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Research and innovation
  • News article
  • 31 March 2023
  • Brussels
  • Directorate-General for Research and Innovation
  • 2 min read

Commission boosts research and innovation budget for civil security for society and renewable energy

Today, the Commission has adopted an amendment to the main Horizon Europe Work Programme 2023-2024. The aim of this amendment is to foster research and innovation supporting civil security for society and renewable energy with additional investments. This latest increase of the budget of the work programme for 2023 and 2024 brings it to an overall total of more than €13.5 billion.

Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said:

“Strengthening Europe’s resilience and crisis preparedness is of the outmost importance for all European citizens. We demonstrate our commitment by investing additional €50 million for research and innovation in support of civil security for society.”

This amendment allocates additional €50 million the Work Programme to boost support to civil security for society by increasing the budget of existing calls and adding six new topics. This further investment will enable research and innovation activities to fight hate speech online and offline, to develop further capabilities for border surveillance and situational awareness, and to enable critical infrastructure operators to be more resilient to threats and to natural and human-made hazards. Further support is also given to increasing cybersecurity, as well as improving crisis preparedness and disaster risk management. In total, at least twelve more projects are expected to be funded over the next two years to support civil security.

A further €14 million in 2023 will promote European global leadership in renewable energy, by investing in digital solutions for defining synergies in international renewable energy value chains. These actions will support the implementation of a strategic research and innovation agenda on green hydrogen.

In addition, the call for the topic ‘Implementing co-funded action plans for connected regional innovation valleys’ has been brought forward to 2023, opening on 17 May 2023 and closing on 17 October 2023. In line with the new European Innovation Agenda’s flagship on ‘accelerating and strengthening innovation in European Innovation Ecosystems across the EU and addressing the innovation divide’, this action will create connected regional innovation valleys across the European Union, involving regions with lower innovation performances, by building on strategic areas of regional strength and specialisation in support of key EU priorities. Successful applicant regions under this call topic will be recognised as ‘regional innovation valleys’.

With this amendment, the Commission has also made technical adjustments to other parts of the work programme.

Background

Horizon Europe is the EU's €95.5 billion research and innovation programme for 2021-2027 and the successor of Horizon 2020. The 2023-2024 Horizon Europe work programme was adopted on 6 December 2022. It is based on Horizon Europe’s Strategic Plan 2021-2024, adopted in March 2021, which was co-designed with stakeholders, Member States and the European Parliament.

More information

Horizon Europe Work Programme 2023-2024

Video of Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth

Horizon Europe Factsheets

Horizon Europe

Horizon Europe Strategic Plan

A New European Innovation Agenda COM(2022) 332 final

Funding & Tenders portal – funding opportunities

 

Press contact:

EC Spokesperson for Research, Science and Innovation

Details

Publication date
31 March 2023
Author
Directorate-General for Research and Innovation
Location
Brussels