EU NEIGHBOURS . The Commission has adopted an update of the 2020 Work Programme of Horizon 2020, the EU’s research and innovation programme to allocate increased funding to its priorities, including urgently needed research and innovation projects into the coronavirus.
The update includes €47.5 million in funding for the emergency call announced in early March to fight the coronavirus outbreak that led to the launch of 17 projects. Other changes of this update include a dedicated ‘green deal call’ under the enhanced European Innovation Council (EIC) pilot, specific measures under the EIC pilot for women innovators, and support to the research and innovation dimension of the European Universities initiative.
In addition to the €47.5 million emergency coronavirus call, the updated 2020 Work Programme dedicates over €350 million under the EIC pilot to SMEs with breakthrough innovations addressing one or several Green Deal objectives. SMEs can apply for grant financing of up to €2.5 million each and an additional equity investment of up to €15 million.
The Work Programme update also boosts the research and innovation dimension of the European Universities. The Commission already launched two pilot calls for proposals under the 2019 and 2020 Erasmus+ work programmes, supporting alliances of higher education institutions. The total Horizon 2020 support of €103 million should facilitate synergies between the future Horizon Europe and the Erasmus+ Programmes.
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Horizon 2020 is the EU’s biggest EU research and innovation framework programme with a budget of €77 billion over seven years (2014-2020).
