The European Commission is making ambitious yet realistic proposals for a modern EU budget. It is time for an EU budget that reflects rapid developments in innovation, the economy, the environment and geopolitics, amongst others. The Commission is putting forward modern, clearer and simpler EU financial rules that ensure the EU budget delivers on the issues that matter to Europeans.

Horizon Europe, with a budget of €97.6 billion, is the biggest ever research and innovation funding programme. It is designed around three pillars:

-Open Science Pillar: Building on the success of the European Research Council, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions and the Research Infrastructures, the pillar adds more resources for projects with higher impacts. The projects are selected through a "bottom-up" approach, are defined and driven by researchers and networks and are evaluated on the sole criterion of excellence. The goal is to nurture innovation and entrepreneurship in education across Europe to provide the skills and competences needed to make Europe more competitive on a global scale.

-Global Challenges pillar: It is built on clusters that aim at exploiting European strengths and assets by generating new knowledge and translating it into useful innovations, developing and applying digital and key enabling technologies along with a new mission approach. This will further ensure that Research & Innovation activities support EU policy priorities in areas such as the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, health, food and natural resources, resilience and security, climate, energy and mobility to secure a low-carbon, circular and climate-resilient society, industrial competitiveness and other societal challenges. Industrial leadership will be prominent within the pillar and through the programme as whole.

 -Open Innovation pillar: This new pillar will offer a one-stop shop for high potential innovators, aiming to put Europe at the forefront of market-creating innovation through a "bottom-up" approach. It will develop future breakthrough technologies and attract innovative companies with potential for scaling up at international/European levels. It will offer fast, flexible grants and market-based instruments with private investors while ensuring that support close to the market activities does not unduly distort competition between innovators. These objectives will be pursued through the creation of a European Innovation Council.

More info here  

The objectives of Computer Aided Technologies for Additive Manufacturing (CAxMan) project are to establish Cloud based Toolboxes, Workflows and a One Stop-Shop for CAx-technologies supporting the design, simulation and process planning for Additive Manufacturing.

The project  has launched its European CAxMan Additive Manufacturing Road Tour (CAM-RT). The tour will take the form of a series of workshops and aims to underpin the customer development process. Five workshops will take place during March and August in in France, Germany, Italy, Norway and Spain.

More info and dates: https://www.caxman.eu/en/news-events/caxman-am-road-tour/

A problem-solving approach to fuel innovation-led growth 

The European Commission, through Carlos Moedas, Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, invited Professor Mazzucato to draw up strategic recommendations to maximise the impact of the future EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation through mission-oriented policy. This report is the result of Professor Mazzucato’s reflections based on her research, with inputs through a consultation process with internal and external stakeholders of the European Commission.

Download the report here