Alternative proteins are moving from novelty to everyday food, but the next step is harder. Taste, texture and cost still stand in the way of mass adoption. The Plantomyc project is exploring hybrid meat alternatives: sciencebusiness.net/news/redefin...
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Canadian firm Eavor has brought a pioneering “closed loop” geothermal plant online in Bavaria. But the bigger challenge was financing it. The project required stitching together more than €90M in EU grants, loans and other funding sources:
A €30M project backed by Horizon Europe is helping rescue part of Croatia’s historic Brodarski Institute. The former Yugoslav #maritime #research giant is being liquidated, but a new centre of excellence in maritime #robotics aims to preserve key facilities and expertise:
A new viewpoint argues that the main problem with the EU’s Framework Programmes is governance, not ambition. Political negotiations often dilute the original design of Horizon Europe, making it more complex and harder to implement: buff.ly/23f8CDU
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A new viewpoint argues that the problem with the EU’s Framework Programmes is not ambition, but governance. Political negotiations often dilute the original design of Horizon Europe, making the programme more complex and less flexible:
Europe’s reluctance to take risks is holding back innovation, says former ASML CEO Peter Wennink. He argues that companies like ASML only succeeded thanks to early government risk capital and warns that current state aid rules make that kind of support harder today:
A German expert panel says the European Innovation Council cannot deliver breakthrough #innovation while it remains embedded in the European Commission.
Until it gains independence, the report suggests member states consider creating their own ARPA-style innovation agencies:
The Commission is stepping up efforts to involve Palestinian researchers in Horizon Europe. A new initiative aims to connect researchers from Gaza with European partners and help rebuild research capacity after years of declining participation:
Cutting the mandate of the European Research Council president from four years to two may not be a red line after all.
A Commission adviser says the idea in the next Horizon Europe is open to change:
#Biodiversity funding under Horizon Europe’s Cluster 6 has dropped by 61 per cent. The Commission plans a new call. Will it close the gap?
More:
€30M brain health challenge for innovators. Denmark’s BioInnovation Institute seeks projects ready to spin out therapies. Full details:
Would US scientists treat identical projects differently depending on the partner country? A new study suggests yes, with stricter conditions for China than Germany.
Full story: buff.ly/plNMLYF
The EU reforms its coal and steel research fund, extending it to 2034 but limiting annual allocations. What does this mean for industrial transition?
➡️Read the full story:
As EU #research funding shifts toward #competitiveness, support for global challenges is tightening. A report from Centre for European Policy Studies argues that the next Horizon Europe should formally integrate philanthropy to help fill the gap:
Research groups are pushing back against plans to redirect associated country contributions away from the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.
With success rates below 10%, the debate over reshuffling Horizon Europe funds is heating up:
Can EU governments close a deal on the next Horizon Europe by May?
Governance, priority setting, ECF links and the future of Widening are still unresolved as negotiations move into a more political phase:
Chinese officials are pressing Europe to revive #science ties after recent tensions with Washington. Some see an opening for renewed cooperation. Others warn that #research security and IP concerns have not gone away:
French research actors are urging Europe to move beyond national return logic and focus on scale. The Paris-Saclay Call argues that competitiveness depends on shared infrastructures, academic freedom and stronger alignment between national strategies and Horizon Europe:
Can Europe boost #competitiveness without protecting basic #research?
At a Parliament hearing, research leaders warned against creating a false hierarchy between frontier science and industrial innovation in Horizon Europe:
Should the European Competitiveness Fund shape research priorities or remain complementary to Horizon Europe? At a Parliament hearing, experts warned against blurring the roles of the two funds and called for safeguards to protect FP10’s independence:
Serbian academics say they are being dismissed after supporting pro-democracy student protests. The European Commission has expressed concern and urged respect for academic freedom and institutional autonomy as tensions grow around Serbia’s EU accession path:
Estonia is bringing its universities and science parks closer together to boost deep-tech commercialisation. A new €12.6M DeepTech Start-up Network aims to support 37 internationally competitive companies over four years and attract fresh private investment 🔍
Czechia has received the first international transfer of scientific equipment from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre.
A major surface science lab has been relocated to Prague, expanding research capacity while remaining open to European users:
Political systems and governance are among the most funded topics in Horizon Europe’s Cluster 2. So far, 26 projects worth €77M are exploring how institutions function, including two major investigations into political corruption:
In this week’s Funding Radar: the Wellcome Trust is offering up to £2.5M per project to study the health impacts of climate change.
Interdisciplinary teams are invited to generate policy-relevant evidence on a tight timeline:
Do targeted #research calls really change what scientists work on?
A new study of Swiss and Norwegian grants suggests the long-term effect on publication focus may be limited. What does that mean for challenge-driven #funding in Europe?
The EU Commission has presented a new action plan on drone and counter-drone technologies, centred on testing capacity, standards and industrial scale-up.
As incidents near critical infrastructure increase, the question is whether coordination will be matched by funding.
