Horizon 2020 to be topped up with €200 million
The European Parliament gave its consent to additional €200 million for Horizon 2020, the current EU research and innovation funding programme, by adopting a compromise on the mid-term review of the EU budget, reached with the EU Member States on 7 March. The final and formal approval of the Council of the EU is expected in the coming weeks. The €200 million top-up for Horizon 2020 is part of additional means amounting to €6 billion that will help the EU tackle urgent challenges such as the migration crisis, strengthening security, boosting growth and creating jobs.
Carlos Moedas, Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, said: “This is a very valuable deal that will allow the Commission to direct additional funding into key areas, such as boosting market-creating innovation as well as supporting excellent research, the sharing of big data and bridging the innovation divide between the countries in Europe.”
A part of the €200 million Horizon 2020 top-up, €50 million, was already adopted through the 2017 voted budget. The breakdown of the additional funding follows proportionally the Commission’s proposal of October 2016:
- €50 million for the European Research Council (of which €16.7 million were already included in the 2017 budget)
- €55 million for Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation part of Horizon 2020 (of which €16.7 million were already included in the 2017 budget)
- €50 million for the European Innovation Council (on the RTD budget line Innovation in SMEs)
- €45 million for High Performance Computers, under Leadership in Enabling and Industrial Technologies part of Horizon 2020 (of which €16.7 million were already included in the 2017 budget)
141 highly innovative SMEs get funded under Phase 1 of the Horizon 2020 SME Instrument
141 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from 24 countries have been selected for funding in the latest round of Horizon2020 SME Instrument, for Phase 1. For each project, the participants will receive € 50,000 to finance feasibility studies for new products that can disrupt the market. They can also ask for up to three days of business coaching. The European Commission received 1873 proposals under Phase 1 by 17 September 2015, the third cut-off date for this year.
Italian SMEs were particularly successful with 30 beneficiaries accepted for funding, followed by firms from Spain (24) and the UK (15). Since the launch of the programme on 1st January 2014, 1099 SMEs have been selected under Phase 1 of the SME Instrument.
The results for the second phase of the SME Instrument, where companies get funding up to € 2.5 million to make their products ready for the market, will follow around mid-November 2015.
Source and more information on the Horizon 2020 website of the European Commission.
Read MoreHorizon 2020 work programme for 2016-2017 published
The final version of the Horizon 2020 2016-2017 research plan was adopted the previous week and is now available via the H2020 participant portal. The European Commission will boost competitiveness, by investing almost €16 billion in research and innovation projects in the next two years under Horizon 2020.
In line with Commissioner Moedas’ strategic priorities, “Open Science, Open Innovation, Open to the World,” the new Work Programme offers funding opportunities through a range of calls for proposals, public procurements and other actions covering nearly 600 topics. The main emphasis is on large scale pilots with a cross-sectorial approach.
WssTP has made a thorough analysis of all available H2020 2016-2017 Work Programmes and has identified 94 calls with a potential link to water. A brief overview of these water-relevant calls has become available to all WssTP members through the platform’s online networking tool, WssTP Observatory.
For further information, please contact Durk Krol.
Read MoreEU key water stakeholders play their part in the preparations for the Horizon2020 Work Programme 2016-2017
Following the European water Supply and Sanitation Technology Platform (WssTP) initiative, the EU Water sector major stakeholders are now contributing to H2020 WP 2016-2017 with a document of suggested themes, calls and topics addressing demand-driven research and innovation water issues in Europe.
Having proposed these issues for inclusion in the H2020 WP for 2016-2017, the document covers all the three parts of H2020 and it is carefully streamlined with the H2020 WP 2014-2015 to avoid overlapping themes that have been already addressed.
The suggested priority themes and topics are primarily based on the input of ideas from the WssTP professional network (130 members), WssTP Working Groups, WssTP Innovation Technology Advisory Board (ITAB), Executive Committee, WssTP responses to the EC Stakeholder Consultations for the new work programmes for 2016-2017 on different parts of H2020 in 2014 as well as the WssTP strategic research agenda.
The document is also the result of a joint effort by the major stakeholders of the European water sector to highlight key policy priorities for water to the Juncker’s Commission (2014-2019), the priorities of the EIP Water, and the JPI Water. All the major European water related organisations have been consulted about the document and they have unanimously approved it!
