Ireland's Horizon Europe success to date
We are almost three years into the seven-year Horizon Europe programme and more than 330 individual Irish organisations have already benefitted from the programme to date.

In terms of numbers, Ireland has now officially reached one third of its €1.5 billion Horizon Europe national drawdown target – with 789 grant agreements signed worth €507 million to 334 individual Irish organisations.

That represents a significant positive impact to Ireland accruing from the outcomes from these projects, notably improving the competitiveness and innovation capabilities of Ireland-based enterprises, attracting and progressing research talent in Ireland across all disciplines, tackling and contributing solutions to global challenges in health, energy, food systems, manufacturing, digitalisation, culture and creativity, agriculture, mobility, marine, civil security, sustainability as well as backing innovators to access scaling financing for disruptive, deeptech companies. 

Cumulatively, this all leads to downstream economic, research and societal benefits for Ireland at national and regional levels.

While grant drawdown varies significantly, 50% of those 334 organisations have been awarded more than a quarter of a million, while one in five have secured greater than €1 million each in project funding.

Overall, this is a promising trajectory so far, and we want to continue to build on that momentum as we head into 2024 and the latter 4 years or so of the programme. 

We remain interested and focused on attracting newcomer researchers, companies and other stakeholders to the programme – and helping them to navigate to the opportunities in the programme relevant to their strengths and needs.

ERC Synergy grants
Two UCD researchers have won prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Synergy grants for two projects focused on mitigating volcanic disasters (ROTTnROCK) and age-defying bats (BATPROTECT) - each project will receive more than €10m in funding. Sincere congratulations to the two awardees Professor Emma Teeling and Dr Claire Harnett and to UCD on their remarkable success - read the details here.

South Korea Trade Mission
The Horizon Europe programme is among the items on the agenda for the Taoiseach and ministers taking part in a trade mission to South Korea this week. Minister Simon Harris met with 1st Vice Minister Cho Seong-Kyung in Seoul to discuss how Ireland and South Korea will partner on research and science mobilities – with the prospect of South Korea associating to the Horizon Europe programme providing future collaborative opportunities. Formal negotiations on Korea’s association to Horizon Europe began with the EU Commission in May of this year.

Latest success story
We've published a new case study on the Horizon Europe project ITHACA or "Artificial Intelligence To enHance Civic Partcipation" which is coordinated by Irish-based software firm Konnektable Technologies. Konnektable is involved in a total of 12 EU projects and has extensive experience in applying for EU funding - you can read their tips further below.

National Support Network team updates
In this month's newsletter David Flood, COST National Coordinator, looks at recently approved COST actions led by Ireland with the expectation that these will lead to follow-on research proposals to the Horizon Europe Programme. NCP for Research Infrastructures Maria Nash provides an update on Ireland's performance in that programme area to date while Ann-Marie Colbert, NCP for Cluster 5 - Energy, outlines remaining opportunities in the 2023-2024 work programme.

Other developments in Horizon Europe:
Negotiations and discussions are ongoing between member states and the Commission on a number of important items including:

(1) the addition of a new cohort of potential Horizon Europe Partnerships that if approved, will be launched during the second half of the Horizon Europe programme. Currently there are 49 different Partnerships within the programme, which is down from 120 in H2020

(2) a proposal from the Commission to add a new Mission called the New European Bauhaus Mission focused on creating lovable, liveable, sustainable and inclusive urban environments. If approved, this would bring the total number of Horizon Europe Missions to six and

(3) the content of the second Horizon Europe Strategic Plan, which will set out the updated priorities, initiatives and overall trajectory for the remainder of the programme (including Missions and Partnerships). It is expected to be adopted in the first half of 2024.

Get in touch
Please contact us if you have any questions or need support with Horizon Europe proposals – contact details for National Delegates and National Contact Points can be found in our directory.