Horizon Europe, the EU’s biggest-ever research and innovation program, is underway; in Spring 2021, the European Commission began publishing calls for proposals from research and innovation actors, and since then has been fleshing out more details of industrial partnerships, research missions, and cooperation with non-EU countries.

So how is the program going? In the annual Science|Business Network conference, speakers will offer the first public assessments of Horizon Europe:

• How is the standard Horizon application and evaluation process working?
• Are the industrial partnerships simpler or more complicated than in Horizon 2020?
• How successful does it now appear that Horizon Europe can be in its stated aims to help solve climate change, improve health, and manage a digital transition?
• How is collaboration with non-EU countries going?
• Will Horizon succeed in bridging the East-West innovation gap?

The conference assessments will be assisted by surveys and research by the Science|Business news team in the months leading up to the event. The results will include a high-impact white paper summarising the views of our members and guests – a first report card for Europe’s biggest bet on the future.

The online event will take place on February 8th and 9th, 2022. Of particular interest to EURAXESS members is a plenary session titled “Shared Vision: Is the transatlantic alliance reinventing itself through science and technology?” on February 9th from 10:30 to 11:00 AM ET (convert to your local time zone here).

The session features Director Cristina Russo, DG RTD, European Commission and Reece Smyth, Director, Science and Technology Cooperation Office, U.S. Department of State as they discuss the new “Associated Partner” status under Horizon Europe. This session is aimed at celebrating the renewal of the EU-U.S. cooperation, notably under Horizon Europe, and will be the starting point of a Horizon Europe campaign that will be followed by a webinar later in February/early March.