In their first submission to the mid-term evaluation of Horizon Europe, The Guild universities voice their concern about the implementation of the R&I missions after observing low application rates to many calls. The missions’ calls have failed to attract research communities to get involved due to the lack of opportunities for collaborative research.
In order to address this issue and ensure the participation of leading scientists in the calls for missions, The Guild suggests the following:
- Horizon Europe should only support actions that advance research and innovation; it should not fund initiatives that overlap with the objectives of other EU programmes.
- Highlight the crucial role of universities, research institutions and researchers in achieving the missions’ goals.
- Introduce call topics that invite projects at low TRLs (1-3) to contribute to the missions. Scientific advancements and breakthroughs should be acknowledged as important contributors to the achievement of the missions.
- Encourage more bottom-up approaches in the calls for proposals, to ensure greater flexibility in the submission process and project planning.
- Open opportunities for smaller initiatives and support the creation of more restricted consortia that are more targeted in their approach.
- Rather than establishing separate work programmes, include the mission calls into the respective work programmes of thematic clusters.
- Provide more details on synergies and avoid overlaps between the missions and partnerships linked to similar topics.
Jan Palmowski, Secretary-General of The Guild: ‘’The original US mission to place a person on the moon was underpinned by transformational research and innovation; Europe’s citizens will not look kindly on missions that fail to make breakthrough advances through research and innovation in tackling cancer, climate change and biodiversity.”
24 January 2023
Find below additional publications The Guild published in response to the European Commission consultation on the Horizon Europe programme:
Priorities for Strengthening Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities Research in Horizon Europe | 31 January 2023
Health Priorities for challenge-driven research in Horizon Europe | 7 February 2023
Priorities for digital and artificial intelligence research in Horizon Europe | 14 February 2023