Insights

Horizon Europe, the landmark research programme for the years 2021-2027, has finally launched with the official opening of its first collaborative calls. The budget of 95.5 B€ for the next seven years will offer strong support for projects related to topics such as health, digitalisation and green transition. Innovative small and mid-sized enterprises will also be able to benefit from the various funding opportunities under the programme.

Urbaser, a global environmental management company, and their subsidiary Socamex, will lead a pan-European CIRCULAR BIOCARBON project, launched in summer 2021. The project aims to build the first biorefinery for municipal solid waste and sewage sludge in Europe. Spinverse supported Urbaser at the project proposal phase. As a result of a successful grant application, the circular biocarbon project will be partially funded by 15 M€ from Bio-based Industries (BBI) Joint Undertaking subsidy provided by the European Commission.

The collaboration within the LuxTurrim5G ecosystem, driven by Nokia and coordinated by Spinverse, has progressed nicely despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The extensive company consortium developing a digital platform for the smart city has now reached an important milestone when its key element, the 5G smart pole, has progressed from the development stage into the pre-commercial product. It is in fact a product family of smart poles, which can meet the various needs of cities. The modular structure allows for poles in different sizes, integration of various devices, and implementation of required digital services based on usage and surrounding area. The ecosystem partners are currently working on finalising the collaboration model to bring the product to markets.   

Spinverse health tech and funding experts have been supporting Helsinki University Hospital (HUS), the largest academic medical centre in Europe, in some of their publicly funded research projects and activities related to EU funding applications. We discussed with Suzan Ikävalko, Senior Research and Innovation Manager at HUS, on the importance of EU funding as means to boost innovative research projects and collaboration with other parties.

Phenolic resins are one of the most versatile polymers yet invented. Spinverse recently supported the VIOBOND consortium to secure funding of 16 M€ from the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU) grant. VIOBOND project with a total budget of 35 M€ is led by Latvijas Finieris, and it aims to help build a sustainable and safe flagship plant for large-scale production of lignin phenol-formaldehyde (LPF). In this project, lignin will be used to partially substitute hazardous chemicals of fossil origin.

Eurostars is a public funding instrument dedicated to innovative, research-driven small and mid-sized enterprises who want to join forces with other like-minded companies. Successful applicants are in for grants worth an average of 1-2 M€ each to boost their civilian projects aimed at developing new products, processes or services. The funding instrument stimulates international collaborative research and innovation projects that will be rapidly commercialised.   

This information has been updated based on the EIC Fund Investment Guidelines v. 3.0 published 22.04.2021. A copy of the document can be browsed here under for more information.

The revamped European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator is the flagship funding instrument under Horizon Europe for start-ups and SMEs with radically new ideas for rolling out marketable innovation solutions and breakthrough projects. Winning companies with ambitions to grow and scale up can receive up to 15 M€ in equity investments and 2.5 M€ in grants. Here are our tips to get ready for your application process in the application portal!

When funding calls open and the consortium gears kick into action, there is a lot of excitement mixed with uncertainty and risk. Consortiums do not come fully formed, and risk is not just isolated to new technologies or organisational challenges. It is a combination of both and also includes other factors, such as regulation, ability of organisations to collaborate, global phenomenon, ships getting stuck in major trade arteries and so on.  Spinverse's Patrick Halford, VP, Digital Industries discusses on how to manage consortium risk and how Spinverse can help. 

Horizon Europe is the next framework program to fund state-of-the art innovative projects. The  EIC Accelerator is the flagship funding instrument under Horizon Europe for start-ups and SMEs with radically new ideas for rolling out marketable innovation solutions and breakthrough projects. Winning companies with ambitions to grow and scale up may get an opportunity to receive up to 15 M€ in equity investments and 2.5 M€ in grants.