- Posted 19-Jun-2020
Horizon 2020 Work Programme Updated
The European Commission has published an updated version of the Horizon 2020 Work Programme (the “Work Programme”). The new updates, which were published on the 17th of June 2020, officially align the Work Programme with the pledge of the European Commission, during the Coronavirus Global Response initiative on 4 May, to invest €1 billion from the Horizon 2020 programme into coronavirus research and innovation.
The Horizon 2020 Work Programme reflects a number of new and emerging priorities for 2020 and at the same time enables a smooth transition to the forthcoming Horizon Europe programme. The five major priorities which reflect the overall policy priorities of the EU, are identified by the Work Programme and are as follows:
- Increased investment in sustainable development and climate related R&I.
- Integrating digitisation in all industrial technologies and societal challenges.
- Strengthening international R&I cooperation.
- Societal Resilience.
- Market creating innovation.
In line with the above-mentioned priorities, you may find below an overview of the key changes in the Work Programme.
Focus Areas
The Focus Areas under the Work Programme have been modified and bolstered in order to meet the challenges of new and emerging policy priorities. In particular:
- Building a low Carbon, Climate-resilient Future
The dedicated cross-cutting call on next generation batteries has a total budget for 2020 of €132 million. It confirms topics previously announced in 2019 and adds a new low Technology Readiness Level (TRL) topic from the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) work programme part.
There are also new topics in Societal Challenge 3 (Secure, clean & efficient energy) on energy storage helping increase flexibility of the energy system.
- Connecting economic and environmental gains – the Circular Economy
Under the Work Programme there are new topics on plastics - for instance related to upcycling of food and drinks packaging, or removal of marine plastics and litter – which contribute in different ways to the EU Plastics Strategy.
In addition the development of innovative productions systems and business models for resource efficiencies, waste management and system thinking, are supported by the cross-cutting call “Competitive, Low-Carbon and Circular Industries” (topics opened for the submission of proposals on 05 May 2020 with their deadline being in September 2020) which bring together topics from the “Leadership in Enabling & Industrial Technologies” (“LEITs”) part on Nanotechnologies, Advanced Materials, Biotechnology, and Advanced Manufacturing and Processing (“NMBP”), Societal Challenge 3 and Societal Challenge 5 (Climate action, environment, resource efficiency & raw materials) through a portfolio approach with a total budget for 2020 of around €230 million.
- Boosting the effectiveness of the Security Union
In a call in the LEITs part on ICT (LEIT-ICT), a dedicated call on cybersecurity includes a topic for 2020 with a budget of €47 million. Cyber security is also addressed in relations to healthcare (Societal Challenge 1 - Health, demographic change & wellbeing) and in Societal Challenge 7 (Secure societies).
Closely connected to the Focus Areas, other prioritised areas of work for 2020 include support to Artificial intelligence (AI), including in the LEIT-NMBP, -Space and -ICT work programme parts, in Societal Challenge 1, Societal Challenge 5 and Societal Challenge 7.
Bridging towards Horizon Europe
The Work Programme also includes actions, which in terms of their content and structure will help to prepare for the possible research and innovation agendas and structures in Horizon Europe.
One example is with the Societal Challenge 2 new call for “Food and Natural Resources” (total budget €208,7M), which brings together actions and testing of new approaches which will provide a stronger focus on impact.
Similarly, two pilot topics in the European Research Infrastructures (including e-Infrastructures) work programme will test some possible Horizon Europe features relating to the opening, integrating and interconnecting of research infrastructures. Relevant also in this context is the piloting of new approaches which are foreseen to be further developed in Horizon Europe, such as the enhanced EIC Pilot (Pathfinder and Accelerator) described earlier. This final update of the work programme contains lump sum pilots for funding, which have been extended to the FET-open, LEIT-NMBP, Dissemination, Exploitation and Evaluation and the Societal Challenges 1-6 work programme parts.
Synergies
In line with the above description for Bridging towards Horizon Europe, the 2020 Work Programme seeks to also support the issue of synergies, an issue emphasized by Horizon Europe.
Under the Work Programme, project proposers should consider and actively seek synergies with, and where appropriate possibilities for further funding from, other relevant EU, national or regional research and innovation programmes (including ERDF/ESF+ or the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance [IPA II]), private funds or financial instruments (including EFSI).
COVID-19 pandemic
The most recent update of the 2020 Work Programme reflects the commitment of the European Commission to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. In total, over €640 million will be dedicated through the Horizon 2020 programme to respond to the pandemic. These measures comprise:
- €15.5 million within European Research Infrastructures (including e-Infrastructures) to set up a Population Health Information Research Infrastructure to collect and make available population health and relevant non-health data on a Member States and EU level that can support research and policy decisions regarding the COVID-19 public health crisis.
- an extra €3.5 million under the Information and Communication Technologies work programme to support the deployment of innovative robotics solutions in healthcare;
- an extra €400.1 million within Access to Risk Finance for the European Investment Bank (EIB) to fund pre-commercial stage investments for infectious diseases. Essentially, the EIB is looking at a rapidly evolving pipeline of COVID-19 related projects, aiming in particular at both vaccines and therapies;
- an extra budget of €222 million within Societal Challenge 1 – “Health, demographic change and wellbeing” for research to address the COVID-19 pandemic, including an extra €50 million to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) for vaccine development;
- extending access to the EIC Business Acceleration Services to COVID-19 relevant proposals receiving the EIC Seal of Excellence and to the most promising ideas identified during the PanEU Hackaton (24-26 April 2020). These actions are additional to an allocation of €150 million already made to the EIC Accelerator within the European Innovation Council Pilot to support the development of COVID-19-related applications.