Horizon Europe Policy Support Facility

Welcome to the first Horizon Europe Policy Support Facility (PSF) newsletter of 2023!

We are happy to announce that the PSF has launched a new service: PSF Open. Created with the aim of further supporting countries that have already benefited from a PSF Country activity, PSF Open is a new way for countries to receive specific and flexible follow-up support on their prior PSF recommendations.

Following the successful completion of two PSF Country exercises, PSF Moldova and PSF Croatia, we have recently published their summary articles. Read on to discover their achievements, catch up on existing PSF support activities and get familiar with new PSF Open activities.

Since the last newsletter, the final and fifth thematic reports of the MLE on Citizen Science have been published. The final report displays recommendations on eight key areas of action for policymakers aimed at supporting, sustaining and upscaling of Citizen Science projects and initiatives across Europe. You can also read the MLE Citizen Science summary article to find succinct explanations on the outcomes of the mutual learning, as well as further detail on each recommendation. 

Read the summary article

Find out more about MLE on Citizen Science

PSF Country Moldova has successfully concluded! The PSF panel of independent experts and peers highlighted that Moldova should commit to transforming its R&I system by increasing its public funding, expanding science-business collaboration, and transforming R&I governance to address fragmentation and a lack of transparency. To help Moldova to achieve these three R&I transformations, the panel advised 14 recommendations. Read them in full in the summary article.

Read the summary article

Find out more about PSF Moldova

Following the completion of PSF Country Croatia, the PSF panel has acknowledged that the Croatian government has made good steps towards improving its research, development and innovation (RDI) system over the last decade. However, experts highlighted that Croatia needs to address the bias in its Smart Specialisation Strategy and put special focus on better implementing the entrepreneurial discovery process. Experts also advised on how to incentivise science-business links as well as on how to build up the capacity of the Croatian Science Foundation.

Read the summary article

Find out more about PSF Croatia

We are pleased to announce that we have launched a PSF Open exercise for Greece, an assignment that builds upon the previous PSF Country review. The aim of PSF Open Greece is to provide Greece with expert support to define ‘implementation plans’ for three PSF Country recommendations. These include:

• development of a general framework for performance-based funding of research infrastructures (RIs);
• development of a set of key performance indicators that reflect the role of RIs in the national R&D system;
• guidelines for Open Science and Digitisation around which NRIs should further develop their data policies and connect with national and European research data platforms.

Find out more

Read the factsheet

The first PSF Open exercise addresses some of the reform needs defined by the PSF Romania Country review. The activity focuses on 10 PSF Country recommendations related to governance, human resources and internationalisation. The exact scope and more details can be found in full on the website.

Find out more

Read the factsheet

This MLE focuses on how to design new governance structures, policy mixes and instruments, and details new methods for how the actors’ engagement can become conducive to the whole-of-government approach (WGA).

The first thematic report provides a short overview on how WGAs have been used by governments in different circumstances and what tools have been implemented to foster better coordination across various policy domains.

Find out more

Read the factsheet

The MLE on R&I Foresight is focused on promoting improvements to R&I foresight across participating countries and strengthening the European foresight community in R&I policy. The first thematic report ‘An Introduction to the Current State of Play’ and the second ‘Institutionalising foresight capability and creating wide foresight communities in the R&I system’ have been published!

Find out more

Read the factsheet

The Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG R&I) is continuing to engage with Member States in enhanced dialogues. The last weeks have seen Latvia and Slovenia participate in this initiative around topics of their choosing including the new European innovation agenda, synergies between Horizon Europe and Cohesion policy programmes, the implementation of national research and higher education reforms or the development of hydrogen valleys.

The enhanced dialogues are open to all the Member States that are willing to engage. The topics addressed in the discussions are selected by the national authorities in coordination with the European Commission depending on their interests and needs. The Commission is committing to bring all the necessary expertise to the table while national authorities must ensure high-level participation to secure long-term political support.

Find out more!

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The Horizon Europe PSF provides practical support for Member States and Associated Countries to design, implement and evaluate reforms that enhance the quality of their R&I investments, policies and ecosystems.