11

Europe must lead the transition to a healthy planet and a new digital world

© European Commission

Interview with Mr Jean-Eric PAQUET, Director-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission

What are the objectives and pillars of the 9 th Framework Program for Research 2021-2027, Horizon Europe? Our climate and environment, economy and society are experiencing rapid changes that will fundamentally alter our way of life. The deep transformation along the triple axes of the environment, economy and society is a challenge as well as an opportunity. As the new President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said, we will invest record amounts in cutting-edge research and innovation and use the full flexibility of the next EU long-term budget to focus on the areas with the greatest potential in order to grasp this opportunity. One key novelty is that we are using co-creation as a new way of developing Horizon Europe. Other Commission departments, Member States, stakeholders and civil society work on the detailed priorities and strategic plan for the programme with us. We passed a major milestone in this process last September: researchers, academics, businesses, decision-makers and parliament representatives from Europe and beyond gathered in Brussels for European Research and Innovation Days to take part in an unprecedented co-design exercise. Their views, together with thousands of responses from an online consultation, feed directly into Horizon Europe’s first four-year strategic plan.

Horizon Europe offers powerful tools to do this. Putting it into practice will be one of the key priorities of the new Commissioner for Innovation and Youth, Mariya Gabriel. The programme has a strong degree of continuity such as three pillars and excellence at its core, but is designed for even more impact. The first pillar (’Excellent Science’) will provide bottom-up support to frontier research. The second pillar (‘Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness’) will support collaborative research and innovation for addressing the grand challenges as embodied in the UN’s sustainable development goals. This pillar will be implemented through usual calls for proposals, through a streamlined set of partnerships and new missions. Finally, the third pillar (‘Innovative Europe’) will foster marketcreating innovation, notably through the new European Innovation Council.

Winners of the Horizon Impact Award 2019 at the ceremony at the European Research and Innovation Days in Brussels on 26/09/2019. From left: Jean-Eric Paquet (DirectorGeneral, DG Research and Innovation, European Commission), Lucie Cluver (SAFE), Khartikeyan Bhargavan (CRYSP-TLS), Barbara Zannutigh (SMART-COASTS), Paul Saftig (MANNO-CURE) and Anna Panagopoulou (Director, Common Implementation Centre, DG Research and Innovation, European Commission). © European Commission

Nevertheless, to add an important point: the framework programme is the EU’s main instrument for investing in research and innovation, but it only amounts to a fraction of all funding for research and innovation in Europe. In the case of Horizon 2020, our current programme, the share is less than 10%. At the same time, the current level of total EU investment is still below the 3% objective set in the Europe 2020 strategy. So it’s important that private investments as well as public funding at national level also increase.

Could you introduce the new European Innovation Council? What is the reason for its creation? The European Innovation Council (EIC) is one of the major novelties of Horizon Europe. It aims to put Europe on top of the next wave of breakthrough, market-creating innovation at the intersection of digital technologies, artificial intelligence and deep tech. It will be the one-stop shop for innovation, delivering on President von der Leyen’s objectives to enable more innovators to bring breakthrough technologies to market and to make it easier for small businesses to become large innovators. The EIC was launched in a pilot phase in Horizon 2020, and we will fully implement it from 2021 under Horizon Europe.

On which specific missions and societal challenges will EU research and innovation focus? EU-wide missions are another important novelty of Horizon Europe. They will focus on a handful of ambitious but time-bound and achievable goals with high visibility. Missions are an ideal example of how the EU can communicate with citizens. The aim is to have citizens engaged in the selection, shaping, implementation and possibly even the monitoring.

As regards specific areas, EU member states and the European Parliament agreed on five in Horizon Europe negotiations: adaptation to climate change, including societal transformation; cancer; healthy oceans, seas and coastal and inland waters; climate neutral and smart cities; soil health and food. The mission on cancer will form an essential part of the European plan to fight cancer announced by President von der Leyen, while the others will contribute strongly to the European Green Deal.

The SAFE project (UK) developed a free child abuse prevention programme that has already been translated into 18 languages and reached over 600.000 families in 22 countries

What changes are expected in terms of simplification of the administrative formalities and evaluation of the programme? Simplification is key to achieving higher impact and attracting the best researchers and the most innovative entrepreneurs. Horizon 2020 is already a showcase of simplification: the creation of a Common Support Centre to harmonise programme implementation and the large-scale simplification of the rules for participation have reduced time to grant from 320 days under the 7 th Framework Programme (FP7) to 220 days under Horizon 2020, lowered costs for participants, and improved access to the programme. And we are going to go even further under Horizon Europe, for example through improvements in the cost reimbursement system, notably regarding personnel costs, and an increased use of project funding against fulfilment of activities, i.e. with lump sums.

In this way, our programme is setting an example for the rest of the European Commission: for example, the successful model of electronic grant management of Horizon 2020 is being extended to all centrally managed Commission programmes.

Could you give us some examples of research projects supported by the EU? Many great EU-funded projects are changing people’s lives for the better. Let me give you a topical example: in October, Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe was one of three scientists who won the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. His work has increased our understanding of how oxygen levels affect cellular metabolism and physiological function, which is key to fighting a large number of diseases. And I am proud to say that EU funding had supported him. This means that at least 18 Nobel Prize winners got support from Horizon 2020 before or after their award. And last September at the European Research and Innovation Days in Brussels, we announced the winners of the first Horizon Impact Award, a prize for EU-funded projects with exceptional societal impact. The winning projects show how research and innovation directly benefits citizens. The CRYSP-TLS project (France) provided the web users with an improved protocol that ensures digital security. The MANNO-CURE project (Germany) has produced the first long-term drug therapy to treat a rare disease called Alpha-Mannosidosis, and the medicine is already available on the market, resulting in an improved quality of life for the patients and the affected families. The SAFE project (UK) developed a free child abuse prevention programme that has already been translated into 18 languages and reached over 600.000 families in 22 countries. And the SMART-COASTS project (Italy) established a systematic approach in assessing and managing European coasts that have become growing erosion and flood risks, as well as in delivering safer coastal habitats.

On June 13, a report from independent experts was published on “100 Radical Innovation Breakthroughs for the future”. How do actors in the European Research Area position themselves in terms of breakthrough innovation? Europe is a superpower in research but still lags behind on innovation, particularly disruptive innovation. The EIC has been devised to address this gap. In the meantime, as the DNA of innovation has changed, the new wave of innovation - increasingly driven by frontier science and engineering - offers new opportunities for the EU. More and more technologies emerge at the intersection of the physical, digital and biological world. Radical changes happen at the crossroads of sectors and disciplines, for example organ-on-chip between biotech and medicine; autonomous vehicles between transport and manufacturing.