to you to
provide steering, ad hoc problem mitigation and detailed justifications for any significant project
changes. So before you embark on a coordinating role, it is best to learn what it means from the
sidelines as a project partner. Then decide if this type of activity is for you, or if your ambition lies
more in the actual research itself. It goes without saying that also your organisation must be ready
and able to manage your coordination, because you will not be able to do all required tasks just
by yourself. Your finance and legal departments, HR, IT need to be ready as well. And don’t forget
to make sure that you have the confirmed backing and commitment from your top management.
You would not be the first in the EU to find themselves running an orphan project that nobody in
the parent organisation cares about anymore..
115
The Horizon fine print: Beyond Pillar II
For the most part, in this chapter we’ve been talking about the classic Horizon project consortia.
But there are lots of variations in other parts of the programme, though the basic rules are the same.
In Pillar I, on “Excellence”, the systems for funding Research Infrastructures and the Marie
Skłowdowska Curie Actions work largely the same way as the collaborative projects in Pillar II:
they also require collaborations, but for these programmes the respective target group for funding,
is specific. For the Research Infrastructures the group targeted to get the money is obvious: the
big labs like CERN, the Max Planck Institutes or others providing access for other researchers
to their accelerators, databases or other big scientific infrastructure. In the MSCA programme,
multiple universities and industry have to collaborate, but there the focus is on: (1) either creating
more mobility opportunities for young researchers to explore career opportunities and to build
their scientific network, (2) attract top-level researchers from outside the EU to come work at a
European university or institute, or (3) foster staff exchanges between industry and academia
for the purpose of increasing mutual knowledge and understanding about latest technology or
research approaches.
But the European Research Council is quite different from Pillar II. Here, by law, the only criterion
for evaluation is excellence. And grant proposals are, with one exception, prepared by single
applicants. The choice on which of the three main strands (Starting Grant – Advanced Grant –
Consolidator Grant) to go for depends on the number of post-PhD research years the applicant
has. Proposals are submitted to one of 25 subject-specific evaluation panels (clustered in Life
Sciences, Physical Sciences & Engineering, Social Sciences & Humanities); most of the evaluators
are leaders in their fields, and many are from outside the EU. The competition for money is fierce,
because having an ERC grant is confirmation that you are seen as a scientific leader in your
field. Most European universities constantly scout for ERC grantees and offer them very attractive
positions and research facilities because it adds to the university’s status and build further
excellent science capacity leading to even more grants.
The main point when considering an ERC application is that the research topic must be ambitious
and not an expected continuation of ongoing research, however interesting that current research
might be. Doing “the next step” is not going to get you an ERC grant; the project must be daring.
And daring means that the idea should either be completely novel or – at least – it should seriously
challenge accepted knowledge and wisdom from the field. That means that an ERC proposal must
show high scientific and technological risk of failure rather than a high confidence in achieving
the envisaged result in full. So to be really clear: high risk of failure is good in an ERC proposal,
because that shows daring and true leadership. To make it even more visual: in an ERC proposal,
you as the applicant should lean out of the window almost to the point of falling out. At the
same time, the proposal must also indicate very clearly that the concept is feasible and that the
applicant is credible. Admittedly, this is very fine line to tread for any applicant, but the evaluators
should end up saying to themselves: “This is really crazy, but if anyone can pull it off, it is this
person right here!”
At this point we emphasise that this credibility is not demonstrated just by already published
scientific work. Keep in mind that there will always be more scientifically excellent proposals than
the Commission has money for. Even though they are not formal criteria, in many ERC proposals
nowadays applicants are trying to combine scientific excellence with some form of societal need
or an indication of future societal or economic impact from the proposed research. By playing into
the Commission’s need to produce solutions to worldly problems, they hope to stand out against
the competition. Another important differentiator is – of course – the researcher CV. Build your
credibility by adding a number of high-quality extra-curricular activities or achievements. Having
several patents is an excellent indicator of leadership (potential), for instance. Being the editor (or
at least regular reviewer) of a scientific journal, having organised several conferences, having been
the keynote speaker, having run webinars are all good ways to get the attention of evaluators. The
motto is: anything to make you stand out.
116
There are two more strands within the ERC: Proof of Concept & Synergy Grants. These typically require
that the applicant already has a prior ERC grant, or comprise two leading researchers and their teams
from different disciplines who link up to address an extremely challenging cross-disciplinary topic.
Pillar III of Horizon Europe is a mix of different types of funding schemes that used to be run by different
parts of the Commission under differing procedures. Most are consolidated in Horizon Europe.
A large part of this pillar is dedicated to helping research-oriented SMEs fund their business
plans, build first prototypes, or create a name for themselves in the global market. It is run by the
European Innovation Council (EIC). The programme has three consecutive steps: The Pathfinder
scheme provides grants for high-risk/high-gain and interdisciplinary, cutting-edge collaborations
that underpin technological breakthroughs. Keep those last two words in mind: this programme is
not for the average engineering or construction company, design agency or the like. We are talking
about early-stage development of future technologies up to the point of proof-of-concept. In
practice, this means that many applicants are likely to be spin-outs from universities or high-tech
companies. The EIC Transition scheme helps companies mature novel technologies and build or
finalise the company’s business model.
The Accelerator scheme provides money to applicants so they can scale up their technology and
get ready to enter the market. Serious product innovation, a detailed description of the technology
and a credible delivery team are key elements in a successful application. Funding is provides in
the form of grants and investments. As described earlier in this report, the equity funding may
come with some strings attached.
Another part of Pilar III is run by the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) which,
unlike the EIC, is a separate entity within the European ‘grantscape’. The EIT fosters a number of
Innovation Communities – so-called KICs – that jointly develop innovative products and services,
start new companies, and train a new generation of entrepreneurs. The main aim of the KICs is
to build eco-systems of companies and academia around a specific topic (like: climate, energy
or food). The EIT funding usually covers a top-up of activities within a research & development
programme that the participants were already planning to do. Eight KICs are already in operation
and as they are open, you can join them.
As a final point, you should be aware that even when the project is finished, you as coordinator
will have some remaining obligations toward the Commission for several years thereafter. The
Commission wants to know what the actual impacs of your project results are. They want to know
that your dissemination activities (think: active website, promotional materials, presentations)
remain available for several years more.
And just when you think that’s all… there is the potential of a project audit which can take place
up to two years after the Commission has made the final project payment. Now this is not
specific to the coordinator alone; any project partner can be audited by the Commission. But
as the coordinator, it is very likely that you will become involved in the process. An audit can be
conducted by the Commission's own staff or outsourced to external persons or bodies appointed
by the Commission.
To end on a positive note: the struggle to come up with a project idea, the agony of writing
a winning proposal, the constant battle to keep the project on track, and the prospect of an
additional scrutiny from a Commission project audit still have not kept any coordinator from doing
it all again. The things we do for science…

