All posts tagged: Horizon Europe

Australia’s association to Horizon Europe moves toward 2027 start

Australia’s association to Horizon Europe moves toward 2027 start

Published by skeptic

The Australian Government has initiated the treaty process to join EU’s flagship research and innovation programme. Australia has taken a formal step toward joining Horizon Europe, the European Union’s flagship research and innovation framework, with treaty negotiations now underway. If completed on schedule, the agreement is expected to enable Australian institutions to participate fully in the programme from early 2027. Commenting on the negotiation, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, said: “I am pleased to join European Commission President von der Leyen in announcing that we will commence negotiations on association to Horizon Europe for 2027. “By associating with Horizon Europe, we are supporting international research collaboration innovation in Australia, creating jobs and driving productivity to help deliver a Future Made in Australia. “This is a great investment in our future and is a testament to the strength of our relationship with the European Union.” Access to global research funding Horizon Europe, valued at approximately €93.5bn, represents the largest multinational research funding pool currently in operation. Through Australia’s association to Horizon Europe, universities, research institutes and …

The importance of standardised methodology in ecological studies

The importance of standardised methodology in ecological studies

Published by skeptic

Scientists need to follow standardised methodology, but designing an effective protocol is not without its challenges. It is yet another morning of driving to the field site, and we pull up the weather forecast for the last days of this sampling session. Will we finally have the dry window of 48 hours that we need to set invertebrate traps in the twenty-four cages of our project? Leaving our traps out during high rain probability not only means we run the risk of lower insect activity and therefore non-representative numbers in our traps, but also that in the event of heavy rain, traps could flood and make the data nonviable. The previous samplings took place during good weather, when insects were more active. Over the course of two years, each year has samplings set at specific times in the seasons to be able to compare changes over time. Thus, more importantly, we want data to be comparable to our previous samplings and to other studies with the same aims. Teammates sort plants in the lab, quantify …

From raw material to real-life power

From raw material to real-life power

Published by skeptic

The 5GSOLAR project is developing environmentally friendly photovoltaics for powering indoor appliances. Solar power has long been associated with rooftops, sunlight, and wide-open skies. Yet, much of modern life happens indoors, under office lights, kitchen lamps, and the soft glow of our homes. As our world fills with small electronic devices that quietly work in the background, the question is: ‘Can solar energy work indoors too?’ The answer is yes of course, and it may lie in a relatively simple and little-known Earth-abundant material called antimony sulfide (Sb2S3). Why indoor solar cells matter Modern life is filled with small devices that need constant power: smart sensors that monitor air quality, wearable health devices, electronic labels, and Internet of Things (IoT) systems embedded in homes and workplaces. These devices consume very little energy, but they rely heavily on batteries. Replacing and disposing of batteries is inconvenient, costly, and environmentally harmful. Indoor solar cells offer a compelling alternative: devices that power themselves using the light already around them. Indoor photovoltaics – in simple terms, ‘the conversion of …

High-performance large language models for Europe

High-performance large language models for Europe

Published by skeptic

The High-Performance Language Technologies (HPLT) project is developing very large-scale multilingual resources for large language models and machine translation. Massive text collections for pre-training are the ‘crude oil’ of the large language model (LLM) era. The process of ‘refining’ high-quality datasets from web data at scale presupposes computational infrastructure and technological muscle that is often characteristic of corporate environments, as evidenced, for example, by some notable generally available pre-training datasets: C4,¹ FineWeb 1 & 2,2,3 MADLAD-400,⁴ or Nemotron-CC.⁵ With a few notable exceptions, this line of work tends to capitalise on the English language. Here, we present the open-source results6,9,10 of the European R&D consortium HPLT – a project that has been funded under the auspices of the Horizon Europe programme in 2022–2025. Together with a myriad of additional results, HPLT has produced massive pre-training datasets of high-quality texts in close to 200 distinct language–script combinations. Its 2025 monolingual data release, HPLT 3.0, comprises some 30 trillion sub-word tokens in total, of which close to half represent languages other than English. We make this resource …

EU project set to accelerate Norwegian hydrogen production

EU project set to accelerate Norwegian hydrogen production

Published by skeptic

A new project aims to increase Norwegian hydrogen production to 37,081 tonnes per year by 2030. Known as NORHyWAY, the project positions Norway as a European leader in industrial hydrogen production, supporting emission reductions and green competitiveness. Norwegian Minister of Climate and Environment Andreas Bjelland Eriksen commented: “This project is, in many ways, what has been missing to unlock the potential that exists in the next phase of the energy transition that we are about to enter. “Hydrogen is going from something that people debate whether it’s good or bad, to something the business community actively uses and depends on – both for climate commitments and for the development of jobs and industrial growth.” SINTEF will act as the project’s R&D partner to ensure that research and innovation are translated into industrial uptake and large-scale deployment. Overcoming barriers to Norwegian hydrogen production Hydrogen is expected to play a key role in decarbonising sectors where direct electrification is challenging. However, several barriers remain, including a mismatch between production and demand, regulatory uncertainty and high costs. NORHyWAY …

