Horizon Europe: Small Businesses

(asked on 24th January 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department has plans to replace the SME Instrument in the EU Horizon programme in the event that the UK and EU fail to ratify the UK’s association to Horizon; how many companies in the UK received SME Instrument funding in the period 2014-20; and how much funding those companies received.


Answered by
George Freeman Portrait
George Freeman
This question was answered on 2nd February 2022

The UK stands ready to formalise our association to Horizon Europe at the earliest opportunity. This remains our priority, but disappointingly there have been persistent delays from the EU.

The SME instrument has been replaced under Horizon Europe with the EIC Accelerator. UK companies are already eligible to apply for Accelerator calls ahead of formal association as set out in the EIC Accelerator Guide for Applicants. Under Horizon 2020, UK organisations won a total of nearly €190m from the SME Instrument, with 453 UK organisations participating in the SME instrument and a total of 492 UK participations in the SME instrument.

We have always been clear that our priority is to support the UK’s research and development sector and we will continue to do this in all future scenarios.

As announced at the Spending Review, in the event that the UK is unable to associate to Horizon Europe, the funding allocated will go to UK science, research and innovation programmes instead. I set out my priorities in such a scenario in an open letter in November, including my ambition for stronger SME engagement.

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