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In today's Morning Brief:
Twinning calls open: deadline 18 January
REA has just launched calls for proposals for Twinning projects through Horizon Europe. €149 million of European funding are available to be allocated for Twinning projects. Twinning projects aim to prevent further disparities, maximize investment in R&D and enhance economic growth, and is part of the Widening participation and spreading excellence objective.
Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:
- Improved excellence capacity and resources in Widening countries, enabling to close the research and innovation gap within Europe.
- Enhanced strategic networking activities between the research institutions of the Widening countries and at least two internationally-leading counterparts at EU level.
- Raised reputation, research profile and attractiveness of the coordinating institution from the Widening country and the research profile of its staff.
- Strengthened research management capacities and administrative skills of the staff working in institutions from the Widening country.
- Improved creativity supported by development of new approaches in R&I collaboration, increased mobility (inwards and outwards) of qualified scientists.
All information on the program and on how to apply are available here and on the Funding portal.
Upcoming JRC Foresight report – EARTO webinar (23 September)
EARTO will organise a webinar open to EARTO members only (which means that researchers from INESC are able to join), where a JRC representative will present a new JRC Foresight report. The report is not published yet, which makes the webinar an excellent opportunity to get a hold of the discussions on foresight in advance. The webinar will take place on Thursday 23 September, 10.30-11.30 CEST. Registration is available here.
8th Environment Action Programme: draft framework and workshop (9 September)
The Commission is currently preparing a monitoring framework with headline indicators for the 8th Environment Action Programme. The Commission will consult Member States on the draft framework with indicators during a whole-day workshop on 9 September 2021. Later in autumn, other external stakeholders will be consulted during another whole-day workshop.
Following these consultations, the Commission aims to present the final monitoring framework with headline indicators for the 8th EAP before the end of 2021.
For more information, see the explanatory note and the draft structure with indicators.
New COST network to boost development of high-performance materials
The new COST Action EsSENce, High-performance Carbon-based composites with Smart properties for Advanced Sensing Applications, brings together experts from 48 countries to establish a business network of collaborations across borders and sectoral boundaries, to transfer and disseminate the existing knowledge and innovations on carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) and nanocomposites for sensing applications.
The initial group will attract additional European and international research groups to fully explore the potential of CNM composite materials in a wide variety of engineering and technological areas, such as medical sector, automotive, constructions, aerospace, and renewable energy. EsSENce will also contribute to fostering the development of European Strategic Cluster Partnerships (i.e. European meta-clusters) by helping research institutes, SMEs and industries find easier access to global value chains and engage in long-term cooperation with strategic partners. Learn more on the COST website.
A closer look at the Data Governance Act
As reported in yesterday’s Morning Brief, the European Parliament committee on industry, research and energy adopted the report on the Data Governance Act (DGA), the first legislative building block of the European Commission’s data strategy presented last year.
The DGA will provide for the reuse of public sector data, protected either by intellectual property rights or by commercial confidentiality obligations. Public data will need to be anonymised before it is shared. For sensitive data shared with a third country, public institutions will be responsible for ensuring an adequate level of data protection is maintained.
The new regulation also introduces the concept of ‘data altruism’, which enables individuals and organisations that collect data purely for reasons of public interest to donate their data, for instance for medical research. Such an organisation will be able to register at the EU level as a Recognised Data Altruism organisation.
The DGA also formalises the role of data intermediation service providers, a market that is still emerging in the EU, and introduces a ‘soft’ certification system for data intermediaries, based on which the relevant public authority will verify compliance in advance, ensuring legal clarity and easy access to data marketplaces.
Conference on the Future of Europe: space for regions and social partners
At its sixth meeting – the first under the Slovenian presidency – the Conference’s Executive Board agreed to allocate more seats in the Conference Plenary to regional and local elected representatives, as well as to social partners. The Executive Board amended the Rules of Procedure by adding to the Conference Plenary six elected representatives from regional and six from local authorities. They also agreed to increase the number of representatives from the social partners by four, to a total of 12.
The Conference on the Future of Europe combines online and offline, local, regional, national and Europe-wide events, organised by civil society organisations and citizens, the European institutions, and national, regional and local authorities. The outcomes of these events, as well as the ideas related to the future of Europe, are being published on the multilingual digital platform. They will serve as a basis for further discussions at 4 European Citizens’ Panels, comprised of the main topics of the Conference. Some 800 randomly selected citizens, reflecting the EU’s socio-economical, demographic and educational diversity, will participate at several deliberative sessions of these four European Citizens’ Panels, 200 citizens per each Panel. They will come up with ideas and recommendations that will feed into the Conference Plenaries, and ultimately into the Final Report of the Conference. In September, the first sessions of the European Citizens Panels will take place.
More information from the Parliament press release here.
Batteries: the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre and new BAM battery test centre
Electrical energy storage systems, which today are mainly based on lithium-ion technology, are a key to e-mobility and the energy transition. This is the reason why battery development and testing are crucial to ensure the sustainability of the energy transition.