EU launches €75M sovereign digital infrastructure platform

EU launches €75M sovereign digital infrastructure platform

Published by skeptic

A new €75m European initiative aims to reshape the continent’s digital infrastructure by linking telecommunications networks, edge computing sites, cloud platforms, and artificial intelligence capabilities under a single federated framework. The project, known as EURO-3C, was introduced at Mobile World Congress 2026 and is supported by the European Commission through the Horizon Europe research programme. The consortium behind the initiative is led by Telefónica and includes more than 70 organisations across 13 countries, spanning telecom operators, cloud providers, research institutions, universities, and industrial companies. European Commission representatives and Telefónica executives presented the project as a strategic step toward building a more autonomous and resilient digital foundation for Europe’s economy. Speaking on the project, Renate Nikolay, Deputy Director General at the European Commission, said: “The European Commission strongly promotes secure digital communication infrastructures made in Europe, aiming to make the most of telco-edge-cloud convergence, with and for AI. “EURO-3C federates the efforts of a very large number of European players around a common goal: to build a secure and sovereign convergent communications landscape, for the benefit …

SNS JU selects 20 new projects to advance European 6G research

SNS JU selects 20 new projects to advance European 6G research

Published by skeptic

The European Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking has announced €116m funding for 20 selected projects, further cementing European 6G research and innovation. This investment forms part of the €630m EU public funding from Horizon Europe, already allocated since 2021 and expands the SNS JU portfolio to 100 6G research projects. In 2026 and 2027, the SNS JU will invest an additional €270m of EU public funding, unlocking unprecedented opportunities for Europe’s digital ecosystem. This strategic investment marks a major step in Europe’s ambition to reinforce its technological sovereignty, shape global 6G standards and ensure that next-generation connectivity delivers tangible benefits for citizens, businesses and public services. Renate Nikolay, Deputy Director General DG CONNECT, stated: “6G will be a key enabler of Europe’s technological sovereignty, strengthening strategic autonomy in critical digital infrastructures. “By embedding cybersecurity, privacy-by-design principles and resilience at its core, 6G aims to become a trusted, human-centric technology that promotes digital inclusion and ensures that connectivity benefits all citizens and regions.” 6G technologies present strategic opportunities for Europe 6G research represents a fundamental …

New project to improve community care across Africa

New project to improve community care across Africa

Published by skeptic

Researchers at the University of British Columbia are the first in Canada to receive Horizon Europe funding to improve post-hospital community care for sepsis. Led by Dr Matthew Wiens, the team will receive €5m to help improve community care and reduce sepsis-related childhood deaths in Uganda and Kenya. The project, led by researchers from UBC, the Institute for Global Health at BC Children’s Hospital and BC Women’s Hospital + Health Centre, and BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, is being funded through the Global Health EDCTP3 Joint Undertaking, which focuses on accelerating clinical development of health innovations. Called REConeCteD: Risk Enhanced Community Care after Discharge, the project builds on the group’s Smart Discharges programme, which leverages digital health technologies to identify children at the highest risk after hospital discharge and deliver targeted personalised follow-up care. Why community care is essential for children with sepsis Community care is crucial for children in the weeks and months following discharge from hospital after suspected or proven sepsis. Around 11 million people die of sepsis every year, with the vast …

Reinforcing Europe’s pandemic preparedness

Reinforcing Europe’s pandemic preparedness

Published by skeptic

From routine infections to emerging health threats, being ready for what comes next is essential. Pandemic preparedness sits at the heart of that effort. Dr Lennie Derde, newly appointed CEO of the Ecraid medical research network, shares how stronger European collaboration and EU backing are building a more agile and coordinated clinical research response across the continent. Being prepared for emerging infectious diseases is not only about responding to emergencies. It also means having the right research systems in place every day, so that new knowledge can be generated quickly and shared across borders when needed. This is the ambition behind the European Clinical Research Alliance on Infectious Diseases (Ecraid), a pan-European, not-for-profit research network whose goal is to improve how Europe studies and responds to infectious diseases, including antimicrobial resistance and other emerging health threats. Derde, an intensive care physician and infectious disease researcher with first-hand experience of pandemic-scale research, became Ecraid’s new CEO in January 2026. She previously led the European region of the global REMAP-CAP trial, one of the landmark studies that rapidly identified …

Building the HPC ecosystem for tomorrow’s ARM-based supercomputers

Building the HPC ecosystem for tomorrow’s ARM-based supercomputers

Published by skeptic

EUPEX Pilot aims to demonstrate Europe’s readiness to build fully sovereign ARM-based supercomputers from chip to software. High Performance Computing (HPC) has quietly become one of the key pillars of modern societies. From climate modelling and weather forecasting to drug discovery, artificial intelligence, industrial design, or energy optimisation, supercomputers now underpin some of the most critical scientific, economic, and societal advances. As data volumes grow exponentially and computational demands continue to rise, access to powerful, efficient, and scalable HPC infrastructures is no longer a luxury; it is a strategic necessity. Beyond its many applications, HPC has also become a strategic asset. The ability to build and operate powerful supercomputers increasingly affects technological independence and Europe’s position on the global stage. With major investments coming from the United States and Asia, Europe faces the challenge of developing its own technologies while staying competitive at the highest level. EUPEX, a European project funded by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, tackles this challenge head-on. Its goal is to create a pilot supercomputing platform entirely based on European technologies, from …