The Teaming Initiative: Establishing of New European Centers of Excellence in Plant Biology and Medicine

Review Article

Austin J Plant Bio. 2023; 9(2): 1040.

The Teaming Initiative: Establishing of New European Centers of Excellence in Plant Biology and Medicine

Petar Kazakov1; Dimo Atanasov2; Tsanko Gechev1,3*

¹Center of Plant Systems Biology and Biotechnology, Plovdiv 4023, Bulgaria

²Agricultural University of Plovdiv, Plovdiv 4000, Bulgaria

³Deptartment of Plant Physiology and Molecular Biology, Plovdiv University, Plovdiv 4000, Bulgaria

*Corresponding author: Gechev T Center of Plant Systems Biology and Biotechnology, 14 St. Knyaz Boris I - Pokrastitel Str. Plovdiv 4023, Bulgaria. Email: gechev@cpsbb.eu

Received: November 06, 2023 Accepted: December 14, 2023 Published: December 21, 2023

Abstract

The Teaming programme is a new funding instrument of the European Commission aimed at closing the research and innovation gap between the leading and lagging EU countries by establishing new research centers. The new centers of excellence are located in the so called widening, countries, and are created in partnership with advanced institutions from European regions with high research and innovation index. Here we describe the new research institutes in the field of plant biology and medicine from the first two Horizon 2020 Teaming calls. We analyze the financial investment by the European Commission through the Teaming instrument, as well as the Governmental co-funding and the contribution of the advanced partner institutions and local authorities. With these collective efforts, these institutes have quickly become the drivers of scientific and socio-economic developments of their respective countries.

Keywords: Centers of excellence; Horizon 2020; Teaming; Widening countries

Introduction

The European Commission considers Research and Innovation (R&I) as a key driver of social and economic prosperity, as well as environmental sustainability. The EU budget of the EU framework programmes has steadily increased: from 76.4 billion EUR in Horizon 2020, the 8th framework programme, to 95.5 billion EUR in Horizon Europe, the current 9th framework programme (https://scienceeurope.org/our-priorities/eu-framework-programmes/). However, sharp R&I disparities between member states exist. In order to reduce the R&I gap between the member states, the European Commission introduced a new funding instrument, the Teaming, aiming at establishing new or substantially upgrading existing Centers of Excellence (CoE) located in the so-called Widening countries; countries with R&I index below 70% of the EU average.

(https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal4/doc/call/h2020/common/1617618-part_15_spreading_excellence_v2.0_en.pdf).

The new centers are established with coordinating institutions in the Widening countries and advanced partners in regions with high R&I index. Teaming is the flagship EU scheme of the Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation programme. In addition to Teaming, other measures such as ERA Chairs, Twinning, and COST were also implemented to support the Widening countries. The total budget of the widening measures in Horizon 2020 was 935 million EUR, most of which dedicated to the Teaming projects have (390 million EUR in total) (Table 1). In Horizon Europe, new widening measures such as Excellence Hubs, Hop-on-Facility, and ERA Fellowships were introduced (Table 2), in addition to the existing ones, and the total budget of the widening measures increased to 2.95 billion EUR (3% of the Horizon Europe budget).