Science|Business Widening Newsletter No.38 | Sign up here
17/07/2024
“The Widening” is a product of Science|Business and is not related to EU institutions or programmes.

Focus on central and eastern Europe

Welcome to a new edition of The Widening newsletter, a roundup of news and analysis of research and innovation policy and investments in central and eastern Europe, delivered to your inbox twice a month. Sign up here.

Edited by Florin Zubașcu

This week we take an in-depth look at how Cyprus managed to move up the European Innovation Scoreboard when very few countries have significantly improved their position in the ranking since 2017. Inspired by the success of three of its cities being selected for the EU climate-neutral and smart cities Mission, the Romanian government has come up with a national plan to help cities in less developed regions to learn from this. Artificial intelligence models consume huge amounts of electricity, but this is getting overlooked in the rush to develop and apply this technology. A new research centre in Poland aims to make AI more climate-friendly.   

The latest news

INNOVATION BOOST: The small island of Cyprus – mostly known for a frozen territorial conflict with Turkey, warm beaches and a long history as a tax haven – is now rising up the EU’s innovation rankings. In the latest European Innovation Scoreboard, Cyprus made the biggest gains of any EU member state and has risen to tenth place, up from 15 in 2017. It has also been labelled a ‘strong innovator’ for the third year in a row. But what’s behind the success? Sarah Drumm has the story.

STAGNATION IN THE SCOREBOARD: Speaking of the EU innovation league table, data shows most EU countries are stuck in one of four categories: innovation leaders, strong innovators, moderate innovators, and emerging innovators. Since 2017, 14 emerging innovator countries remained in this groups, with only Greece and Hungary moving up. Estonia and Cyprus made it out of the moderate class to join the strong innovator group. Two countries slid backwards, with Luxembourg and the UK, both innovation leaders in 2017, now ranked as strong innovators. Our full analysis of the data is available here.

CITIES ON A MISSION: While some doubt the effectiveness of the EU Cities Mission, Romania is using it as a role model and doubling down on making its cities greener, smarter, and more sustainable. Mirror Mission 100 is a government plan to attract investments of €1 billion over the next six years to finance renewable energy production, hydrogen-fuelled transport, electric transport, and energy efficiency projects in public buildings. Our Romanian correspondent Mădălina Cocea has the story.

ENERGY GUZZLERS: Artificial Intelligence has a huge appetite for electricity and Poland wants to cut down on its energy consumption. A new unit of the pan-European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS) has opened its doors in Warsaw, with the aim specific aim of improving the energy efficiency of AI and machine learning systems. Anna Rzhevkina reports.

HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY? We welcome opinion pieces and other contributions on R&I policy in central and eastern Europe. Send yours to news@sciencebusiness.net.

In other news

POLISH MEP TO RUN ITRE: Newly-elected Polish MEP Borys Budka is to be nominated next chair of the European Parliament’s Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) committee, taking over the reins from Romanian MEP Cristian Bușoi, as negotiations on the shape of FP10 get underway.

Meanwhile, other new MEPs from central and eastern Europe are looking to get more involved in shaping the next research framework programme, FP10. One notable example is Eszter Lakos, who previously worked as a science and technology diplomat in Brussels and represented Hungary in the Council of the EU during negotiations for Horizon Europe.

LOW EUROPEAN INNOVATION COUNCIL PARTICIPATION: Only five companies of 68 winners of the latest EIC Accelerator competition are based in Widening countries: two in Greece and one each in Croatia, Estonia and Portugal. The Croatian winner is a biotech developing a human bone growth protein, the one from Portugal is developing new materials for medical skin adhesives, while the Estonian winner is a developing a new form of digital financial identity. The two Greek winners focus on advanced 5G wireless systems, and food proteins made of microalgae.

Together, the 68 companies will receive an estimated €411 million, of which up to €165 million is in grants and an estimated €245 million in equity

A further 273 applications that were assessed positively by the EIC jury, but for which there was insufficient funding available, will be awarded a Seal of Excellence, which will help companies secure other sources of funding.

INTERNATIONAL CALLS COMING UP: Poland has announced the upcoming launch of an international call for proposals under the Weave programme, a cross-European initiative to fund and support excellent international research projects. More details are available here.

Mark your calendars 

DUBROVNIK, 5-7 SEPTEMBER: Croatia’s ENTRENOVA (ENTerprise REsearch InNOVAtion Conference) looks to examine economic, management, organisational, marketing and other issues related to innovation, information technology, and R&D driven by enterprises. Find out more here. 

PRAGUE, 24 SEPTEMBER: The second edition of Prague.Bio conference will gather start-ups, industrial partners, investors, researchers, and other biotech experts from central Europe.

BRNO, 2 OCTOBER: The annual conference of the Czech Association of Research Managers and Administrators will take place in Brno on 2nd October. More than 150 project management professionals from across the Czech Republic will gather to discuss the role of their profession. 

BUCHAREST, 2-3 OCTOBER: The How to Web conference describes itself as the meeting point for eastern Europe’s technology scene. Over 100 speakers and 3,000 attendees are expected this year in Romania’s capital. Find out more here.

WARSAW, 29-30 OCTOBER: The Deep Tech CEE Summit offers a chance to dive into the goings on in central and eastern Europe and connect with like minded entrepreneurs. There is also an investors’ day on 28 October. Find out more here. 

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