Horizon Europe: Novelties of the new research and innovation programme
The 5 Horizon Europe novelties
- Launch of the European Innovation Council
- Five missions to fulfill
- More international collaboration
- Open science
- New forms of partnerships
Horizon Europe novelty #1: European Innovation Council
One says the ERC is the Nobel prizes factory of the European Union. But what about innovation? Europe is as good as the USA in research, but very few companies arise from this research and scale enough to reach the market.
Many public funds are available for fundamental research and proofs of concept at the national and international levels. Private investors bet on promising start-ups that have already proven their worth. One of the challenges of Horizon Europe and, more specifically, of the European Innovation Council (EIC) is to fill the funding gap around the creation and up-scaling of new companies, helping research to go the market and have a genuine impact on society.
The EIC will propose two funding schemes to reach this objective: EIC Pathfinder and EIC Accelerator.
EIC Pathfinder
- ex FET
- to explore radically new/breakthrough technologies
- Low TRLs
- 2 types of calls: bottom-up (only collaborative projects, TRL 1-3) & top-down (collaborative and individual projects, TRL 2-4)
EIC Accelerator
- Ex SME Instruments
- To develop radically new/breakthrough technologies so that they become attractive for private investors
- High TRLs: 5-6 at the beginning of the project, 8 at the end
- Mostly individual funding
- Transition: funding of successfull ERC or EIC pathfinder facilitated
In addition, the participants will have an access to mentoring, networking opportunities, etc… to increase their chance to succeed.
Horizon Europe novelty #2: Five missions
Europe needs more sustainable ways to grow, eat, and consume. Healthier ways of living, healthier soils, and oceans are essential for the planet’s future. It certainly requires excellent research and daily engagement of the citizens to change their behaviors. Everybody needs to be on board to reach our societal challenges!
The commission has set up five missions to raise awareness of the European citizens and engage them alongside researchers. They will orient the research to reach ambitious and measurable objectives by 2030:
- Cancer: By 2030, more than 3 million lives will be saved.
- Adaptation to climate change, including societal transformation (climate): by 2030, prepare Europe to deal with climate disruptions, accelerate the transition to a healthy and prosperous future within safe planetary boundaries, and scale up solutions for resilience that will trigger societal transformations.
- Healthy oceans, seas, coastal and inland waters (oceans): by 2030, clean marine and fresh waters, restore degraded ecosystems and habitats, and decarbonize the blue economy to harness the essential goods and services they provide sustainably.
- Climate-neutral and intelligent cities (cities): by 2030, support, promote, and showcase 100 European cities in their systemic transformation towards climate neutrality.
- Soil health and food (soil): by 2030, at least 75% of all soils in the EU will be healthy for nutrition, people, nature, and climate.
Source: European Commission website
For each open call, the commission will indicate to which mission it can contribute. The missions will be achieved thanks to different projects from different calls/clusters.
Everybody is invited to bring their contribution to the definition of the missions’ objectives through the collaborative platform “Get Involved in Missions.”
Horizon Europe novelty #3: Extended association possibilities
International collaboration will be further encouraged in Horizon Europe to improve our efficiency in tackling societal challenges.
In particular:
- The number of associated countries will be increased
- More actions and calls involving third countries will be set up
Horizon Europe novelty #4: Open science
Open science was already much encouraged in H2020. The goal of Horizon Europe is to reinforce openness (open innovation, open science, and open data) to allow better exploitation of the research results and more efficient diffusion of knowledge and practices.
The main concrete actions are:
- Open-access publications will be mandatory. The commission has funded the development of an open-access publishing platform to host beneficiaries’ publications.
- Attention will be paid to generating FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Re-usable) and open data. Data sharing will become the standard unless you have a good reason, like IP protection (the motto is to be as available as possible, as close as necessary).
- The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) will be created to share research results.
- New indicators will promote open science to evaluate researchers.
- Reciprocity of the openness will be strongly encouraged for the collaboration with third countries.
Horizon Europe novelty #5: Simplification of the partnerships
The partnerships in Horizon Europe are an association between some EU members and other actors from different sectors, aiming to develop and manage a research and innovation program and to propose funding.
In H2020, several types of partnerships coexisted, and finding your way around them was difficult. In Horizon Europe, only three types of partnerships will be proposed:
- Co-programmed European partnerships: between the European Commission and private and public partners. They will be at the origin of the typical Horizon Europe calls (RIA/IA/CSA, etc).
- Co-funded European partnerships: between EU countries, with research funders and other public authorities at the consortium’s core. The EU and the national agencies of the involved EU countries fund the calls proposed by this kind of partnership.
- Institutionalized European partnerships: partnerships where the EU participates in research and innovation funding programs by EU countries.
Comparison of partnerships in H2020 and Horizon Europe
Want more? Visit our page summarizing the novelties in Horizon Europe implementation (grant management, proposal writing and evaluation, dissemination strategy…).
Are you interested in MSCA (ITN, IF, RISE…)? Check out the differences between H2020 and Horizon Europe!
The MIC and Horizon Europe
Find out more about our expertise for the Horizon Europe R&I program!
Our last news
We will be glad to participate in your project. Visit our dedicated webpage to learn more about our expertise as H2020 and Horizon Europe partner!
Curious about the calls currently open?
We are particularly interested in the following calls but remain open to any collaboration!
- EIC WORK PROGRAMME that supports all stages from R&D to industry for game-changing innovations
- HORIZON EUROPE RIA CALLS, specifically focusing on health and food, bioeconomy, natural resources, agriculture, and environment
Some of our funded projects
ACDC
Artificial cells with distributed cores to decipher protein function
FIDA
Complex and automated fluid handling in a disruptive antibody analytical platform
Active Matter
Microfluidic soil-on-chip devices in the study of microbial communities