Covid-19, Crisis, Education and Science, EU – Baltic States, Funds, Modern EU

The Commission has mobilized another €122 mln from its science and innovation program, Horizon 2020, for urgently needed research into the coronavirus in addition to the already announced in the beginning of May Commission’s pledge of €1.4 bn.  

This support is realised through a new call (in addition to a range of EU-funded research and innovation actions to fight the coronavirus) complements earlier actions to develop diagnostics, treatments and vaccines by strengthening capacity to manufacture and deploying readily available solutions in order to rapidly address the pressing needs. It will also improve understanding of the behavioral and socio-economic impacts of the epidemic.

On EU’s actions in: https://ec.europa.eu/info/research-and-innovation/research-area/health-research-and-innovation/coronavirus-research-and-innovation_en

Main areas of research

The new call will cover five areas with the following indicative budgets:

1. Repurposing of manufacturing for vital medical supplies and equipment (€23 million);
2. Medical technologies, digital tools and artificial intelligence analytics to improve surveillance and care at high technology readiness levels (€56 million);
3. Behavioral, social and economic impacts of the outbreak responses (€20 million);
4. Pan-European COVID-19 cohorts (€20 million); and
5. Collaboration of existing EU and international cohorts of relevance to COVID-19 (€3 million)

More in: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_20_887

The states’ research community’s applications shall be submitted before 11 June 2020, and shall focus on quick results’ delivery, as global and European population urgently need innovative solutions to contain and mitigate the outbreak, and to better care for patients and vulnerable groups, as well as the frontline health care staff and their associates.

The Commission aims to enable research work to start as quickly as possible through shorter timelines for the preparation of expressions of interest and for their evaluation.

More information in: Special Horizon 2020 request for expressions of interest