EU Green Deal call – Some notes from a meeting with the EC

In a meeting with the European Commission yesterday, the HUB highlighted INESC’s researchers availability to act as evaluators for Horizon Europe across the different thematic areas, which was well received and noted but it is crucial that you help promoting your researchers registration in the Participants Portal as experts.

The call received 1550 proposals for its 1 billion budget, which is many more than what was expected. The difficulty in finding evaluators was great, especially considering the need to comply with the 40% quota for women. The numbers:

In each Green Deal call area, the following number of proposals were received: 

1. 1. 1. Increasing climate ambition: 101
      2. Clean, affordable and secure energy: 256
      3. Industry for a clean and circular econom : 108
      4. Energy and resource efficient buildings: 115
      5. Sustainable and smart mobility: 44
      6. Farm to fork: 260
      7. Biodiversity and ecosystems: 72
      8. Zero-pollution, toxic-free environments: 115
      9. Strenghtening knowledge : 106
      10. Empowering citizens: 373

The panel meetings took place last week and are taking place this week and the results should be sent to participants in mid-April at the maximum, with a time-to-grant by September.

As a sideline information, it is important that you note that while the EC will maintain oversight of the evaluation exercises, this responsibility will be the responsibility of the Executive Agencies of the EC, while the officers will be keeping the responsibility of drafting and following work programmes only.

Cybersecurity: Council adopts conclusions on the EU’s cybersecurity strategy

Adopted yesterday, the conclusions note that cybersecurity is essential for building a resilient, green and digital Europe. They set as a key objective achieving strategic autonomy while preserving an open economy. This includes reinforcing the ability to make autonomous choices in the area of cybersecurity, with the aim to strengthen the EU’s digital leadership and strategic capacities. Check out a list of the main conclusions in a bullet point format in this link of the Council of the EU.

Then, if you haven’t done so, read and share our article on cybersecurity, co-written by Nelson Escravana (INOV), Miguel Pupo Correia (INESC ID), Rui Oliveira (INESC TEC).

New guidelines on wildfire prevention

The European Commission has released its new guidelines on land-based wildfire prevention and effective responses. The guidelines aim at outlining how EU Member States can access EU funding for wildfire resilience and work together at EU level. Although the focus of the document is especially on land use and citizens education, the guidelines bring the use of remote sensors as an example of successful wildfire response and prevention technology. The guidelines are part of the EU Forest strategy, whose public consultations are open until April 19th.

2021 Rolling plan for ICT standardisation released

Last week, the European Commission released the Rolling plan for ICT Standardisation 2021. This edition features new chapters on ‘COVID-19’, ‘Safety, transparency and due process online’, ‘Circular economy’ and ‘U-space’. The 2021 plan identifies around 170 actions grouped into 37 technological or application domains under four thematic areas: key enablers and security, societal challenges, innovation for the single market and sustainable growth.