In 2025, the European Commission will put forward a comprehensive proposal for its next long-term budget – the multi-annual financial framework (MFF). The MFF is the European Commission’s long-term plan that sets out how much money the EU can spend over a period of seven years and on what areas. This includes EU funding for research and innovation.The Commission believes that EU funding aimed at boosting competitiveness is divided across too many overlapping programmes, many of which support the same objectives but with varying requirements, making it difficult to combine funding effectively, thus limiting access to EU funds and reducing their overall impact.As highlighted in President von der Leyen's Commission’s Political Guidelines, as well as in the Competitiveness Compass, the Commission will work on a simpler, more focused and impactful MFF that reflects the European strategic priorities with the ambition of being an investment-focused Commission.A public consultation recently launched is part of the process. It contains questions about the challenges linked to competitiveness, the stage of technology that is important according to respondents and to what extent the current EU budget contributes to address certain challenges. The Commission also polls the measures that seem most impactful.You can access the public consultation here. The deadline to provide your feedback is 6 May 2025.
2025-02-14 Culture and society Agro-Food, Environment MissionsThe TIDAL ArtS project is funded under the Mission for clean oceans and inland waters and combines the power of art and science to inspire action for our ocean and waters. In april they will publish a Lighthouse call for proposals of up to 15.000 euro per artistic work. The aim of the project is notably to create public art and raise awareness on the protection and restoration of our ocean and inland waters. If you want to prepare a proposal and stay up to date you can already register on their website.
2025-02-12 Digital, Industry & Space AI, data & cloudCommission President Ursula von der Leyen has launched InvestAI, an initiative to mobilise €200 billion for investment in AI, including a new European fund of €20 billion for AI gigafactories. This large AI infrastructure is needed to allow open, collaborative development of the most complex AI models and to make Europe an AI continent. The EU's InvestAI fund will finance four future AI gigafactories across the EU. They will be specialised in training the most complex, very large, AI models. Such next-generation models require extensive computing infrastructure for breakthroughs in specific domains such as medicine or science. The gigafactories will have around 100 000 last-generation AI chips, around four times more than the AI factories being set up right now. The gigafactories funded through InvestAI will be the largest public-private partnership in the world for the development of trustworthy AI. The goal is that every company, not only the biggest players, can access large-scale computing power to build the future. InvestAI will include a layered fund, with shares of different risk and return profiles. The EU budget would derisk the investment of other partners. The Commission's initial funding for InvestAI will come from existing EU funding programmes which have a digital component, such as Digital Europe Programme and Horizon Europe, and InvestEU. Member States can also contribute by programming funds from their Cohesion envelopes. More information on the context and other AI-related initiatives by the EU can be found in the Commission press release.
2025-02-07 Horizon Europe Digital EuropeThe European Commission has published guidelines on prohibited artificial intelligence (AI) practices, as defined by the EU AI Act. The guidelines provide an overview of AI practices that are considered unacceptable due to their potential risks to European values and fundamental rights. The AI Act, which aims to promote innovation while ensuring high levels of health, safety, and fundamental rights protection, classifies AI systems into different risk categories, including prohibited, high-risk, and those subject to transparency obligations. The guidelines specifically address practices such as harmful manipulation, social scoring, and real-time remote biometric identification. The guidelines aim to provide a consistent, effective and uniform application of the AI Act. They are non-binding, with authoritative interpretations reserved for the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The guidelines provide legal explanations and practical examples to help stakeholders understand and comply with the AI Act's requirements. It is important to note that at this stage, the Commission has approved the draft guidelines, but not yet formally adopted them. The guidelines can be found on the Commission website.
2025-02-05 Digital, Industry & Space Cybersecurity Defence EDFWe hereby want you to give an overview of the known activities related to the EDF 2025 calls: Publication of the European Defence Fund (EDF) Work Programme 2025 infosessions: Belgian and Flanders EDF infoday on February 21st in Brussels The EDF Info Days 2025 will take place on 2-3 April in hybrid format in Brussels and online - 🔗 Register Now SPACE 4 DEFENCE: European Defence Fund Industry & Matchmaking Day - Space4Defence 2025February 26th related training: Infosessions 'Strategic Goods Control department' (dCSG) on dual use and defence-related goodsseveral sessions between February 25th and november 20th further defence activity: Defence mission to Japan 202520-23 May
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ChemStream is an innovative chemical R&D company, specialized in translating material problems in sustainable formulations with focus on nano-dispersions, functional coatings and inkjet inks. Within LORCENIS they will develop super absorbing polymers (SAPs) to be mixed within the concrete matrices for improving the active internal curing, self-healing and self-sealing properties of the concrete. Grindig SAPs.
ChemStream bvba and Ghent University are involved in Horizon 2020-project for developing long lasting reinforced concrete for energy infrastructures.