Körber European Science’s Post

"It's optimists who change the world." Could not agree more with former commissioner Janez Potočnik's final words at last week's Conference on the European Research Area in Brussels, supported by our amazing INSPIRING ERA consortium. Specifically in this case, it seems like a true European single market for R&I really is moving further into reach right now. Whether it concerns free access to data or better working conditions for researchers - this could provide an invaluable push for research, innovation, knowledge and education all across Europe. https://lnkd.in/e7Ru6WeR

The EU needs to remain competitive. To do so, #science will play a key role. Research is a driver of innovation, helping to strengthen Europe's economy and society. Thanks to EU-funded #researchers, Europe is at the frontier of discovery. European scientists are working with novel ideas and developing cutting-edge technologies. Get to know some of these in the video below ⤵️ #ResearchImpactEU #EU40YearsRI

This is a good and insightful summary on the experts' report led by Manuel Heitor: "Align, Act, Accelerate - Research, Techology and Innovation to boost Europe's Competitiveness", on how to best equip Europe in order to have a robust, efficient and impactful next (10th) Framework Programme. 👇🏽

Titled “Europe’s Path Towards Tech Sovereignty“, the #HamburgScienceSummit will take place on 19 September. ❔ What makes technological sovereignty so important for Europe? 📱 Technologies shape our daily lives and will do so even more in the years to come. In a world facing global challenges, technological innovation plays a crucial part in ensuring health, prosperity and sustainability. But technologies also play a critical role in geopolitics. The development of artificial intelligence, new vaccines or key innovations for the energy transition show that the competition for the best technologies is becoming a matter of geopolitical power. From a European perspective, this raises the question of how Europe – including both EU and non-EU partners – should navigate the global technology race. 📅 Organised by Körber-Stiftung and Hamburg’s Ministry of Science, the #HamburgScienceSummit brings together decision-makers from science, politics, business and think-tanks to discuss the necessary framework conditions for the European science and innovation landscape.  Learn more on our website! See link in our comment.   📸 Credit: Basics09 #science #research #europeanscience #sciencecommunication #sciencefunding #technologicalsovereignty #hamburgsciencesummit #koerberstiftung #gesellschaftbessermachen

New report on the future of science and innovation in Europe. A must-read!   Co-authored by Dr. Georg Schütte, Secretary General of VolkswagenStiftung, the report "Align, Act, Accelerate" (#heitorreport) of the European Commission calls for increased investment, more efficient funding frameworks, holistic policy approaches, and intensified cooperation between innovation actors from academia and industry.   Particularly interesting: The chapters on international cooperation and dual use. Here, the report argues for a "utilitarian approach" that looks at specific cases rather than fundamentalist either-good-or-bad perspectives.   These are quite important issues, we will most certainly discuss them at the next #HamburgScienceSummit. 

What comes after Horizon Europe, the EU programme for science❓ I was invited by the EU Commission to speculate about this as a member of an international group of experts. Our assignment was to outline the framework for a new funding programme when Horizon Europe ends in 2027 🗓️. Today, we presented our 12 recommendations (“Align, Act, Accelerate – Research, Technology and Innovation to boost European Competitiveness”) to the EU Commission. The following aspects are particularly important to me: 1. increase ambition: Too many start-ups are moving away because there are no financing prospects in Europe. Meanwhile, other regions of the world are overtaking Europe, particularly in innovative fields of technology, such as the development of artificial intelligence. 👉 Our recommendation: All research and innovation projects that are recognised as outstanding must be funded. The budget must therefore be increased from the current 95 billion euros to 220 billion euros. 2. exploit opportunities: The European Research Council's excellence programmes are now the gold standard for funding outstanding individual scientists. We will only realise the potential of these funding programmes if we fully fund them. 💶 We can strengthen them if we boldly develop simple procedures to provide a testing and development platform for radically new ideas. 3. increase attractiveness: European industry has lost some interest in EU research funding in recent years. The advantage of working together with partners from other member states in the pre-competitive area has also been lost due to increasing bureaucratic burdens. 👉 We need a framework programme that makes cross-border collaborative research between companies and research institutions simpler and more user-friendly. 4. ambitious pragmatism: Europe can only act successfully if it is supported and strengthened by the member states. Added value is created when we join forces, for example in jointly utilised large-scale research equipment or testing platforms for new technologies. ⚙️ There is currently still too much piecemeal work here, too many small-scale compromises. We need a clear strategy for a few, but forward-looking large-scale devices. 5. also co-operate with difficult partners: We can work successfully beyond Europe's borders if we have defined our own research interests in advance: 💬 What do we want to work on with others? Who are our trusted partner countries? Where do we also need to co-operate with difficult partners in order to address the major global changes? The countries of Europe 🌍 can no longer guarantee national security on their own. We need co-operation here too. In modern science, old distinctions between research results that are clearly for military use and those that are clearly for civilian use can hardly be maintained. More on this soon. #heitorreport

