Horizon Europe and cooperation with other initiatives 2021 to 2027

Horizon Europe and the Euratom Research and Training Programme will promote effective and operational synergies with other future EU programmes and policies to promote faster dissemination at national and regional level and uptake of research and innovation results, including:

• EU Cohesion Policy, which plays an important part of in EU funding for Research & Innovation through an increased focus on innovation and Smart Specialisation strategies. The “Seal of Excellence” allows projects successfully evaluated under Horizon Europe to be funded at regional level under the European Structural and Investment Funds.

• The new European Defence Fund (€13 billion, €4.1 billion of which will be devoted to defence research) which will boost Europe’s ability to protect and defend its citizens. It will offer EU funded grants for collaborative projects which address emerging and future defence and security threats and bridge technological gaps.

• ITER, the international fusion energy project (€6.1 billion), a first-of-a-kind, long-term project to build and operate a reactor to test the feasibility of fusion as an energy source.

• Digital Europe Programme (€9.2 billion) will boost frontline investments in high-performance computing and data, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and advanced digital skills.

• Connecting Europe Facility Digital (€3 billion) will support the Digital Single Market by offering basic capabilities that can be reused in any European project to facilitate the delivery of digital public services across borders and sectors.

Key to this is the word effective and operational. So far the effect has been lagging the intent very significantly, it is not an easy management feat but can be very rewarding for beneficiaries to have a linear support line for their strategic actions.

Out of all of those above; for many peripheral regions the cooperation with the cohesion fund is critical; and readers should not forget that the discussions on these funds are ongoing in parallel so NOW is the tilme to get your strategic research or development or training or expansion ideas into your regional programmes in the relevant areas.