European Commission mobilises unallocated European Horizon funds to accelerate green and digital transitions

The Commission has adopted an amendment to the 2023-24 work programme of Horizon Europe, the EU’s research and innovation programme. The amendment mobilises previously unallocated Horizon Europe funds to increase the 2024 budget by almost €1.4 billion to a total of €7.3 billion. This amendment includes an investment of almost €650 million in EU missions to help solve some of the challenges facing Europe, for example by making more than 100 cities climate neutral, a New European Bauhaus mechanism, as well as pilot actions opening up EU research and innovation opportunities to more newcomers, among other novelties.

Some of the main features of this update of the Horizon Europe work programme are:

EU Missions

The EU will invest ¤648 million in 2 024 in research and innovation activities underpinning the EU Missions. EU Missions cover five areas and are a novelty brought by Horizon Europe to provide concrete solutions to some of our biggest challenges. They have ambitious targets and will deliver concrete results by 2030. New actions for 2024 should result in the restoration of at least 25,000 km of free-flowing rivers, city-climate contracts with more than 100 cities, 100 living laboratories and lighthouses leading the transition to healthy soils, local and regional authorities better equipped to deal with climate-related risks, better cancer diagnosis and support for young cancer patients.

New European Bauhaus

The New European Bauhaus(NBE) aims to bring the benefits of the European Green Pact to people’s everyday lives and living spaces. In the three years since its launch, the NBE has provided solutions to concrete problems. Examples include the tova project from Spain that developed a 3D printing technique using earth to provide architectural solutions for sustainable, affordable, community-based housing. Another example is the WATSUPS project from Belgium, which creates a new public space along the Dyle River to mitigate the risk of gentrification. These solutions are rooted in research and innovation that put Europeans at the heart of green transformation.

A new NBE Facility will ensure that Europe continues to make the most of this potential. It provides multiannual budget support for the period 2025-2027 through two pillars, a research and innovation part to develop new ideas and a deployment part to scale up these solutions. The amended Horizon Europe 2023-24 work programme allocates €20 million to preparing the ground for the implementation of the NBE Facility.

Experimental actions to attract new participants

This amendment includes a package of new experimental actions to reinforce the openness of the programme, support the objectives of EU missions and foster the careers of young researchers. They will test new approaches in view of the preparations for the last three years of Horizon Europe, as well as its future successor programme.

The actions include four open themes giving researchers more freedom to focus their work on a topic of their choice, with a total budget of €76 million in Horizon Europe clusters dedicated to “Health”, “Climate, energy and mobility” and “Food, bio-economy, natural resources, agriculture and environment”. A pilot action of EUR 15 million for EU missions will make knowledge institutions, such as universities or research organisations, focal points for local transdisciplinary research and innovation activities with a European scope. In addition, the NBE call “Transforming neighbourhoods, making them beautiful, sustainable and inclusive” also aims to attract newcomers to the programme to maximise impact. Finally, €20 million will support talent ecosystems for attractive early research careers.

The EU funds 47 million for green and digital transition of SMEs

Cultural Heritage

The amendment also dedicates EUR 48 million to the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage. This new digital collaboration space will help cultural heritage institutions and researchers, as well as cultural and creative industries, to reap the benefits of the digital transition. It will complement the common European data space for cultural heritage (the data space) funded under the Digital Europe programme.

Pandemic preparedness

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the challenges faced by European health systems in detecting, preventing, combating and managing outbreaks of infectious diseases. To help equip Europe for possible future pandemics, the amended work programme includes an investment of EUR 50 million for a European Pandemic Preparedness Partnership.

Paving the way for 2025

Calls for 2025 are also included in the amendment to ensure the continuity of certain recurrent actions, such as the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) and “Team Building for Excellence” and “ERA (European Research Area) Grants” under “Widening Participation and Spreading Excellence” and “Reforming and Improving the European R&I System”. The Commission plans to deploy the full range of actions for 2025 in a specific work programme in 2025.

Background

Horizon Europe is the EU’s research and innovation programme for the period 2021-27. Initially working with EUR 95.5 million over seven years, the European Council decided to reduce its budget by EUR 2.1 billion in the framework of the mid-term review of the EU’s long-term budget to allow the Union to finance other urgent priorities, such as aid to Ukraine. The cut has been reduced by €100 million from the reuse of decommitments, bringing the reduction in 2025-27 to €2 billion.

The Horizon Europe work programme for 2023-24 was adopted on 6 December 2022 and amended for the first time on 31 March 2023. It builds on the Horizon Europe Strategic Plan 2021-2024, adopted in March 2021, which was jointly designed with stakeholders, the European Parliament and Member States.

Today’s amendment brings to an end the investment for EU missions, which had been discontinued from the original 2023-24 work programme to allow for the implementation of the Communication “EU Missions two years on: assessment of progress and way forward”, adopted on 19 July 2023.

More information: European Commission