Key Takeaways

– The Morning Brief is back. It will be published once a week, every Friday morning, summarizing the week’s main news. Snippets of information will be sent during the week if any relevant information or opportunity arises.

– The much-awaited final version of the Annotated Model Grant Agreement is now available.

– There are several open calls in Horizon Europe and the European Public-Private Partnerships worth looking at; check out the list below.

– Portugal occupies a fantastic 5th place overall spending in R&I through the Recovery and Resilience Plan.

– Countries across Europe and the US are all striving to find new solutions to create funding tools that 1) support the development of more disruptive innovation (see the article on the new Spanish pilot funding programme) and 2) translate knowledge up the value-chain and accelerating market uptake (see the article on the balance of the first year of activity of the new US Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships).

Horizon Europe

An Updated version of the Annotated Model Grant Agreement is available

An updated draft of the Annotated Model Grant Agreement has been published on the Horizon Europe Funding & Tender Portal’s webpage. Check it here 

This version of 01 April 2023 includes:

• Adjustments adding clarifications to annotations previously published (notably under Article 6 and Annex 5, including Open Science);
• An update with corporate annotations of Articles 7, 8, 9, 11 and 20;
• New annotations for Articles 10 and 12, and under Annex 5 for Co-funded Partnerships, Research Infrastructures and PCP-PPI.

Commission boosts Research and Innovation budget for civil security for society and renewable energy

On 31 March, the Commission has adopted an amendment to the main Horizon Europe Work Programme 2023-2024. The aim of this amendment is to foster research and innovation supporting civil security for society and renewable energy with additional investments. This latest increase of the budget of the work programme for 2023 and 2024 brings it to an overall total of more than €13.5 billion. Read more

Call for expression of interest for Regional Innovation Valleys is now open

The Commission launched a call for expression of interest for Regional Innovation Valleys (RIVs), to strengthen and advance European innovation ecosystems, connecting all EU territories, to address Europe’s burning societal challenges, and to foster stronger cohesion. Applications should be submitted by 18 September 2023. Read more

ERC grant competitions 2024 – New panels and lump sum funding

The ERC’s 2024 Work Programme, including the detailed information about the grant competitions, is expected to be adopted by the European Commission in early summer 2023. The Scientific Council’s intention is to make two significant changes in the upcoming Work Programme: to restructure selected evaluation panels and add one additional panel, and to introduce lump sum funding in Advanced Grants. Read more

Implementation of co-funded partnerships: In-kind activities and in-kind contributions

In a note for the attention of the Strategic Programme Committee, DG Research & Innovation has provided guidance on in-kind contributions. The term “In-kind contribution” is described as non-financial assets that are being put at the disposal of a partnership and which can be used both in the context of external calls (e.g. a research infrastructure) or of in-kind activities (e.g. a dataset for use in a common R&I programme). Read more

European Partnership Stakeholder Forum – Report published

The first Partnership Stakeholder Forum was organised by ERA-LEARN in collaboration with the European Commission in Brussels in November 2022. The Forum brought together the whole community of stakeholders involved in the design and implementation of co-funded, co-programmed and institutionalised European Partnerships, including officials from national and regional governments, public funding agencies, the private sector and other science policy makers from all over Europe and beyond. The now published report summarises the key messages that were drawn from the discussions during the two days. Further documentation including the agenda of the event as well as the slides and video recordings are available on the ERA-LEARN website. More info

Michiel Scheffer is the new president of the European Innovation Council board

The European Commission has appointed Michiel Scheffer as president of the European Innovation Council (EIC) board, as the EU scale-up fund continues to experience delays in getting its funding instruments fully operational. The former member of EU Committee of the Regions also brings wide experience in innovation and start-ups – and the hope he can steer the EIC out of troubled waters. Read more

Highlight of funding opportunities: Partnership calls (PPPs)

JPI HDHL: FOODRETEC

ENUTC: 2nd ENUTC Call 2023

ERA4Health: CARDINNOV 2023

NEURON Cofund2: Neuron Cofund2 Joint Call 2023

BlueBio: 4th BlueBio Joint Call

ForestValue: ForestValue Joint Call 2023

Clean Aviation: CLEAN-AVIATION Joint Calls 2023 

InnovativeSMEs: InnovativeSMEs 4th Joint Call 

SBEP: SBEP First Joint Call 2023 

Clean Hydrogen: Clean Hydrogen Partnership Call for proposals 2023

EuroHPC Joint Undertaking: EuroHPC 2023 Call

EIT Raw materials-KIC: EIT RawMaterials Call for KAVA 2023 

PRIMA: Section 1 – Water Management 2023

PRIMA: Section 1 – Farming Systems 2023 

PRIMA: Section 1 – Food Value-chain 2023 

PRIMA: Section 1 – Nexus theme 2023

PRIMA: Section 2 – Multi-topic 2023

EIT Food-KIC: EIT Food open Call for Proposals 2023

Research & Innovation

Towards an EU Roadmap for Hydrogen Valleys

The upcoming EU Roadmap for Hydrogen Valleys kick-started last 27 January 2023. This workshop was the first of a series that led to the signature of the Joint Declaration on Hydrogen Valleys on 1 March. The EU Roadmap for Hydrogen Valleys is planned to be announced before this summer. Watch the recap video 

