Meeting the pandemic challenges - Contribution of EU R&I funding to COVID-19 related research

Researchers have been among the first responding professions to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Among other things, they advised public authorities on containment measures, worked on diagnostic, vaccines and therapies, and investigated the best recovery opportunities. While the pandemic spurred new research activities, in the immediate responses its most pressing challenges, the researchers relied and built upon knowledge and know-how which were developed by generations of researchers long before the pandemic. This analysis focuses on the extent to which, past EU Research & Innovation investments has contributed to COVID-19 research. By linking internal and external data, we could identify about 3,000 COVID-19 relevant publications (as defined by the Cord-19 dataset) to which the EU R&I has, at least partially, contributed (using open funding information). The report discusses the main characteristics of those publications and their contribution to COVID-19 research.

Author: Mugabushaka Alexis-Michel.