The European Commission and Australia have finalised negotiations for the country to gain greater access to Horizon Europe – the EU’s €93.5 billion (£79 billion) research and innovation funding programme. After over 30 years of research collaborations between the two, Australia will be able to directly access funding and lead projects from 2027.
Discussions about the practical, legal and financial details of Australia possibly associating to pillar II of Horizon Europe began last year. This pillar focuses on research projects that target sectors such as health, renewable energy and digital technologies.
‘Once the agreement is signed later this year, our researchers, innovators and industries will come even closer to work on the technologies of tomorrow,’ says Ekaterina Zaharieva, the EU’s commissioner for startups, research and innovation, on LinkedIn. ‘At a time when the world needs more cooperation to address shared challenges, this is our answer: international research cooperation.’ Australia will now also contribute financially to the programme.
To date, over 20 non-EU states are associated with Horizon Europe, including Canada, New Zealand, Norway and the UK. Japan successfully concluded negotiations for association with Horizon Europe in December, while India and the EU started discussing possible association earlier this year.