Water is an overarching and cross-sectorial theme and thus, the document takes a holistic, cross-sectorial approach to the demand-driven and global challenges-based research and innovation for water across science excellence, industrial leadership and societal challenges.
[quote align=”center” color=”#999999″]Download the document![/quote]
Read MoreΝοw Open!! Call for Ideas – Pilot / demonstration projects HORIZON 2020 WP 2016-2017 Societal Challenge 5
[quote align=”center” color=”#999999″]Νοw Open!! Call for Ideas – Pilot / demonstration projects HORIZON 2020 WP 2016-2017 Societal Challenge 5 “Climate Action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials”[/quote]
The European Commission has published a Call for Ideas for large-scale Pilot / demonstration projects as part of the Work Programme 2016-2017 of societal challenge 5 ”Climate Action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials” of Horizon2020. The present call for ideas for pilot/demonstration projects is intended to:
- help identifying which research and innovation areas attract most interest from innovators and innovation users, and,
- stimulate developers and providers of innovative solutions to engage in projects of greater ambition in terms of scope, scale and impact. The ideas received will contribute to Horizon 2020.
2016 – 2017 work programme calls. The main priority fields are: Systemic eco-innovation, Climate services, Nature-based solutions and Water. To read more, please click visit EC website.
The deadline to submit your applications is 28th February 2014.
Read MoreEU will offer €20m in prizes for innovators
The European Commission is about to offer €20m in prizes for researchers to offer innovative solutions to specific problems.
A first pilot prize has been awarded this year to a biopharmaceutical company having delivered solutions to store vaccines without need for refrigeration. Another prize, for which submissions are now closed, has been launched with the aim of supporting the creation of apps for running local public services.
Next in line is a similar prize offering €7,238 for the best ideas for the promotion of technology-enabled growth and job creation in the EU. Funded by Horizon 2020, more prizes will be announced in 2015 and are expected to cover the areas of health, transport, energy and materials, and renewable biological resources. In 2016 and 2017, more prizes will be included in EU annual work programmes.
Read MoreHorizon 2020 Work Programme 2014&2015 has been launched! Get ready to Innovate!
Last Wednesday, the European Commission launched the first calls for projects under Horizon 2020. Horizon 2020 will be the largest European Union Research and Innovation programme so far with a budget of almost €80 billion for the period 2014–2020. The Work Programme for 2104-2015 is worth more than €15 billion. The funding is intended to help boost Europe’s knowledge-driven economy, and tackle issues that will make a difference in people’s lives. This includes 12 areas that will be a focus for action in 2014/2015, including Water!
WssTP has worked hard over the last year in coordination with the EIP Water and our partners to promote the opportunities for water research and innovation activities in Horizon2020 in general, and the 2014-2015 Work Programme in particular. WssTP is very pleased to see that ‘Water Innovation: Boosting its value for Europe’ is amongst the 12 areas that have been identified for special focus in the Horizon 2020 Work Programme. The budget for these water-dedicated calls is €67 million for 2014 and estimate to €96 million for 2015. In addition, many opportunities exist for water-related research and innovation activities in other parts of the calls.
On 22nd of November 2013, WssTP and Errin jointly organised a Brokerage event dedicated to the water-related calls in the 2014-2015 work programme for H2020. The purpose of our event was to gear our members up to repeat the great success they achieved within the last FP7-2013 Water Inno-Demo Call. All the attendees were also provided by WssTP with an analysis of all the relevant water calls for the water sector.
With only a 4% participation, WssTP members are present in 91% of the winning consortia of this year’s FP7-2013 Water Inno-Demo Call,. Even more important, WssTP members had a success rate of 54% compared to an average success rate of only 13%!
Read MoreH2020: Call for expert evaluators
With the arrival of Horizon2020, the EC appoints independent experts to assist Commission services with tasks in connection with Horizon2020. The new call for expression of interest for experts has now been published in the new DG RTD Participant Portal. The registration is already open and full text of the call is available at the EC website
Among the research & innovation assignments of the evaluators, will be the evaluation of proposals, the review of projects and the monitoring of programmes and policies.
The Commission aims to establish a database of independent experts, from a wide range of sectors and especially from the private research sector (big industries and SMEs) with experience on innovation management, market uptake and business development
More information, please contact Durk Krol
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