On 10 December, the Commission welcomed the political agreement between the European Parliament and the Council on Horizon Europe, the largest transnational programme ever supporting research and innovation. The new EU research and innovation programme will have a budget of around €95.5 billion for 2021-2027 (current prices). This includes €5.4 billion (current prices) from NextGenerationEU to boost EU recovery and make it more resilient for the future, as well as an additional reinforcement of €4.5 billion (current prices). It is the main tool to strengthen EU scientific and technological base, develop solutions for healthier living, drive digital transformation and fight climate change, for our collective resilience.
A major target of the missions that will be launched under the Horizon Europe programme is to make at least 75% of all soils in the EU healthy for food, people, nature and climate by 2030. The European Commission launched the new EU Soil Observatory in December, as a first step towards this goal. The Observatory will be hosted by scientists at the Joint Research Centre and will further expand existing soil data and monitoring efforts.
The European Innovation Council (EIC) ended its Pilot phase by allocating grants and equity financing to innovative projects and companies that will support the EU green and digital transitions. 18 projects working on cutting-edge technologies will share €74 million through the EIC Pathfinder scheme, which translates game-changing technology research projects into innovative businesses. Another €176 million were also granted to 38 start-ups and SMEs to develop and scale up ground-breaking innovations in Europe, following the last EIC Accelerator call. 18 of these are set to also receive a direct equity investment of up to €15 million from the recently established EIC Fund. Following the EIC pilot phase, the fully-fledged EIC with a budget of €10 billion, will be launched in early 2021 under the new research an innovation programme, Horizon Europe.
On 17 December, the Commission has extended the European Research Council to ensure continuity and a successful transition to Horizon Europe. There are five new members of the ERC Scientific Council, who will bring additional scientific competence to the governing board of the ERC and to frontier research.
A new round of European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grants were set in December, which will empower 327 researchers to further their careers across Europe and tackle big scientific questions. This frontier research funding helps to make Europe a hub for top talent. There is an upward trend in women applying for this ERC scheme and the proportion of female applicants who were successful is the highest ever achieved – higher than that of male applicants.