117
The reading list
If there’s one thing the Commission doesn’t lack, it’s words – millions of them. So for most
questions you might have about Horizon, you can find the answers. Somewhere. If you read
really carefully. Except in those places where, to get a political compromise, the rules are
deliberately opaque or vague.
>F unding & Tenders Opportunities. The first stop online to find what’s on offer, when. You can
also sign up here if you fancy yourself an expert evaluator of projects.
> Cordis. The vast database of Framework Programme projects, in (sometimes) simple language
> The two Horizon Europe laws. This is more readable than you’d think, and lays out pretty
clearly the objectives and general rules for Horizon Europe, in two sections: One on the
overall Framework Programme, and one on the “Specific Programme” with subject-specific
details.
>H orizon Europe. The Commission’s attempt at explaining things. Well, they try. A huge
collection of documents about the programme, and the steps along the way to getting it into
law. Bookmarking this page is a good idea.
>T he Horizon Dashboard. A messy but useful tool to find out what money is flowing to what
organisations, in which countries, for what reasons.
> Science|Business Horizon Papers. Well, we would be remiss not to suggest our own index of
draft work programmes (many leaked to us over the past year) and other documents.
> Science|Business news. If you haven’t already, sign up for our free twice-weekly e-newsletter
on latest Horizon news. It’s by our professional journalists. And, frankly, it’s good.
118
119
Bringing together industry, research and policy
Industry
Elsevier / RELX Pfizer
Huawei Sanofi
Microsoft Toyota
Novartis
Academia
Aalto University Sorbonne University
Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna Tallinn University of Technology
Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences Trinity College Dublin
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne TU Berlin
Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) University College London
Erasmus University Rotterdam University of Amsterdam
ETH Zurich University of Bergen
Imperial College London University of Birmingham
Karolinska Institutet University of Eastern Finland
KTH Royal Institute of Technology University of Luxembourg
KU Leuven University of Pisa
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) University of Tartu
Politecnico di Milano University of Twente
Polytechnique Montréal University of Warwick
Utrecht University
Public organisations
ART-ER French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)
Barcelona Supercomputing Center GEANT
Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) Innovate UK
Business Finland Innovation Norway
CERN Israel-Europe Research & Innovation Directorate (ISERD)
COST Association National Centre for Research and Development in Poland (NCBR)
CSC – IT Center for Science Québec Research Fund
EUREKA Network Republic of South Africa – Department of Science and Innovation
European Investment Bank Research Council of Norway
Fraunhofer RIKEN
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
Associations and Partnerships

