Horizon Europe - UK participation
As part of the agreement reached in late December 2020 between the UK and EU on their future relationship the UK including Wales should be associating to the Horizon Europe programme. For more detail on the current status of the UK please check the FAQs from the European Commission available through this link.
Horizon Europe is the EU's research and innovation competitive funding programme with a budget of over 95 billion euros.Wales has been successful in receiving funding from the previous Horizon 2020 programme with over £100m received by Welsh organisations including universities. In addition to the funding EU programmes support research networking and collaboration across Europe and beyond which are vital for building and sustaining a high quality research ecosystem.
Welsh universities will be able to join Horizon Europe project consortia, bid for European Research Council grants, engage with the Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions and contribute to the ambitious Horizon Europe missions to improve cancer survival rates, clean water systems, create climate-neutral cities, improve soil health and adapt to climate change.
WHEB is working with colleagues across Wales to ensure information about the new programme is disseminated and is also working with networks in Brussels to ensure Welsh eligibility to participate in the programme is recognised. For further information on Horizon Europe please check the European Commission's information on the programme and also the UK Research Office (UKRO) have produced a number of useful factsheets on Horizon Europe.
European Research Council Starting Grant - Swansea University success
Professor Yvonne McDermott Rees, Professor of Law at the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law at Swansea University, has been awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant for 1.5m euros to examine how public perceptions of deepfakes - AI-manipulated images, videos or audio - affect trust in user-generated evidence of human rights violations.
The grant is one of the first to be awarded from the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme. Over 4000 proposals were submitted to the ERC from researchers based in the EU and associated countries with 397 awards made to early career researchers across Europe. The percentage of female award recipients (43%) was the highest for any ERC funding round yet.
Professor McDermott Rees' project TRUE (TRust in User-generated Evidence) will use innovative methodology combining legal analysis of trials with mass online experiments and mock jury trials to develop the first systematic account of trust in user-generated evidence in the specific context of its use in human rights accountability processes. More information can be found via Swansea University