The European Commission has selected 64 small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) from 16 countries for funding in the latest round of the Horizon 2020 SME Instrument Phase 2. 

Funding under Phase 2 of the instrument allows companies to invest in innovation activities such as demonstration, testing, piloting, scaling up and miniaturisation, in addition to developing a mature business plan for their product.

Find out more about the most successful companies selected for funding and some other interesting figures here. 

ACCIÓ (the Catalan Agency for Business Competitiveness) has opened the second call of the TECNIOspring PLUS programme, which will be closed on 14th September 2017.

The programme provides financial support to individual mobility proposals presented by experienced researchers in liaison with any R&D entity around the world. Fellows are offered two-year employment contracts to develop an applied research project with a focus on technology transfer.

More information on the programme and details about the open call can be found at www.tecniospring.eu.

ACCIÓ (the Catalan Agency for Business Competitiveness) opened the 1st call of the TECNIOspring PLUS programme, which will close on February 1, 2017.

TECNIOspring PLUS is a mobility programme co-funded by the European Union (H2020 – Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions) which aims at fostering the mobility of experienced researchers. It offers 2-year employment contracts to experienced researchers in order to develop an applied research project with a focus on technology transfer.

All the information about the programme and the open call can be found at www.tecniospring.eu. For  further information, contact tecniospring.accio@gencat.cat.

The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation has published the second monitoring report on the activities, results and impacts of the Horizon 2020 funding programme.

The report provides an assessment of the calls closed in 2015 along with the updated data for 2014 calls, as well as aggregation for both years. The study underlines the most important issues related to performance as measured by the key performance indicators, implementation aspects and participation trends.

From the intellectual property aspect, the report includes preliminary statistics related to output of projects, in particular publications, patent applications and patent grants, although many of the projects have not yet produced large numbers of publications and patents as they are still in their very early phases.

Nevertheless, as preliminary findings, the report shows that there are 1760 publications in peer-reviewed journals, 109 patent applications and 29 awarded patents, which can be attributed to Horizon 2020 so far.

To read the full report, please click here.

The new animated clip published by the European IPR Helpdesk sheds light on the importance of smart Intellectual Property (IP) management in Horizon 2020. Moreover, it outlines how the services of the European IPR Helpdesk can support researchers and SMEs involved in Horizon 2020 projects.

With a strong focus on innovation and close-to-market activities, Horizon 2020 provides a sound framework for IP management defining a set of rules on the exploitation and dissemination of project results.

The short clip can be directly accessed through the website of the European IPR Helpdesk. Should you be interested in using the clip on your own online channels, you may simply embed the YouTube link: https://youtu.be/AjPI-dprQbk

Organisations providing innovation and IP support in Europe that are interested in using the clip on their own online channels, may also get in touch with the European IPR Helpdesk's communications team at communications@iprhelpdesk.eu.

The European Commission has just confirmed the calls and other actions of the second year of the two-year work programmes setting out funding opportunities for 2017 under Horizon 2020, the EU's research and innovation funding scheme . Although the 2016-2017 Work Programme builds on the success of Horizon 2020 to date, important novelties have been introduced.

Among them, as of the Work Programme 2017, the current Open Research Data Pilot will be extended to cover all thematic areas of Horizon 2020, making open research data the default setting. This move will boost competitiveness by accelerating innovation and collaboration, improving transparency, and avoiding duplication of efforts.

A further new element in Horizon 2020 is the use of Data Management Plans (DMPs), detailing what data the project will generate, whether and how it will be made accessible for verification and re-use, and how it will be curated and preserved.

More information regarding all the novelties introduced is available here.

ACCIÓ (the Catalan Agency for Business Competitiveness) will launch a new edition of the TECNIOspring PLUS programme in October 2016.

TECNIOspring PLUS is a mobility programme co-funded by the European Union (H2020 – Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions) which aims at fostering the mobility of experienced researchers. It offers 2-year employment contracts to experienced researchers in order to develop an applied research project with a focus on technology transfer.

The new programme will involve industry as much as possible since companies involved in research and technology transfer processes will be eligible host organisations.

If you want more information about the programme, visit the TECNIOspring PLUS webpage and/or take part in the next Infoday on July 12.

If you need further information, you can contact tecniospring.accio@gencat.cat.