Over 200,000 Europeans fell victim to COVID-19 in the first eight months of the pandemic, and over 800,000 people worldwide, according to WHO. Since the start, the European Union has been at the forefront of supporting research and innovation (R&I) and coordinating European and global research efforts, including preparedness for pandemics.

By the end of 2020, the EU will invest €1 billion into research and innovation to tackle COVID-19 and its consequences.

Up till September 2020, the EU has already invested €458.9 million from Horizon 2020, its research and innovation programme, in 103 projects specifically targeting the pandemic (not including loans from the Horizon 2020 InnovFin Infectious Diseases Finance Facility or the €5.9 million top-up to projects funded from non-COVID-19 calls). These projects address the development of diagnostics, treatments, vaccines, epidemiology, preparedness and response to outbreaks, socioeconomics, production and digital technologies as well as the infrastructures and data resources that enable this research.

In addition, 547 projects (funded by Horizon 2020 and its predecessor, the Seventh Framework Programme) could contribute scientific knowledge or technologies such as new disinfectant coatings for protective clothing, safe transport of patients, waste water treatment or digital applications.

The European Commission, EU Member States, industry, healthcare and research organisations, non-profit organisations and our global partners rapidly delivered a coordinated research response to this public health crisis. Commission services and national administrations developed in April 2020 the first ERAvsCorona action plan, which lays out 10 priority short-term actions in research and innovation to tackle coronavirus.

In the month and years to come, the Commission will deliver on its commitment to invest even more in coronavirus research and innovation, especially under our new programme for research and innovation, Horizon Europe, to be launched next year. Strong involvement of regulators, financial institutions, civil society and industry will ensure that research results are quickly available - from new vaccines and tests to health and social care.

This factsheet provides a snapshot of a comprehensive portfolio analysis of the EU’s COVID-19 research and innovation funding, results and impacts. The Commission provides real-time updates on its dedicated coronavirus R&I website.

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September 2020

EU research and innovation in action against the coronavirus: funding, results and impact

Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth

“Knowledge and innovation save lives. Since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, EU research and innovation has been one of our most impactful tools to tackle the disease. And it will also provide solutions to major concerns of citizens, frontline workers, policy makers and industry for living with the virus in the years to come.”

Research and Innovation

1. EU funding to combat COVID-19: focus on treatment, vaccines and crisis management

Figure 1: Distribution of COVID-19 Horizon 2020 projects according to major needs by EU financial contribution (million euro)

The large amount of funding for clinical management and treatment, vaccine development and diagnostics reflects the strong global commitments of the European Union to fight the pandemic. Engineering and repurposing production systems for emergency medical supplies and new digital telemedicine are expected to strengthen the health system’s resilience.

Evidence-based public health measures will especially focus on vulnerable populations. They will deliver solutions or inform policymakers about managing the crisis and being better prepared for future pandemics. This is underpinned by fundamental research to improve our understanding of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, funding for data science, and flexible, adaptable clinical infrastructures.

The budget of the Access to Risk Finance for InnovFin Infectious Diseases Finance Facility, funded under Horizon 2020 and implemented by the European Investment Bank (EIB) received an additional €400 million to invest in key innovative players developing promising vaccine candidates (e.g. BioNTech and CureVac), drugs, medical and diagnostic devices (e.g. Scope Fluidics SA) or novel critical research and innovation infrastructures (including production facilities).

Figure 2: Distribution of other non-specific COVID-19 H2020 projects reoriented to fight the COVID-19 emergency according to major needs (number of projects per category)

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2. Nearly 700 partners in EU-funded projects from the Member States and beyond

Dedicated COVID-19 funding calls in 2020 have so far attracted most participants located in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, UK, Netherlands and Belgium (433 participations). Researchers from countries associated to the Horizon 2020 programme based in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Israel, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey strongly cooperate in the EU’s efforts.

Higher or Secondary Education (mainly universities) together with research organisations (RTO’s) accounted for most of the participations in EU-funded COVID-19 projects, followed by private entities, of which 67% were SMEs.

Figure 3: Distribution of covid-19 projects according to main type of beneficiaries – by the share of EU financial contribution

Figure 4: Top 15 participants in COVID-19 H2020 Projects - by EU financial contribution (million euro)

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Figure 5: Top 15 SMEs – by EU financial contribution (million euro)

3. Global cooperation initiatives in research and innovation

The EU has taken the lead as a global actor and major international aid contributor (including pledging over €1 billion for research and innovation). Horizon 2020 funding has leveraged the work of existing multilateral research platforms.

