Association to Horizon Europe is the closest form of international cooperation in Horizon Europe. Entities of Associated Countries can participate in the Horizon Europe calls under the same conditions as entities from the EU Member States and are therefore eligible for funding, unless specific limitations or conditions are laid down in the work programme and/or call topic text.
Not only EU neighbouring countries can apply for association, any country in the world with a strong research and innovation capacity that share common values with Europe can apply for association to Horizon Europe.
There are 4 categories of countries eligible for association with Horizon Europe:
Close to the start of the Association, transitional measures can be set in place, through which entities of these countries can already be included as beneficiaries in call topics. Details are mentioned in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide.
All details regarding country eligibility is compiled in the infosheet “International cooperation".
The Department of Economy, Science and Innovation of the Flemish government coordinates the Horizon 2020 Coordination and Support Action SAPHIRe, which started on 1 December 2018. The aim of the project is to secure the adoption of personalised medicine in all European regions, including sparsely populated and remote regions and regions with different innovation capacities.
The activities of SAPHIRe are complementary to the smart specialisation partnership on personalised medicine – S3P4PM, which is also coordinated by the Department of Economy, Science and Innovation.