The European Commission is still working on its proposal for the new Research & Innovation (R&I) framework programme that will succeed Horizon 2020 (H2020) from 2021 to 2027. The name pitched for the new Framework Programme would be Horizon Europe, thus ensuring a continuity with the well-branded H2020. Horizon Europe will therefore fund EU R&I across policy areas including health, agriculture, energy, climate change and transport.

 

Horizon Europe, with a budget of €97.9 billion in 7 years, would be the biggest ever research and innovation funding programme. Its predecessor Horizon 2020 had €77 billion budget for the period 2014-2020.

The budget proposal is being made as part of the EU's proposal for the next EU long-term budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). Research, along with the Erasmus student program, both received a rise in spending despite cuts to the agriculture and cohesion budgets. The Horizon Europe total includes €10bn for research on food, agriculture and the bioeconomy, as announced by both Commissioners Hogan and Moedas during the EU AgriResearch Conference (Brussels, 2-3 May 2018), attended by CEMA.

One of the biggest change of the future Horizon Europe will be, together with the increased budget, the so-called mission-oriented policy approach. This is an approach to policy-making that is designed to increase the impact of R&I in Europe, which means setting defined goals, with specific targets and working to achieve them in a set time. In practice, a number of missions would be included in the next framework programme and would specifically target global challenges. The target should thereby be clearly measurable and need to be achievable with a portfolio of research and innovation measures, activated through a set of “calls for proposals” open to consortia composed of EU organizations, companies and institutions (similarly than in H2020).

The European Commission's proposal will off course have to be approved by the co-legislators, within the general debate on multiannual European budget. Ambitions may therefore have to be revised. 

For more information on Horizon Europe, please visit the following EC webpage.

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