Horizon Europe, the largest research and innovation programme in Europe, has been launched in Malta.
The award was launched by the Malta Council for Science and Technology in conjunction with the European Commission.
Succeeding Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe is set out to become the most ambitious R&I programme brought forward by the EU with a budget of €95.5 billion.
During the online launch, deputy director for R&I at the European Commission Signe Ratso gave an overview of the Horizon Europe programme, outlining the three main pillars: Excellent Science, Global challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness, and Innovative Europe.
The programme aims to promote excellence, provide valuable support to top researchers, and help innovators drive the systematic changes needed to ensure a green, healthy, and resilient Europe.
Research minister Owen Bonnici said that the active participation of Maltese entities and researchers in the EU R&I programme will result in the creation of markets and jobs in Malta.
“Maltese participation will also attract the best talents to stay in Malta and others to come to Mal-ta, whether as individual researchers or larger companies, to set up their research, development and innovation departments here,” he said.
Awards
During the event, the winners of the Horizon 2020 Malta Awards were announced, recognising the efforts of Maltese beneficiaries that successfully participated in research and innovation projects within the previous R&I programme, Horizon 2020.
The award for Best Innovative SME was awarded to BrianTrip, while that for Best Impact on Health, Security or Smart Mobility Award was awarded to the company AcrossLimits for the project Bio2Excel Centre of Excellence for Computational Biomolecular Research.
The Blue Award, awarding projects that were impactful in the field of marine sciences was awarded to the project Venture by Naval Architecture Services, while the Green Award was given to the project SIM4Nexus by Epsilon Malta for its impact on environmental sciences.
The award for Best Promotion of STEM Award was awarded to ERA4STEM by Acrosslimits while the Best Technological Innovation Award was awarded to iFishIENCi by AquaBioTech Limited.
Georgios N Yannakakis was awarded The Most Active Researcher Award for his success and active contribution to academic research within the Horizon 2020 programme in Malta.