Think ahead for bold consortia bids

Academic and commercial partners can be bound by long-term thinking, grant-winners say

Collaboration and partnerships are very much the seeds from which the EU’s research and innovation framework programmes have grown. Indeed, supporting research collaboration was the founding purpose of the programmes, which date back to 1984.

Under the current incarnation, Horizon Europe, funding for collaborative projects totals over €50 billion—more than half the entire funding pot from 2021 to 2027—and is channelled through the programme’s pillar two, which provides funding for R&I projects on pre-defined topics.