Horizon Europe: the new European R&I framework programme

Servizio ricerca e trasferimento del sapere

30 Ottobre 2020

The next European Framework Programme for research and innovation, is expected to start in January 2021. A budget of almost 100 billion Euro has been proposed by the European Commission over the period 2021-2027.

The Draft Work Programmes have been pre-published. Click here to access the WP related to each of the programme’s section

Swiss participation:

The participation of Switzerland for Horizon Europe is currently under discussion. The aim is a full association of Switzerland to the new FP9.

At the national level, the budget for the participation has been approved. Therefore, although the participation of Switzerland has still to be negotiated between CH and the EU, the participation to the collaborative projects is guaranteed, either as a partially associated country or as third country.

Participation details concerning the individual schemes (notably ERC and MSCA grants), will be defined as soon as the CH-EU negotiations resume.

To remain up-to-date with the negotiation status, you can visit the SERI dedicated page.

Horizon Europe structure:

The structure of the new programme builds largely on the previous one, Horizon 2020, and maintains the “three pillars” structure, where each pillar has a particular driver:

  • The first one is aimed at excellent science, funding bottom-up projects from individual researchers, including notably the European Research Council grants (ERC) and the Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions (MSCA)
  • The second pillar builds around Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness. The thematic “clusters”, such as "Health", "Digital, Industry and Space", "Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society", define the priorities of the collaborative projects.
  • Pillar 3, “Innovative Europe”, supports technological advancements and the innovativeness of SMEs. 
    It also includes the former "Future Emerging Technologies (FET)" scheme, pushing the advancement of promising technologies.
  • An additional programme complements Horizon Europe, namely the “Digital Europe Programme”: with a planned overall budget of €9.2 billion, it will support and accelerate the digital transformation of Europe’s society and economy. The programme should boost the uptake of digital technologies in public administration, areas of public interest and industry. It focuses on 3 key fields: high performance computing, AI and cybersecurity.

 

For further information visit the Euresearch website or contact Ms. Martina Pestoni.