Making sense of research and innovation spending through the EU’s Recovery and Resilience fund

In this Science Business article, you can find an overview of which countries are using the post-COVID recovery fund to invest in R&D, and which member states have put their focus elsewhere. Portugal occupies an astounding 5th place when calculations are made in absolute terms in million of euros. When the metric is the proportion of RRF expenditure dedicated directly to R&I activities, Portugal comes in a reasonable 11th place. Read more

Spain to pilot flexible open-ended funding for researchers

As stated by Science Business, Spanish research is on the up, coming second in the value of grants won from Horizon Europe to date. Now a new scheme aims to build on these foundations, promoting capacity building and helping to explore new ideas. If all goes well, up to €700 million a year in supplementary funding will be available by 2033. Read more

US research translation push is making strides in getting science to the public

According to Science Business, the Biden administration last March gave the US National Science Foundation an added mission, to accelerate translation of scientific discoveries from lab to market, with $1.5 billion in the 2023 financial year to get things moving. Read more

Translating research into innovation: Lessons from 3 case studies in health partnerships

This policy brief consists of setting up a methodological approach to understanding translation of research into innovative outcomes. Studies on knowledge transfer and innovation processes often come across the idea of “the valley of death”, that is the critical phase where one step of the innovation process ends and a new one begins. In this perspective, one of the roles of partnerships is to bridge this valley of death by linking excellent research with technology and solution-minded business undertakings hence generating virtuous cycles of research and innovation. We selected three partnerships TRANSCAN, EJP on Rare Diseases and the Innovative Health Initiative to investigate how partnerships navigate the process of translating research activities into medical and health innovations for the benefit of patients, the European health systems and society. The variety of partnerships in the European medical and health system is a valuable asset for policy and for the health sector research and innovation. Download the report here

News from INESC institutes

Four decades contributing to the development of science and technology

An article by Arlindo Oliveira, president of INESC, about the history behind INESC institutes, its strategic vision and current challenges. Read more

Mobility Opportunity: short-term internships in National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs) in Taiwan
This call invites Master and Ph.D. students to spend 10 to 12 weeks working in Earth & Earth & Environment, Information & Communication Technology, Biomedical Technology or Science & Technology Policy. More info about the eligibility criteria and application process.

Job Opportunities

• INESC TEC has 29 vacancies in different work areas, such as Robotics, Power Systems-Microgrids operation and planning, Computer Science and more. Find more at INESCTEC website and via LinkedIn
• INESC ID has 8 Fellowship positions. More info
• – INESC MN is hiring a Junior Researcher – Electrical Engineering and a Junior Characterization Engineer. More info
• INOV is hiring a Systems and Network Engineer. More info

Events & Training workshops

• Webinar: Lump Sum Funding in Horizon Europe: How does it work? How to write a proposal?
  No prior registration is needed. The link to the webinar and slido can be found here. More info
• EU Knowledge Valorisation Week
  This is the European forum to exchange experiences and discover novel approaches of creating value from scientific findings and inventions. 25 – 28 April 2023. Register here
• EARTO Webinar on Security & Defence
  26 April 2023. 11.00-12.00 (CET). Register here
• Webinar: Implementation of co-funded European Partnerships
  27 April 2023. DG Research & Innovation, in collaboration with ERA-LEARN will offer a webinar to focus on the use of in-kind contribution or the involvement of Research Performing Organisations (RPOs). The webinar is targeted to coordinators and beneficiaries of co-funded European Partnerships. More info
• Mission “Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030” in Palermo
  30-31 May 2023. Register here
• EARTO Webinar on Healthcare R&I Position Paper
  EARTO Working Group Emerging Technologies for Healthcare Core Team. 4 May 2023. 10:00-11:00 (CET). Register here
• Financial and Business Opportunities beyond Horizon Europe
  An information event in Brussels organised by DG Research & Innovation to support the market uptake of new technologies and systems. 23 May 2023. More info
• Advanced course on biomedical imaging organised by the the UT Austin Portugal Program and the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Coimbra
  27 April – 2 June 2023. Register by 21 April. More info
• 8th World Conference on Research Integrity
  2-5 June 2024, at Megaron Athens International Conference Centre (MAICC), Athens. Travel Grant applications open on 26 June 2023. More info

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