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Brussels - On 11 May 2021, UAS4EUROPE, the informal network of European Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS), held its biennial Networking Conference, this time as a virtual event, with high-level keynote speeches, a political discussion, interactive workshop sessions, face-to-face matchmaking and a virtual exhibition.

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The Commission is mobilising €123 million from Horizon Europe, the new EU research and innovation programme, for urgent research into coronavirus variants. This first emergency funding under Horizon Europe adds to a range of EU-funded research and innovation actions to fight the coronavirus and contributes to the Commission's overall action to prevent, mitigate and respond to the impact of coronavirus variants, in line with the new European bio-defence preparedness plan HERA Incubator (HERA = European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority).

The European Commission wants to increase the visibility of European “Advanced Technologies for Industry (ATI)” technology centers that are offering services to enterprises and SMEs. European ATI centers are invited to be included in the online map of this initiative. The aim of the initiative is not only to increase visibility, but also to strengthen cooperation opportunities among themselves and with small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe.

For Europe to remain competitive internationally, all economic sectors must be able to reap the benefits of digital transformation. Building on a European network of Digital Innovation Hubs, the Commission aims to help companies improve their processes, products and services through the use of digital technologies.

The M-ERA.NET Call 2021 was opened today. 45 funding organisations from 32 countries are participating with a total budget of approximately €60 million, including an EU contribution. M-ERA.NET aims to strengthen the contribution of materials research and development to energy-related applications wherever possible. The call aims to fund ambitious transnational RTD projects addressing materials research and innovation, including materials for low-carbon energy technologies, future battery technology and related production technologies.

The UK is expected to soon become an associated country to the EU’s R&I Framework Programme Horizon Europe. The UK will therefore have the same rights and obligations as other countries associated to the Programme. The EU has recently published a Q&A document on this topic, which you can view here.

On 24 February 2021, the EU Commission proposed to establish and promote ten new European partnerships between the EU and industry and/or member states. The aim is to accelerate the transition to a green, climate-neutral and digital Europe. For this purpose, the EU will provide 10 billion euros in funding, which the partners will match. In particular, topics such as renewable raw materials for energy production and digital technologies, clean aviation and infectious diseases will be addressed with these investments.
 

On 24 March, the European Commission will officially launch Open Research Europe (ORE), an open access, free-of-charge and high quality publishing platform for scientific papers. The platform offers fast publication and open peer review for research conducted by Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe beneficiaries. Open Research Europe is a publishing solution that goes beyond the standard offering of the current journal-based system in a way that is faster, more open and more transparent. The platform opened for submissions of research papers in late November 2020. Follow the new platform on Twitter @OpenResearch_EU

Further information can be found here.

Source: European Commission

The European Research Council has published the work programme for 2021 on February 22, 2021. In this round, the Starting, Consolidator and Advanced Grant funding lines will be announced.

For the EU's new Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, Horizon Europe, the European Commission is looking for external experts from all disciplines to be involved in the evaluation of grant applications, projects and tenders. In addition, the experts will advise the Commission on the preparation, implementation and evaluation of EU programmes.