Irish organisations have secured €910 million in Horizon Europe research and innovation funding since 2021. That equates to more than 2 per cent of the €39 billion awarded so far, putting Ireland well on track to exceed its target of 1.6 per cent over the lifetime of the programme which runs until 2027.
Horizon Europe is the European Union’s key funding programme for research and innovation, with a budget of more than €93.5 billion. The seven-year programme aims to support organisations to tackle global challenges, conduct groundbreaking multidisciplinary research and boost the EU’s industrial competitiveness and growth.
The funding won by Irish organisations is distributed across 1,334 projects involving more than 500 individual Irish organisations and businesses. Successful applicants from Ireland are drawn from a range of sectors including higher education institutions, research performing organisations, large companies and SMEs.
Kevin Burke, national director for Horizon Europe at Enterprise Ireland, notes that 2024 marked 40 years of EU research and innovation funding. “The scale of ambition within Europe for these programmes to have significant social, economic and scientific impact has grown hugely over that time. That has been matched here in Ireland.”
To illustrate that growth in scale, he points out that the EU Fourth Framework Programme which ran from 1994 to 1998 was worth €13.2 billion with Ireland winning €78 million in funding from it – just over 0.6 per cent.
“We had a national target of €1.25 billion from the Horizon 2020 programme,” he continues. “That was largely achieved with 2,163 contracts signed involving 3,100 projects and 657 individual organisations. The scale of that funding and the spillover benefits will be felt for a number of years. The overall national drawdown target from Horizon Europe set by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science is €1.5 billion. That is quite ambitious, but it appears that we are on target to achieve it.”
Horizon Europe and its predecessors have come to be regarded as an important part of Ireland’s research ecosystem, he continues. “There is a very nice symbiosis between national and European programmes. National research and innovation funding helps companies and research performing organisations become ready and able to compete in Horizon Europe. At the same time, participation in Horizon Europe projects helps people and companies become more competitive in winning national funding. Participation in European programmes also acts as a sort of weighing scale to assess if we are activating our local programmes correctly and helps us identify any weak links in the chain.”
The level of funding available is also important, of course. “The programmes have a profound impact on academic research and industry research and innovation. They support projects of a different scale than can be delivered by national programmes alone.”
Irish companies have done very well so far and it’s fair to say they are getting more competitive. For established companies, Horizon Europe is a great opportunity to expand and internationalise their research and innovation activity
— Kevin Burke
Enterprise Ireland leads the national support network for Horizon Europe. “Nine organisations are involved,” says Burke. “The others are the Health Research Board, SEAI, Irish Universities Association, the Marine Institute, EPA, Research Ireland, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. There are 32 people involved, and they are all very experienced in their own domains and some of them are recognised as thought leaders in their fields. They help organisations navigate to the parts of the programme most appropriate for them. That’s very important in what can be a very complex programme. The aim is to ensure that as many research performing organisations as possible are fully aware of the opportunities presented by Horizon Europe.”
The support network has helped Irish applicants achieve a very creditable success rate of 20 per cent with SMEs accounting for almost 30 per cent of the funding drawn down. But Burke believes the numbers are just part of the story. “Sometimes they can be a bit distracting,” he says. “We had a very successful conference in December where we got to see behind the numbers, see the people and projects and the impacts they are having on science, economy and society. We were able to bring a selection of those projects to life on the day. We saw how the programme can help research scientists develop their careers, help companies become more innovative and competitive, and help deep tech companies access finance and export markets. The conference highlighted the spread and depth of Horizon Europe in Ireland and how its impacts will be felt over the next number of years out to 2030 and beyond.”
He believes there are still a lot of opportunities for companies of all sizes over the remainder of the programme. “Irish companies have done very well so far and it’s fair to say they are getting more competitive. For established companies, Horizon Europe is a great opportunity to expand and internationalise their research and innovation activity. We want to bring more newcomers in. Once they get involved in their first project they can flex their muscles and deepen their involvement.”
For more information visit horizoneurope.ie