ACM Europe Council Federation of European Microbiological Societies (FEMS)
ATTRACT League of European Accelerator-based Photon Sources (LEAPS)
CAROTS Mobile World Capital Barcelona
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) Photonics 21
EIT Health The Guild
European University Association (EUA)
Group members
Deusto International Research School (DIRS) Simon Fraser University
Contact:
Simon Pickard
Network Director
simon.pickard@sciencebusiness.net

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Horizon

4th Edition: 2021

This publication is based on the independent reporting of Science|Business journalists,

Science|Business is a registered trademark of Science Business Publishing Ltd.

© 2021 Science Business Publishing Ltd.

0 HORIZON AND THE WORLD 3

1 AN INTRODUCTION TO HORIZON EUROPE 7

2 WHAT’S IN HORIZON EUROPE? 19

3 THE POLITICS OF HORIZON EUROPE 25 29

4 MISSIONS, PARTNERSHIPS AND CLUSTERS 45

6 WIDENING 2.0, OR EAST V WEST 83

7 GOING GLOBAL? UP TO A POINT… 91

8 THE PRACTICAL DETAILS: HOW TO JOIN 109

The growth of Framework Programmes (billions)

Source: European Commission

Distribution of Horizon 2020 funds

Source: European Commission

Source: European Commission

Horizon 2020 – Where did the money go?

The top 25 grantees

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS France € 1.126.039.163

Source: European Commission

Source: European Commission

News | 24 Sep 2020

Source: Science|Business online survey

News | 1 Oct 2020

Survey results: Multinationals not quite so welcome in the EU’s Horizon

Source: Science|Business online survey

New features in Horizon Europe

Horizon Europe’s 4 main objectives

As in past Frameworks, the heart of Horizon is a collection of subject-specific “work programmes”

The structure of Horizon Europe

Pillar I: Excellent Science Support for academic research €24.9 billion

Pillar II: Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness

2. Culture, creativity and inclusive society:

3. Civil security for society:

4. Digital, industry and space, which covers:

6. Food, bioeconomy, natural resources and environment:

Pillar III: Innovative Europe

> General introduction: January 2020, March 2021*

Part 4: Strengthening the European Research Area

The making of Horizon Europe

News |9 Jan 2018

EU leaders are calling for an increase in the

The European Commission kicked off the

The European Commission on Wednesday

The figure includes €97.6 billion for Horizon

News |2 May 2018

“Could do better.” That’s the

Even with the big research budget increase

A potential €97.6 billion for research between

News |7 June 2018

EU Research Commissioner Carlos Moedas

News |28 June 2018

Electric vehicle groups, chip manufacturers,

News |28 September 2018

Austrian science minister: governments and EU Commission ‘in conflict’ over

“There is a conflict over who gets to decide

News |1 December 2018

Europe’s research ministers reached an

Following marathon eight and a half hour talks,

The European Parliament gave its formal

The vote 12 December, following a lockdown