In 2020, the European Commission adopted two Communications on Achieving a European Education Area by 2025 and the New ERA for Research and Innovation. Both documents aim at empowering and accelerating the transformation of higher education through a number of commitments, including enhanced synergies between education, research and innovation. The EU’s multiannual financial framework and programming period (2021-2027) offers an opportunity for...

MEPs request an EU-wide action plan with ambitious and achievable objectives as well as timelines for phasing-out the use of animals in research and testing. They see this happening by reducing, refining and replacing procedures on live animals for scientific purposes, as soon as it is scientifically possible and without lowering the level of protection for human health and the environment. They want sufficient medium- and long-term funding to...

Report by ScienceBusiness With 70% of the EU population now fully vaccinated, European universities are planning to welcome students back to lecture halls and seminar rooms for the 2021-22 academic year, after long months of disruption and distance learning. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, universities across the world shut their campuses and moved courses online. Later on, many institutions brought in hybrid formats, but teaching...

The ERC grantees – 10 000 and counting – are making a real impact on people’s lives, expanding the frontiers of human knowledge, transforming research through interdisciplinary collaborations, achieving scientific breakthroughs that drive innovation. Want to know more? Click here to discover 15 amazing stories illustrating how the ERC transformed science.   About the ERC The ERC's mission is to encourage the highest quality research in Europe...

[Science Business] A simplified explanation of the thickets of legal details in Horizon Europe grant agreements will be released in stages across the second half of the year, with the first set coming out in July. The simplified version of the model grant agreement, the legal document setting out the terms and conditions of EU grants, is expected to be essential resource for applicants who struggle to understand legal language. The first part...

Whether it is tackling climate change, health crises or marine pollution, global challenges require a global research and innovation (R...

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) are the European Union’s flagship programme to support scientific excellence and cooperation across countries, sectors and research fields. The MSCA contribute to the achievement of the European Research Area and the European Education Area by supporting the mobility and training of excellent, creative and innovative researchers, as well as by supporting the development of excellent doctoral programmes....

[ScienceBusiness] The European Commission expects to spend €13.1 billion on research and innovation in 2022, with most of the funding, €12.2 billion, set to come from the EU research programme, Horizon Europe. How most of this money will be spent will be outlined in the Horizon Europe work programmes, due to be published in the coming few weeks. On top of the proposed budget, R...

[ScienceBusiness] The European Parliament has formally adopted the EU’s new seven-year €7.5 billion investment plan in artificial intelligence, supercomputing and data platforms. While MEPs are disappointed the programme’s proposed budget was cut during the political negotiations on the seven year multi annual financial framework (MFF) at the end of last year, they see it as the EU’s main tool for becoming less reliant on digital technologies...

[ScienceBusiness] Provisional agreement on the EU’s new climate law includes formation of independent European scientific advisory board to help plot the route to carbon neutralit. The EU is to establish scientific panel on climate change to provide the European Commission with independent scientific advice on the plan to become the first climate-neutral continent, following provisional agreement on the EU’s new climate law. The law enshrines...