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) is to receive €100 million from Horizon 2020, in addition to funding from EU member states. In addition, the Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness (GLOPID-R) has received €2.9 million. The EU is also a founding member of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, which aims to speed up development, production and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines. To accelerate and scale-up the development and manufacturing of a global supply of vaccines for citizens across the world, in poor and rich countries, the Commission contributes €400 million in guarantees to support COVAX (co-led by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, CEPI and WHO) in the context of the Coronavirus Global Response.

EU funding accelerates efforts to develop effective treatments, vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics, and to ensure universal availability at an affordable price. Horizon 2020 projects have attracted research teams from 14 countries that are neither EU members nor associated to the programme: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Columbia, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Gabon, India, Korea, Nepal, South Africa and the United States.

Horizon 2020 co-funds the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP), focusing on infectious diseases research in sub-Saharan Africa. This public-public partnership has funded 24 projects with a total of €11.45 million aiming to prevent or manage the spread of the outbreak. In addition, EDCTP and its partners are investing €23 million to build research capacity, strengthen regional research networks and establish an African cohort of epidemiologists and biostatisticians through training in institutions in Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.

4. Horizon 2020 projects: promising first results Given the urgency of this health threat, a major effort has gone to developing new vaccines, medicines, medical devices and other technologies and tools to help people return to their daily routines safely.

Diagnosis:Researchers involved in the EU-funded HG nCoV19 test project developed a new portable diagnostic system to detect viral infection that gives accurate and reliable results in 30 minutes.

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RealNano is an example of a project that successfully reoriented its activities to focus on the manufacturing of low cost and printable biosensors to detect the coronavirus.

Vaccine:According to WHO, over 170 vaccine candidates are currently in development around the world, 34 of which have started clinical evaluation. Researchers from the University of Copenhagen working on the EU-funded Prevent-nCoV project have announced that their vaccine candidate shows results that will enable them to progress into testing on humans already this year.

A French SME behind the OSIRIX project, funded under the European Innovation Council, is using its unique technology platform to develop a universal vaccine against all existing and emerging coronavirus infections.

Two EU-backed, large EIB funding agreements to promising European biotech firms were announced: On 11 June, the EIB concluded a €100 million debt financing agreement with BioNTech to support the development of BNT162, the company’s COVID-19 vaccine programme. BioNTech became the first EU company to begin clinical testing. On 23 April, the EIB Board approved a €75 million debt financing agreement with CureVac, a highly innovative European vaccine developer, to scale up development and production of a vaccine against the coronavirus.

Treatment:The Exscalate4CoV project announced on 18 June, that an already registered generic drug used to treat osteoporosis, Raloxifene, could be an effective treatment for COVID-19 positive patients with mild or asymptomatic infection. The project is funded under Horizon 2020 and uses an EU-backed supercomputing platform, one of the world’s most powerful, to check the potential impact of known molecules against the genomic structure of coronavirus.

Researchers in the ATAC project have already shared highly appreciated new scientific knowledge about antibody therapy against COVID-19 in three articles published in peer reviewed journals.

Enabling new diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines:The cluster of Horizon 2020 projects RECOVER, EU-RESPONSE and SUPPORT-E will contribute

to the clinical studies of different therapeutic approaches for COVID-19, and contribute to the coordination of European clinical development efforts.

The European Health Data & Evidence Network (EHDEN), run under the Innovative Medicines Initiative (EU’s partnership with the pharma industry), aims to make large-scale analysis of health data in Europe a reality. It is now working with 28 data partners (such as hospitals, primary care providers or databases) in 11 countries to harmonise clinical data across therapeutic areas including COVID-19 – including 150 million anonymised patient records.

Public health measures:EpiShuttle, developed by Norwegian company EpiGuard, is a reusable, single-patient

isolation and transport system designed to provide maximum patient safety and comfort while allowing critical care and treatment to be performed. It is currently in daily and successful

use in many European countries, including Norway, Denmark, and Germany.

Preparedness:The Go Green Routes project will evaluate the impact of reduced air pollution during the lockdown and its aftermath, as well as the impact on the mental health of urban citizens and their views on re-greening their cities.

Basic science:The COVID-19 Data Platform, run under the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), is a free-to-use, open digital space for researchers to share and upload data sets. Since its launch on 20 April, it has seen more than 78 000 users and 2.7 million requests from over 170 countries. The platform already offers access to a comprehensive set of preprints and publications (>100 000), viral sequences (>17 000), sequences from patients, and other microbiological data (>400 protein structures).

© European Union, 2020Reuse is authorised provided the source is acknowledged. The reuse policy of European Commission documents is regulated by Decision

2011/833/EU (OJ L 330, 14.12.2011, p. 39). For any use or reproductionof elements that are not owned by the European Union, permission may need to be sought directly from the respective rightholders.

All images © European Union unless otherwise stated. Images source: © sdecoret #324486567, 2020. Source: adobestock.com. Icons © Flaticon – all rights reserved.

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