The European Union is planning an investment of 195 million euros. With this massive investment, the EU plans on setting up and developing a total of 13 new ‘’centers of excellence’’ in seven Member States. This action will help boost research in multiple fields and bring along innovation. This investment aims at inspiring the scientific community to develop new products and processes, working together with some of Europe’s leading scientific institutes.
‘’Scientific talent is everywhere in Europe, but in some parts of the Union, it does not have fertile ground to develop. We want to change this, and that is why we are investing €900 million from the EU’s Research and Innovation Programme in developing partnerships and setting up centers of excellence that will help talented researchers reach their full potential.’’
Carlos Moedas, Commissioner for Research, Science, and Innovation
The 13 projects that will receive funding under the Horizon 2020, EU’s research and innovation financial framework will be allocated to the following countries as shown below:
- Bulgaria (1)
- Cyprus (3)
- Czech Republic (2)
- Estonia (1)
- Latvia (1)
- Poland (3)
- Portugal (2)
Each one of these projects will receive approximately, 15 million euros of budget, once the final grant agreement with the Commission has been signed in the second half of 2019. Through this grant, the new centers of excellence will have the opportunity to form new partnerships and alliances that will undoubtedly lead to innovation in research in areas such as health, marine, and maritime research, biodiversity, nanomaterials and finally industrial production.
An example is a Polish project, NOMATEN which will receive the cooperation of the National Center of Nuclear Research of Poland with the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission and the VTT Technical Research Center of Finland. The goal of this particular project is to create a new research organization, in Poland, which will allow international world-class research teams to design, develop and assess innovative multifunctional materials for industrial and medical applications.
Background
The 13 project proposals have been selected for funding from the Teaming part of Horizon 2020, which is designed to facilitate institution building in countries with low research and innovation performance. The projects work in close cooperation with Europe’s leading scientific institutions.
A set of measures with a total budget of around €900 million is available for creating the conditions for widening the participation of universities and research organizations in less R&I-performing countries in the competitive calls of Horizon 2020. These include the Teaming, Twinning and the ERA Chairs instruments. The eligible Member States under Teaming include all those that joined the EU after 2004 plus Portugal and Luxembourg, as well as some of the non-EU countries associated to Horizon 2020. So far 11 Teaming Phase 2, 61 Teaming Phase 1, 97 Twinning and 27 ERA Chairs projects have been funded under Horizon 2020.
You can find the list of projects proposals selected for funding here
