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Thursday, 27 January 2022 Issue 1

Welcome to 2022 from the Horizon Europe team!

As the New Year gradually unwinds, the days lengthen and January 2022 comes to a close, I am delighted to welcome you to our first monthly Horizon Europe newsletter. Throughout the year, this newsletter will bring you news, updates, events and expert advice from your National Contact Points network who are here to support you on your Horizon Europe journey.

In this issue, three of your National Contact Points - Martha Cahill, Sergio Fernandez-Ceballos and Yvonne Halpin - highlight the big funding opportunities in Health, Industry and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions that lie ahead in the second year of the Horizon Europe programme. Indeed, Ireland has already had some big wins to celebrate with the news this month that eight researchers at Irish universities will receive an estimated €12m in European Research Council (ERC) starting grants. And just last week, two Irish start-ups were approved more than €5m in funding under the first European Innovation Council (EIC) Transition call, with more Irish participants in other consortia.

The stories of Ireland-based applicants who have successfully won European funding will be a regular feature in our newsletters. This issue highlights two of those success stories: the SPEEDIER project which is addressing barriers to energy efficiency for SMEs and LEDLUM, a project aimed at improving LED efficiency.

I would also like to take the opportunity to remind you of the financial supports available to academic researchers through Enterprise Ireland to help you build your consortium and prepare your proposals. We have three grants available ranging from €3k to €16k  – a Travel grant, a Coordinator Support grant and an ERC Proposal Support grant. Talk to your Research Office and National Contact Point for advice before applying. You will find application guidelines and all the details here.

Finally, I wanted to inform you I will be moving on from Horizon Europe to another role in Enterprise Ireland in February, but will be leaving you in the very capable hands of Kevin Burke. Kevin will be known to many of you in the research and innovation community in his current role as director of ICT Commercialisation and I wish him every success in what is an extremely fulfilling and enjoyable role. I have greatly enjoyed my experience working with you all as National Director over the last three years and my ambition for the participation of Irish researchers and companies in the framework programmes has increased significantly over the period. I wish you all every success as we start the first full year of calls under Horizon Europe.

Garrett Murray
National Director for Horizon Europe
Enterprise Ireland

Horizon Europe updates from your National Contact Points

Martha Cahill, National Contact Point for Health (Cluster 1)

As the world continues to grapple with the COVID pandemic, we have seen an unprecedented level of investment in European Health Research. This will be delivered through many different programs and initiatives. The Horizon Europe health programme launched in 2021 with a budget of €7.7 billion. The first work programme for 2021-2022 had a budget of €2bn and will come to a close in the coming months - discussions are already underway on the health work program for 2023 and 2024.  

Stage 1 for the two stage calls for 2022 will close on the 1st Feb and single stage calls for 2022 will remain open until 21 April 2022.  Please let us know if you are submitting a proposal or if you need support in the application process.  Call details can be found here


In January this year, we had the launch of the Cancer Mission with a budget of €378.2m for the first two 2 years. You can get a full overview of the Cancer Mission and topics in our dedicated newsletter which was published this month.

The Innovative Health Initiative (IHI) also launched this week (26th Jan) with €2.4bn in funding for health research. The Innovative Health Initiative (IHI) is a public-private partnership (PPP) between the European Union and the European life science industries. The private industry members include the Pharmaceutical companies (represented by EFPIA) incl. Vaccine companies (represented by Vaccines Europe), medical imaging, radiotherapy, health ICT and electro-medical companies (represented by COCIR), the medical technology companies (represented by MedTech Europe) and the Biotechnology companies (represented by EuropaBio).  More details on this initiative can be found in our IHI newsletter and calls for proposals are expected to open in May/June 2022.

In addition to this, the EU4Health program has a budget of €5bn. Digital Europe has a budget of €40m for health-related calls focused on digital infrastructure projects in 2022 and specific funding opportunities for Health challenges will arise in the European Innovation Council (EIC) program. To keep up to date on all the new developments and opportunities for health research as they arise please make sure you are signed up to our dedicated Health newsletter.

Sergio Fernandez-Ceballos, National Contact Point for Industry (Cluster 4)

The Cluster 4 vision for 2021-22 (Digital, Industry and Space) is to fund competitive and trusted research and innovation technologies for the European industry in key areas, such as discrete and continuous manufacturing and engineering, digitalisation of the construction sector and energy intensive industries. It will enable production and consumption to respect the boundaries of our planet while maximising the benefits for all parts of society, economy and territorial contexts in Europe.

The Industry pillar in Cluster 4 is divided into two 'Destinations':

Destination 1 – Climate neutral, circular and digitised production:

Activities under this Destination focus on the twin green and digital transition providing a green productivity premium to manufacturing processes, construction and intensive industries. This will make an essential and significant contribution to achieving climate neutrality in the European Union by 2050, and to the achievement of a circular economy. Industry participation in these actions is imperative with an integral part of the projects being demonstration, testing and validating technologies in a real industrial setting.

The funding budget for 2022 is €334m with some of the proposed actions in the areas of: rapid reconfigurable production process chains, complex functional surfaces, modular manufacturing, digital tools to support the circular economy including buildings/construction, circular flows for solid waste in urban environment, valorisation of CO/CO2 streams into added-value products, electrochemical conversion routes for the production of chemicals and materials in the process industries and integration of hydrogen for replacing fossil fuels.     

