Horizon Europe newsletter

European Funding win for seven researchers in Ireland

Our November newsletter opens with big congratulations to the seven talented researchers who have been awarded funding from Horizon Europe's European Research Council (ERC) in Ireland - they are based in University of Galway, Trinity College Dublin, UCD and RCSI.

A total of €636m was awarded to 408 researchers in 26 countries with an average funding amount of €1.5m for each researcher. The aim is to support excellent young scientists to "pursue their most promising ideas".

#WiPrizeEU

There was further great news for Ireland this month with the announcement of the 14 finalists in the EU Prize for Women Innovators which celebrates the most inspiring women entrepreneurs working in Europe today. Two of the 14 outstanding finalists are from Irish companies Beats Medical and Akara Robotics - Ireland was one of just 8 countries to make the final list. Read the full story below.

Info Days and work programmes
December will bring a number of key Horizon Europe Cluster info days and brokerage events - we have these listed at the end of this newsletter and encourage you to register your interest now. You'll get in-depth information on funding opportunities in the 2023 calls, covering various destinations within each cluster, and you will also have the chance to ask questions and get tips on drafting successful proposals.

Just published: DENiM and PANDEM-2
Continuing our Autumn and Winter series of Horizon 2020 success stories, read about MTU's DENiM project which is addressing energy efficient management of manufacturing systems through digital intelligence.

There's a slightly eerie undercurrent to the newly published PANDEM-2 story - find out how the consortium, led by the University of Galway, is strengthening the EU’s pandemic preparedness and response. The team's successful 2019 EU proposal described the accidental release of a novel coronavirus that led to a global pandemic...

News from our National Contact Points (NCPs)

Michael Murphy, National Delegate and NCP has all the latest news from Cluster 3 - Civil Security for Society while Gráinne Ryan, National Delegate and NCP for WIDERA (Widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area), gives an update from Brussels. Brigid Burke, NCP for Legal and Financial Rules, outlines the initial impacts of the changes introduced to Enterprise Ireland's grants which provide support for researchers who are working on proposals for Horizon Europe.

New EIC NCP appointment
We are delighted to announce that Dr James Walsh has been appointed as the new NCP for European Innovation Council (EIC) under Horizon Europe's Pillar 3 Innovative Europe and will be working closely with Sean Burke to continue Ireland's great success in winning EIC funding - no pressure James!

Contact us
As ever, our National Support Network is available to answer your questions - you will find contact details for the relevant National Contact Points in each programme area in this directory. Please get in touch with your queries.

Michael Murphy, National Delegate and National Contact Point for Horizon Europe Cluster 3 - Civil Security for Society

Ireland had a good start to Horizon Europe Cluster 3 ‘Civil Security for Society’ with two winning coordinators, KPMG with PracticE Ecosystem for standaRdS (PEERS) and researchers from the SFI ADAPT Centre at Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin winning ‘Vital IntelliGence to Investigate ILlegAl DisiNformaTion’ (VIGILANT) with a perfect 15/15 score.

Given the widespread use and misuse of social media, the EC’s funding of the VIGILANT topic, which aims to curb the spread of disinformation and combat its negative effects such as hate speech, human trafficking, and bogus medical cures, is particularly timely.

Overall, there was local participation in 15 winning projects and a return of around 2.65% of the budget, or more than €6.1m. Noteworthy is participation by UCC researchers in ‘DIsaster Resilience for Extreme ClimaTe Events providing interoperable Data, models, communication and governance’ (DIRECTED) and ‘Dynamic Resilience Assessment Method including a combined Business Continuity Management and Cyber Threat Intelligence solution for Critical Sectors’ (DYNAMO). DYNAMO includes KPMG as a partner too. It should be mentioned that Trilateral Research participated in three projects.

Cluster 3 divides into multiple ‘destinations’ including Disaster Resilient Societies (DRS), Fight against Crime and Terrorism (FCT), Border Management (BM), Resilient Infrastructure (INFRA), Support to Security Research and Innovation (SSRI) and Increased Cybersecurty (CS) - success was broad-based across the destinations.

To engage with Cluster 3, it’s recommended that you register to receive updates from the Community for European Research and Innovation for Security (CERIS) which is managed by the European Commission, and holds regular events that feature previously successful applicants, security stakeholders and EC policymakers. In addition, there is the Irish Security Research Network (serenity) that circulates emails containing security related and other scientific material on a fortnightly basis for much of the year. You can join ‘serenity’ by emailing me here.

Gráinne Ryan, National Delegate and National Contact Point for WIDERA (Widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area)

Are you a researcher or academic with an interest and expertise in areas like developing new approaches to the macroeconomic modelling of R&I or research ethics for environmental and climate technologies, or maybe laying the groundwork towards Europe-wide citizen science campaigns?

