22 / 06 / 2020
EARTO Inputs for the EC Communication on Horizon Europe Missions
EARTO is fully committed to further support the elaboration and implementation of what needs to be recognised as one of the key European initiatives of the future: the Horizon Europe Programme. EARTO members very much appreciate the efforts of the EU Institutions to further develop Horizon Europe, addressing new and disruptive challenges and increasing the capacity of the programme to react flexibly towards these new challenges, especially the ‘new mission-oriented’ approach. RTOs have a historical track record of working to address societal challenges and missions. They are ready to support the new EU mission-oriented innovation policy. In the preparation of the new European Commission Communication on Horizon Europe missions, EARTO hereby calls the European Institutions, while further setting-up the EU missions, to:- Ensure a proper budget for Horizon Europe and its pillar 2 from which the future EU missions financing will come from. EARTO recurrently called with its industrial partners for a budget of at least €120 billion (in 2018 prices), directing a minimum of 60% of this budget to the Horizon Europe pillar 2.
- Set up Horizon Europe’s missions as an ambitious shared agenda across public and private actors and citizens, pooling expertise across domains and sectors to jointly deliver concrete changes to society with real impact. Among others, this requires having a stronger involvement of RTOs in their governance, design and implementation.
- Set up Horizon Europe’s missions as integrated programmes across Horizon Europe pillars and clusters and create synergies with policies at EU, national and regional levels, promoting clear programming links with regional smart specialisation strategies and ensuring clear synergies with EU Structural Funds.
- Link citizens’ engagement and stakeholders’ engagement as crucial for missions. Both engagements can go hand in hand and should not be placed as two separate actions. Indeed, as key RD&I stakeholders, RTOs can play a pivotal role in the new way of communicating about the future EU missions that takes place through collaboration, co-creation and collective intelligence. A strong and appealing narrative with concrete goals is required to inspire and motivate citizens and stakeholders to contribute collectively to the EU missions.
- Provide the appropriate governance and management structures for the implementation of these missions. The implementation of missions requires strong management capacities both on European as well as on national level.
