Direção de Projectos (DP)

Recent results of Horizon Europe, referring to the last Calls of 2022 and the first of 2023, allowed to capture an additional €36 million in Calls of the European Research Council, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, Research Infrastructures and in the Widening & ERA programme, programmes whose support to the national scientific community is coordinated by FCT within the context of the PERIN network.

European Research Council (ERC)

The European Research Council (ERC) selected two proposals led by researchers working in Portugal that were on the 2022 Consolidator Grant and Advanced Grant reserve list. Pedro Leão, a researcher at CIIMAR and professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto, will have €2 million to strengthen research in the area of biotechnology. It should be noted that Pedro Leão was also funded in 2017 by the ERC under the Starting Grant. Ana Vaz Milheiro, a researcher at Dinâmia’CET-IUL and at the Centre for African Studies of the University of Porto, will receive €2.5 million to give a new dimension to her work on colonial architecture produced in the former Portuguese diaspora. Ana Vaz Milheiro also coordinates the COST action “European Middle Class Mass Housing”.

In the second deadline for applications of the 2023 ERC Proof of Concept (PoC) Call, Ana Rita Duarte, professor at NOVA and researcher at REQUIMTE, obtained funding for the project “Improve the shelf life of perishable goods through stabilisation of vitamins”. Ana Rita Duarte gets her second PoC in Horizon Europe.

Portugal has reached the mark of €70 million raised under the ERC in the first two years of the Calls. In the previous Horizon 2020 framework programme (2014-2020), the country raised around €150 million.

Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

MSCA approved 30 co-funded programmes (16 PhD and 14 Post-Doc) under the MSCA COFUND Call, of which 5 include national entities. In the MSCA Staff Exchanges Call, Portuguese institutions raised €4 million. Of the 73 approved projects, 24 involve 40 national organisations, and about half represent the non-academic sector.

In recent years, Portugal has captured around 2% of competitive funding in MSCA Calls, an increase compared to Horizon 2020, where the value was 1.6%.

Research Infrastructures (RIs)

50 projects were selected for funding in the 2023 Calls of the Research Infrastructures programme.Of these, 26 projects have the participation of 48 national partners. Two projects with Portuguese coordination stand out, Microbes-4-climate coordinated by the University of Minho, and AQUASERV, coordinated by the Centre for Marine Sciences of the University of Algarve. Overall, there are about €9.7 million of European funding raised by all national entities, which corresponds to approximately 3% of the total funding allocated.

Widening & ERA (Teaming, European Excellence Initiative, COST, ERA)

In June, 70 new COST actions were selected, five of which have national coordination. Two of the national coordinations are led by ERC funding beneficiaries, Manuela Gomes and Susana Soares. The actions coordinated by Portugal are the following:

• BEekeeping products valorization and biomonitoring for the SAFEty of BEEs and HONEY, by Andreia Freitas (INIAV);
• Randomized Optimization Algorithms Research Network, by Carlos Fonseca (CISUC, University of Coimbra);
• Exploiting Plant-Microbiomes Networks and Synthetic Communities to improve Crops Fitness, by Maria Conceição Santos (REQUIMTE, University of Porto);
• Future of plant-based food: Bridging the gap of new proteins and FLAVOURsome, by Susana Soares (University of Porto);
• TEndon Regeneration NETwork, by Manuela Gomes (i3Bs, University of Minho);

The Call of the Widening European Excellence Initiative has awarded 4.5 million euros of funding in 4 projects, two of which represent coordinations of Universidade Lusófona (WIRE – Widening Innovation+Research Excellence in FilmEU) and Universidade de Lisboa (Raise excellence in R&S&I in HEI for widening countries). These projects will be developed within the framework of the European university networks FILMEU’s – European Universities Alliance For Film And Media Arts, and UNITE – University Network For Innovation Technology And Engineering, respectively. This funding corresponds to 8% of the total funding allocated in Call.

The Calls for the consolidation of the European Research Area funded 17 projects with a total value of €35.7 million. Portugal is part of 5 of these projects (raising 0.5 M€), including a project coordinated by INOVA+ on the involvement of civil society in the production of new knowledge(Curating, Replicating, Orchestrating, and Propogating Citizen Science across Europe).

It was also formalised the approval of the project The Gene Therapy CoE at the Center of Portugal (GeneT) , coordinated by the University of Coimbra, under theTeaming for Excellence Call, which was on the reserve list. The University of Coimbra will benefit from a total of €13 million of European funding.

This project joins the two already formalised, “NOVA Institute for Medical Systems Biology” and “iMM-CARE: Boosting clinical research for the benefit of society”. Together, these projects could benefit from a total of around €38 million in European funding over the next 6 years. Two projects received H2020 funding, and are currently in the implementation phase: BIOPOLIS (BIOPOLIS Association) and MIA-Portugal (University of Coimbra).

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