The European Commission has adopted an amendment to the Work Programme 2021-2022 of Horizon Europe – the EU Research and Innovation Programme – increasing the budget by nearly 562 million euro. The measure aims to further support the EU Missions in identifying innovative solutions to green, health and digital challenges and more actions to boost the European innovation ecosystem.
Of this additional amount, over 507 million euro will be dedicated to the 5 EU Missions: a new and innovative way, launched by the European Union, to find collaborative solutions to some of the greatest challenges facing our society. Launched in 2021, the EU Missions aim to achieve ambitious goals in health, climate and the environment by 2030. Seventeen new calls will be launched covering the Missions “Cancer”, “A Soil Deal for Europe”, “Adaptation to Climate Change”, and “Restore our Ocean and Waters”. The latter two Missions will be supported by a joint call, and additional actions will support all five EU Missions, including “Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities”.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the recently adopted amendment also includes actions to support researchers previously active in Ukraine. Under the new MSCA4Ukraine scheme – part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions – 25 million will allow researchers to continue their work at academic or non-academic host organizations based in the EU Member States or in countries associated to Horizon Europe and support them re-establishing themselves in Ukraine, when that becomes possible, to rebuild the country’s research and innovation capacity. Hundreds of Ukrainian scientists will also be able to benefit from an increased budget of 1 million euro to the Human Frontier Science Programme for the “Scientists Help Scientists” initiative, as part of Horizon Europe’s Cluster 1 “Health”.
In addition, the amendment adds several new actions to support Europe’s innovation potential. In the context of the European Innovation Ecosystems (EIE), the WomenTechEU initiative will benefit from a tripling of the budget (10 million euro) to support more than 100 women-led start-ups this year and a new action will be dedicated to creating and nurturing angel investing in the European Union with 2 million euro. Furthermore, as part of Horizon Europe’s Cluster 2 “Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society”, the amendment includes support for the creation of collaborative platforms and networks for the culture and creative industries (6 million euro), the social impact assessment of green transition policies (3 million euro) and innovative solutions for the future of democracy (3 million euro), as well as support for the Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (1.5 million euro). Finally, other minor adjustments to the Work Plan have also been added for a total of 3.2 million euro.