In the UK, last week was launched the £130 million UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC), a pioneering 18,500 square metre state-of-the-art national facility, which has been developed to support UK industry with development of battery technologies for future electrification. The UKBIC brings to reality a vision first set out by Warwick Manufacturing Group of the University of Warwick in 2016. UKBIC is a key part of the Faraday Battery Challenge (FBC), a Government programme to fast track the development of cost-effective, high-performance, durable, safe, low-weight and recyclable batteries.
For what concerns the EU, good news come from BAM, Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung, which is opening a battery test centre at its headquarters in Berlin to drive innovation in the field and further expand expertise in electrical energy storage systems. It provides BAM and cooperating science and industry institutions with expanded state-of-the-art testing facilities. The test facilities allow, for example, to cycle batteries using large charging currents, simulating accelerated ageing. The experimental results are among others important for second-life applications. In the near future, more and more used batteries from BEVs will be reused, for example as storage for photovoltaic systems in private households or as stationary large-scale storage units that can stabilise the power grids. Such second-life applications are an important contribution to the eco-balance of battery technologies.
More Articles
26/05/2023: New Horizon Europe calls, a global drive for open science, European Commission DG RTD recent reorganisation, EU-China & much more
In today’s Morning Brief:
Horizon Europe
– Twinning call for proposals is open – Read all about it
– Horizon Europe ERA Fellowships call is now open
– EUR 20 million available for Pathways to synergies – Call for proposals
– New Horizon Europe funding opportunity: Dissemination & Exploitation Support Facility call
– Commission Open Call: Expert Group on the Interim Evaluation of Horizon Europe
– Industry 5.0 Award contest opens: apply by 1 September 2023
– Horizon Europe: The EU and the Republic of Korea launch formal negotiations on association to the programme
– European Space Agency chief seeks ‘forward-looking decisions’
Research & Innovation:
– EU research ministers make fresh call for a full transition to free open access publishing
– Open Science: stakeholders welcome European efforts towards publicly owned and not-for-profit scholarly communication
– Global drive for more open, rigorous research is growing
– European Commission sets up new European Innovation Council unit in the research directorate
– Spain wants EU presidency to be ‘bridge’ with Latin American R&D
– Green industry law haunted by old conflicts over nuclear, financing
– The five EU research projects involving China’s military-linked universities
– Critical Raw Materials: EU ministers want to move fast but dilemmas abound
– G7 ministers call for rules to improve research security
– Territorial Economic Data viewer supports policy monitoring
News from INESC institutes:
– INESC Brussels HUB is signing an Open Letter regarding changes to Who is Who in EC Directorate
– ECI Cruelty-free cosmetics – Consultation to adhere to joint final statement
– Structuring the ecosystem: RTOs collaboration with higher education institutions
– INESC TEC develops pioneering research in the application of variational quantum circuits to reinforcement learning
– INOV: MULTICAM prototypes, an online presentation on Blockchain and 5000 followers
– Job Opportunities
Events & Training workshops
19/05/2023: HUB Summer Meeting, Digital Europe Programme, Regional Innovation Valleys, European R&I funding and policy, and much more
In today’s Morning Brief:
Horizon Europe
– Commission Expert Group on the Interim Evaluation of Horizon Europe
– Commission launches first €122M call to create regional innovation ecosystems
– New calls for proposals of the Digital Europe Programme
Research & Innovation:
– EU research commissioner Mariya Gabriel resigns
– France to boost funding for health research infrastructures and UK to invest £100M in improving RIs
– Commission takes European Innovation Council management under its wing
– Industry 5.0 Award: The contest is open for applications
– AI Act moves ahead in EU Parliament with key committee vote
– Defence industry renews call for R&D spending boost
News from INESC institutes:
– Technology and Law: building a virtuous relationship, by Graça Barbosa
– The 2022 INESC-ID AnnualReport is out
– Exciting news from H2020-RESCUER
– Launch of the New Horizon Europe Project SYCLOPS
– INESC TEC supports the implementation of robotic technologies to reduce the ecological footprint
– INESC TEC develops virtual reality app to support youngster looking for jobs
– Job Opportunities
Events & Training workshops
05/05/2023: HE calls update, cohesion policy, open access, open science, cohesion policy and coordination of national and EU R&D policy.
In today’s Morning Brief:
Horizon Europe
– Horizon Europe – easy call and topic search
– From KOWI: MSCA: Model Working Contract for Doctoral Networks published
Research & Innovation:
– Report on the outcome of 2021-2027 cohesion policy programming
– Spain adopts national open access strategy
– Commission attempts to strengthen coordination between national R&D policies and EU research programs
– Commission Plans to launch a European Standardisation Panel survey
– Research funders draw attention to uneven implementation of open science
– EIT Climate to become financially sustainable by end of 2024
– Preparing for Belgium’s Thirteenth Presidency of the Council of the European Union
– African Union-European Union High Level Policy Dialogue – Science, Technology and Innovation. Senior official meet to endorse the AU-EU Innovation Agenda
News from INESC institutes:
– INESC MN has a new publication in Advanced Materials Journal
– INOV projects on Youtube
– Diogo Vaz published an article in Público
– Job Opportunities
Events & Training workshops