If so, have a look at the “Widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area” (WIDERA) work programme 2023-2024 in Horizon Europe. This part of the programme includes two main components: 1) Widening participation and spreading excellence and 2) Strengthening the ERA by reforming and enhancing the European Research and Innovation system.

The first part, the widening part, is dedicated to tackling the existing disparities between R&I leading and lagging countries. It promotes a more inclusive approach where all can participate and from which all can benefit. Less advanced countries are eligible to host the coordinator of widening actions and there are opportunities for more advanced countries to take part in many of the actions.

The second part of the programme “Reforming and enhancing the EU research and innovation system” provides opportunities to all to coordinate projects across a very wide range of topics, from open science, ethics, economics, education, gender and research careers. Examples of some of the calls are “Exploitation and valorisation of results relevant for the ERA Policy Agenda”, “Support to reforms of research assessment in the European Research Area” “Policy support to facilitate the implementation of a zero-tolerance approach towards gender-based violence in the ERA”.

A European Information Day is planned for the 12 December. If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Brigid Burke, National Contact Point for Legal and Financial Rules and Senior Executive at Enterprise Ireland

Just over a month ago, Enterprise Ireland implemented new updates to its suite of grants which are designed to help researchers to prepare proposals for Horizon Europe. The Travel, Coordinator Support and ERC Proposal Support grants offer funding ranging from €3k to €16k.

The aim of the changes was to make the grant application process more efficient by 1) simplifying the application and 2) speeding up the approvals process. We also removed caps on budget categories to allow coordinators more flexibility in how they use their grants.

The introduction of flat rate daily fees for research assistants and teaching replacement costs has taken the complication out of calculating costs based on salary scales - this was one of the main reasons for returning applications for revision.

We have certainly seen the benefits from our side, in particular with regard to reducing the number of errors in applications that we are receiving.

Since the new updates were implemented, revision requests now largely relate to insufficient detail being provided for travel and calculation of subsistence using civil service rates. Approvals processing times have also decreased significantly with letters of offer being issued on a weekly basis.

As some of you will have noticed, confirmation of proposal submission to the European Commission is now required when submitting reports - this can be a photo, scan or snip from the receipt email or the Evaluation Summary Report.

If you have any queries regarding Enterprise Ireland's financial supports for Horizon Europe, you can contact myself or Randa Abuharus by email here.

With manufacturing accounting for a third of global energy demand, it’s crucial the sector is as energy efficient as possible. To stay sustainable and competitive, manufacturers need to zero in on energy management.

To help manufacturers manage their energy consumption better, the DENiM (Digital intelligence for collaborative ENergy management in Manufacturing) project is developing an integrated toolchain for the provision of advanced digital services for smart energy management.

Coordinated by Dr Susan Rea and Dr Alan McGibney (pictured) at the Nimbus Research Centre based at Munster Technological University (MTU), the project team comprises 18 partners across seven countries. Funded to the tune of €11m by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme, the four-year project is about halfway through and progressing well. Dr McGibney says however, the project has been longer in the making.

Hard as it is to believe now, those planning the PANDEM-2 research project, which aims to build and strengthen the EU’s pandemic preparedness and response, figured their biggest issue would be coming up with pandemic-related data. That was just before the world was rocked by Covid-19.

“In our proposal, we actually had a case study of accidental release of a novel coronavirus that led to a global pandemic,” remembers Máire Connolly, Professor of Global Health and Development at NUI Galway, who leads the international PANDEM-2 consortium. “That proposal was submitted in August 2019.”

While this might seem slightly eerie, the EU had long been aware that pandemics represented a stark health security threat for its member states, which is why it has funded related research over the past decade.

Events in December 2022:

Tue 1 Dec, Access Europe Showcase, Croke Park, Dublin. Free to attend - more info here.
Tue 6 Dec, Horizon Europe Infrastructures Open Day - virtual event. Details here.
Wed 7 Dec, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Staff Exchanges Info Session. Join the webinar here.
Wed 7 - Thu 8 Dec, European Innovation Council (EIC) Summit 2022, Brussels. Register here
Mon 12 - Wed 14 Dec, Cluster 4 ‘Digital, Industry and Space’ info days & brokerage. Details here
Tue 13 - Wed 14 Dec, Cluster 6 ‘Food, Bioeconomy, Natural resources, Agriculture and Environment’ info days. Details here
Tue 13 Dec, European Innovation Council (EIC) online info day - Work Programme 2023. Info page here.
Thu 15 - Fri 16 Dec, Cluster 5 'Climate, Energy and Mobility' info days & brokerage. Register here.