The European Commission has published its proposal for Horizon Europe, the European Research and Innovation Framework Program 2021-2027.
Horizon Europe – “the most ambitious research and innovation program ever” – will consolidate the achievements and success of Horizon 2020 and enable the EU to remain at the forefront of research and innovation worldwide, the Commission writes.
Texts published by the Commission
• Proposal for a regulation for Horizon Europe (Framework Program and Rules for Participation and Dissemination) and Annexes to the proposed regulation
• Proposal for a decision for Horizon Europe (Specific Program) and Annexes to the proposed decision
• Impact Assessment of Horizon Europe (here the summary)
While continuing to promote scientific excellence through the European Research Council (ERC) and Marie Skłodowska-Curie scholarships and exchanges, Horizon Europe will introduce the following main innovations:
• European Innovation Council (EIC) – A European Innovation Council (EIC) to help the EU put itself at the forefront of market-driven innovation: the Commission’s proposal will establish a single point of contact to bring the most promising high-potential and revolutionary technologies and helping start-ups and the most innovative companies to develop their ideas.
• Missions – The new EU research and innovation missions focused on societal challenges and industrial competitiveness: the Commission will launch new missions with bold and ambitious objectives and a strong European added value to address the problems affecting our lives daily
• Innovation potential – Maximizing innovation potential across the EU: support for Member States lagging behind with efforts to capitalize on their national research and innovation potential will be doubled. Moreover, thanks to new synergies with the Structural and Cohesion Funds, it will be easier to coordinate and combine funding and regions will be more inclined to welcome innovation.
• Greater openness – The principle of “open science” will become Horizon’s modus operandi, which will require free access to publications and data, which will enable market dissemination and strengthen the innovation potential of the results generated by EU funding .
• Partnerships and Synergies – A new generation of European partnerships and greater collaboration with other EU programs: Horizon Europe will optimize the number of partnerships that the EU programs or funds in partnership with partners such as industry, civil society and funding foundations, in order to increase the effectiveness and impact in achieving Europe’s intervention priorities. Horizon Europe will promote effective and operational links with other future EU programs, such as the Cohesion Policy, the European Defense Fund, the Digital Europe Program (DEP) and the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), as well as the international project for fusion energy ITER.