Yesterday, EU Commissioner for Research and Innovation, Iliana Ivanova, confirmed in a social media post that the European Commission was ready to restart talks on Switzerland’s association to Horizon Europe.
The announcement came a day after a message from Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič, in which he announced that both sides have reached a common understanding after 18 months of exploratory talks, adding that this will provide a framework for “the negotiation of a broad package between the EU and Switzerland.”
Background
Previous negotiations on the Alpine country’s association came to a halt in mid-2021 and resulted in Switzerland being considered a non-associated third country in the first years of the programme. Unlike the UK, Switzerland is not covered by the so-called ‘transitional measures’ for candidate Associated Countries, which means that Swiss organisations, in principle, participate in Horizon Europe collaborative projects as Associated Partners from the beginning (while UK organisations are included in applications as beneficiaries and changed to Associated Partners only during the granting stage, so after the proposal has been successfully evaluated). They are also not eligible to host mono-beneficiary grants funded by Horizon Europe (e.g. ERC Advanced or EIC Accelerator grants) but can benefit from national alternatives for such schemes.
Despite the third country status, Swiss organisations have been very active in the first Horizon Europe calls for proposals, recording more than 1350 participations in almost 920 projects, according to the Horizon Dashboard. This includes 79 projects where Swiss organisations were exceptionally eligible to receive EU funding and received almost €57 million in EU contribution.
How to include Swiss organisations in proposals for collaborative Horizon Europe projects?
The Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) provides detailed guidance on this subject in its dedicated factsheet:
“Until further notice, applicants based in Switzerland must submit their project proposals on the Funding & tenders portal as participants from a non-associated third country (‘associated partner’).This applies to the calls with call identifier 2021, 2022, 2023 and until further notice 2024 (meaning 2021, 2022, 2023 or 2024 is included in the call ID). Additionally, any proposal needs to fulfill the general eligibility criteria (minimum of 3 independent partners from 3 different EU member states or associated countries, of which at least one is based in an EU member state). Participants from non-associated third countries cannot coordinate projects. They can however lead work packages as any other participant.”
Funding for Swiss participants in collaborative projects is provided by the SERI under the Swiss Government’s guarantee.
In the application form, in principle, Associated Partners from Switzerland request zero funding from the EU, in the budget table in Part A (unless they exceptionally want to ask for EU funding). However, they still need to indicate their costs as a global amount either as “own resources” (column r) – when self-funding – or as “financial contributions” (column q) – when funded by a national body like SERI. This is done purely for statistical purposes to help the Commission assess how much money third countries bring to the programme.