INCOBRA - Increasing International Science, Technology and Innovation Cooperation between Brazil and the European Union

The European Commission announced on October 27th how it will spend €30 billion of the EU research and innovation funding programme Horizon 2020 during 2018-2020, including €2.7 billion to kick-start a European Innovation Council.

Horizon 2020, the EU's €77 billion research and innovation funding programme, supports scientific excellence in Europe and has contributed to high-profile scientific breakthroughs such as the discovery of exoplanets and gravitational waves. Over the next 3 years, the Commission will seek greater impact of its research funding by focusing on fewer, but critical topics such as migration, security, climate, clean energy and digital economy. Horizon 2020 will also be more geared towards boosting breakthrough, market-creating innovation.

Focusing on political priorities 

The 2018-2020 Work Programme will focus efforts on fewer topics with bigger budgets, directly supporting the Commission's political priorities:

• A low-carbon, climate resilient future: €3.3 billion
• Circular Economy: €1 billion
• Digitising and transforming European industry and services: €1.7 billion
• Security Union: €1 billion
• Migration: €200 million

€2.2 billion will be earmarked for clean energy projects in four interrelated areas: renewables, energy efficient buildings, electro-mobility and storage solutions, including €200 million to support the development and production in Europe of the next generation of electric batteries.

Enhancing international cooperation

The new Work Programme also strengthens international cooperation in research and innovation. It will invest over €1 billion in 30 flagship initiatives in areas of mutual benefit. Examples include working with Brazil and South Africa on maritime research.

INCOBRA will highlight the H2020 calls relevant for EU-BR cooperation. The new work programme foresees topics which target Brazil or Latin America, topics for which Brazilian entities are exceptionally eligible for EU funding, and EU-Brazil coordinated calls.

Background

Horizon 2020 is the EU's biggest ever research and innovation framework programme with a budget of €77 billion over seven years (2014-2020). While most research and innovation activities are still underway or yet to start, the programme is delivering.

As of October 2017, Horizon 2020 has in total funded more than 15 000 grants to the tune of €26.65 billion, of which almost €3.79 billion went to SMEs. The programme has also provided companies, in particular SMEs, with access to risk finance worth over €17 million under the "InnovFin - EU finance for innovators" scheme. Furthermore,3,143 ERC Principal Investigators in host organisations and 10,176 fellows under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions have received grants worth almost €4.87 billion and €2.89 billion respectively.

Simultaneous to the adoption of the Horizon 2020 Work Programme 2018-2020, the Euratom Work Programme 2018 has been adopted, investing €32 million in research into the management and disposal of radioactive waste. It will also develop a research roadmap on safe decommissioning of nuclear power plants to reduce environmental impact and costs.