Destination 2 – Increased Autonomy in key strategic value chains for resilient industry:

Activities will focus on the need to tackle missing segments in strategic areas and value chains to strengthen the EU’s industrial base as well as boost its competitiveness. In addition, it will explore how increased circularity has the potential to boost the leadership of EU industry through the more efficient use of resources, chemicals and materials.

The funding budget for 2022 is €402m with some of the proposed actions in the areas of circular and low emission value chains through digitalisation, developing digital platforms for the scale extractive industry, solutions for tracking raw material flows in supply chains, solutions for efficient use and recovery of mineral by-products from processing of raw materials, materials for advanced (nano)electronic components, lightweight materials for energy efficient structures, safe- and sustainable-by-design organic and hybrid coatings, multifunctional biomaterials for health innovations, novel materials for supercapacitor energy storage, membranes for gas separation and distillation and optimised industrial systems and lines through digitalisation.

Yvonne Halpin, National Contact Point for Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

With a focus on curiosity-driven, bottom-up, excellent research, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions fund innovative research training projects, focusing on career development and knowledge-exchange opportunities through international, intersectoral and interdisciplinary mobility of researchers. From individual postdoctoral fellowship awards to funding for international doctoral/postdoctoral training programmes and staff exchange networks, the MSCA offer exciting opportunities for researchers across all sectors and disciplines.

The MSCA are considered a vital funding source for enabling a diverse and thriving research and innovation community in Ireland. Irish applicants have been very successful in the MSCA with over €196 million awarded to Ireland since 2014 making the MSCA the area of highest drawdown nationally in Horizon 2020. Ireland’s excellent performance is further evidenced by the fact that the average national success rates in MSCA calls most often exceed the European average.

The MSCA National Contact Point services sit within the Irish Marie Skłodowska-Curie Office (IMSCO) based at the Irish Universities Association (IUA). The IMSCO is funded by the Irish Research Council and operates under a joint partnership with the IUA. Dr Jane Carrigan has recently joined the office as a fellow MSCA NCP with a particular focus on widening participation across non-academic sectors. Providing a “conception to completion” service, we offer support and guidance to MSCA applicants from across the research and innovation system including Higher Education Institutions, research organisations, private enterprise, civil society organisations, public bodies and beyond. Find more information here and follow us on Twitter.
New success stories from SPEEDIER and LEDLUM















Studies estimate that only 25% of SMEs in Europe have undertaken an energy audit because of a number of barriers.

The
SPEEDIER (SME Program for Energy Efficiency Through Delivery and Implementation of EneRgy Audits) project was established to address the barriers.

Read how Dr Pádraig Lyons, Head of Group, International Energy Research Centre and coordinator of SPEEDIER availed of Horizon funding working with nine partners across four countries.
















Tyndall Institute played a key role in a recently completed project that aimed to significantly reduce the size and weight of LED drivers while increasing their lifetime expectancy.

The ambitious 3.5-year project received €4.1m from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme

Paul McCloskey, Head of Integrated Magnetics group at Tyndall National Institute says Horizon projects facilitate research that pushes the boundaries.


Call for Experts:  The Commission is looking for top experts to advise on EU Missions

The European Commission has launched a call for experts to join the five Mission Boards, with the role of advising on the implementation of the EU Missions.

Each Mission Board will consist of up to 15 independent high-level individuals with excellent expertise in serving public authorities and citizens, and in combining public and/or private funding. In forming Mission Boards, the Commission is seeking to create balanced teams with diverse profiles. These should cover several domains including business, public administration, science, culture, citizen engagement, and civil society organisations, from across Europe and beyond.

The call for applications is available online. The deadline for applications is 02 February 2022, 17h00, CET. Interested individuals are invited to submit their application in the online survey-management system (EUSurvey).

The Horizon Impact Awards celebrate outstanding projects that have used their results to provide value for society with six awards of €25k each. These projects must have been funded by FP7 and/or Horizon 2020 funding programmes and they must be closed by the time of application. Closing date for entries is 8 March 2022. Find out more here.
Upcoming Events
This is an IP training series offered by the European Patent Office and the European IP Helpdesk. This lecture series, organised in co-operation with the European Patent Office Academy, addresses the IP-related aspects of EU-funded projects in five areas: It introduces the main aspects of IP management: notably IP ownership, protection and exploitation.

Each lecture explores the interface between patents and the respective technical field. The lectures may be of interest to a variety of audiences, from researchers to technology transfer officers.

Format The live online sessions include Q&A and are complemented with optional self-paced courses.

Dates and technical fields covered:
Medical technologies 19/01/2022 (passed)
Artificial intelligence 16/03/2022
Green technologies 14/06/2022
Digital communication 20/10/2022
Biotechnology 17/11/2022


Register here


More events in February 2022:

  • Thu 10 Feb, 14:00 CET - Horizon Europe - Quick guide to tackle gender dimension and cross cutting issues. Read more here.

  • Mon 14 Feb, 11:00 CET - Horizon Europe - Cancer Mission International Networking Event. Find more here.

  • Wed 16 Feb, 10:00 CET - Avoiding errors in H2020 Personnel Costs. More information here.

  • Wed 16 Feb, 11:00 CET - Master planning, management and collaboration in research projects. Details here.



Please feel free share this newsletter with the Irish research community, your colleagues, companies
and encourage them to sign up on our website for further updates.   


 
 
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Horizon Europe, R&I Internationalisation
Enterprise Ireland

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Enterprise Ireland
The Plaza, East Point Business Park
Dublin 3
Dublin
D03 E5R6
Ireland



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