From my long-standing experience with the EU innovation system both in my role as a consultant supporting organisations with writing EU proposals as well as being a former reviewer for the SME Instrument I would like to add the following remarks to Dr. Georg Schütte's thoughts on how to increase European competitiveness through big funding programs such as Horizon Europe: ➡ The European Commission tends to overestimate the importance of deep tech and academic research for economic success. Some of the most valuable and admired companies are not "deep tech" at all - think about Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Tesla. They are built on existing tech thriving from innovative business models and product concepts, and they were able to thrive because investors were willing to put money in them in the early days. ➡ The European Commission tends to underestimate the time that it takes to bring true deep-tech innovations to the market. Remember that what we perceive as innovative today was very often invented decades ago, and funding programs hovering along TRL levels that are supposed to be increased by a number of x in a three years' project just don't reflect that. ➡ The European Commission tends to always ask for even more taxpayer money to cover structural inefficiencies in the innovation ecosystem instead of tackling the root causes - a plethora of complicated program schemes that require scientists and companies to produce project proposals for consortia with 25 or more members described in hundreds of pages of writing (if you count in all the annexes). That being said, in my view the German innovation ecosystem is even less efficient than the EU when it comes to programs and proposal formats. ➡ Some of the topics addressed in the Horizon programs seem quite strange when it comes to economic impact, while other very important areas are completely off the funding radar (eg, drug development for major diseases - a pill against the common flu, for example). 💡 So, where to go from here? In my opinion the European Commission needs to reassess the definition of "innovation" and include business model topics more strongly in its funding schemes. It also needs to critically review how its regulatory policies affect the innovation ecosystem PRIOR TO putting such regulations into place. I would also very much be in favor of limiting the size of consortia to a maximum of 8-10 partners, which would also reduce the budget going into individual projects. #innovation #startup #funding

🔬 EUROPANOVA SYMPOSIUM: THE REPORT Discover now the EuropaNova Symposium Proceedings to engage in the necessary investments for a sovereign and reindustrialized Europe. Organized in partnership with the Institut Polytechnique de Paris and JEDI, the symposium aims to alert European governance to the urgency and importance of investing in technology and innovation. 🔎 The Proceedings compile the insights of nearly twenty European panelists, from both academic and industrial backgrounds. Among them are Jean-Pierre Vidal, Chief Economic Advisor to Charles Michel, Manuel Heitor Manuel Heitor, former Minister of Science, Technology, and Higher Education in Portugal, and Antoine Petit, President of CNRS. 👉🏻 This diversity of viewpoints offered a rich exchange to our over 2000 participants, both on-site in Palaiseau and online. 📢 Keynote 1 - Challenges for European Research : Agnieszka Wykowska presented the challenges of European research, emphasizing the need for increased funding and a single market for research and innovation. 🤝 Round Table 1 - Fundamental Research and Technological Innovation : Experts discussed the need to create an integrated ecosystem to stimulate Europe's reindustrialization. 🌟 Keynote 2 - Challenges For European Innovation : Jean Tirole, Nobel laureate economist, highlighted the challenges hindering Europe's competitiveness, particularly the need to increase R&D spending to avoid losing the global innovation race. 🚀 📊 Round Table 2 - European Structures to Promote Innovation : Participants discussed how to transform Europe into a global technological leader, emphasizing the importance of partnerships between academia and industry. 🏭 🌐 Conclusion : This event underscored the urgency of increasing R&D investments to ensure a promising future for Europe, a future based on innovation and youth engagement. 🎙 Moderation ensured by Anna Fontcuberta I Morral, Vivek Badrinath and isabelle NEGRIER Négrier. Read the report on our website : https://lnkd.in/gn8Jt3_K Institut Polytechnique de Paris JEDI ⚡️ Joint European Disruptive Initiative isabelle NEGRIER Guillaume Klossa Emilie Charles Laura De Almeida Charlotte Lacombe Thierry Coulhon Jean-Pierre Bourguignon

The Australian Government is providing $1.6 billion to amplify Australia’s best asset: people whose skills, ideas and world-class research will benefit and shape Australia now, and into the future. A total of $180 million is now available for researchers and their industry partners through the first round of Australia's Economic Accelerator Ignite and Innovate grants. Both focus on the Australian Government-identified priority areas of the economy (which includes medical science), and artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing projects will be prioritised. Find out which grant is for you ⬇️ AEA Ignite 🚀 ⁃ Funding for proof-of-concept projects ⁃ Up to $500,000 per grant for up to 12 months ⁃ For researchers at Australian universities to complete basic research, laboratory testing and establish proof-of-concept in an industry-relevant environment AEA Innovate 💡 ⁃ Funding for proof-of-scale projects ⁃ Up to $5 million per grant for up to 24 months ⁃ For researchers at Australian universities to collaborate with industry to advance projects that already have laboratory proof-of-concept Applications are open now and close on 28 August 2024. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gS9KXsRN

To what extent can digital platforms be understood as a specific type of research infrastructure? This question forms the basis of a recent article by Benedikt Fecher (Wissenschaft im Dialog), Raffaela Kunz (Universität Zürich), Nataliia Sokolovska and Marcel Marcel Wrzesinski. The authors explore the increasing digitisation of academic research and the emergence of digital platforms as central hubs for scholarly exchange. They propose a framework for understanding these platforms as #science platforms and analyse their potential impact on scholarly practices, highlighting concerns about commercialisation. Ultimately, they stress the importance of adopting a nuanced perspective in order to maximise the benefits of digital infrastructures while mitigating the negative consequences for #academia. Full article: https://lnkd.in/de7j9DJG