European Research and Innovation Days 2020: Tägliche Kurzberichte "Horizon Europe Missions (Hub 5)"

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Hub 5 : Horizon Europe Missions

22.9.2020

Mission Area: OCEANS

Mr. Pascal Lamy, Chair of the Mission Board on Oceans emphazised the main goal of the mission to restore our hydrosphere (waters, seas, oceans all over Europe) by 2030 which is a complex issue and needs a holistic approach. The two big challenges in his point of view are  

  1. the  gap between knowledge and emotional  connection in the public and 
  2. as so many players are involved – the governance.

While the second challenge is more political than the first challenge, the following speakers tried to overcome by presenting their ideas and projects to bring emotions to the term “Restore our Oceans and Waters”:  Evelina Santa-Kahle presented the project „Plastic pirates – go Europe!“ where caring for oceans is brought to schools and young people. Markus Reymann mentioned the exhibtion-project TBA21 that is focusing on the fact that the emotion about „caring for“ should be discussed before we could take action. James Honeyborne emphazises that facts show that empowerment is needed and it is now the time to act. Eugenia Barroca is part of the  „all atlantic ocean ambassadors programme“ and therefore is a representative already emotionally engaged with the topic. The rounding was done by Pascal Lamy who explained why the symbol of the mission is the starfish – it is representing the five overarching objectives for 2030:

  • Filling the knowledge and emotional gap
  • Regenerating marine and water ecosystems
  • Zero pollution
  • Decarbonising our waters, ocean, and seas and waters
  • Revamping governance

Mission Area: CLIMATE

Similar happened in the session on Adaptation to Climate Change. Ms Connie Hedegaard, Chair of this Mission Board and facilitator of the session, presented the main goals of the mission, to prepare Europe to deal with climate disruptions and assist all citizens, communities and regions in better understanding, preparing for and managing climate risks such as heat waves, forest fires, droughts, floods, storms, and diseases. Moreover, the mission will help 200 communities and regions develop a vision that focuses both on the protection from climate risks, and on the transition to the communities people want to live in. The panellists emphasized the links of the Mission with current international (e.g. Paris Agreement), European (e.g. Green Deal, new Adaptation Strategy) and national/regional (climate adaptation strategies) policies and initiatives. These links make stronger collaboration among the different levels of government but also among regions imperative. Further consensus among the panellists was evident in the synergies among the five Missions and on the other hand, in the need to bring the regions eager to participate in the Mission to the spotlight (e.g. during the next COP26 in Glasgow) and so demonstrate the willingness of the regional and local level decision makers to take action which often is higher than that of national governments.

Horizon Europe Missions: CITIZENS ENGAGEMENT

All sessions emphasised the need to interact with European citizens. In the session on Citizens Engagement Commissioner Gabriel highlighted how co-designing and co-creating with citizens is about empowering and building trust. This collective work is the way forward to solve future problems and build a more a more resilient Europe. As a former major Dubravka Šuica stressed the importance of connecting with citizens and to strengthen the link between people and institutions that serve them. She also highlighted two ongoing and future events: 

After that, a panel of experts made statements in the context of citzens engagement. Here they are: 

  • Pascal Lamy (political consultant, former WTO DG) highlighted the importance of the emotional connections from citizens to missions.
  • Anthony Zacharzewski (The democratic society): stressed that the most critical part in deliberative engagements is showing citizens that their voice being heard  and stressed that “citizens are a different form of stakeholders that can provide different ideas”.
  • Carina Outengruber (European Youth Forum) made the important argument, that young people that have been involved in the shaping of the missions should now also be part of the implementation to see the effects.
  • Maria de Graca Carvalho (MEP  asked how do involve individual people (not only networks and organisations) in our discussions. For her the missions are building a bridge between science and the citizens and the media plays a huge role in successfully adapting the missions and to “find global solutions that are applied local together with the people!”.

In the end Signe Ratso made a short Wrap up of the session: She said that we can expect an EU communication about missions in December and that this communication will also take into account citizens ideas. Her three take-aways messages were: 

  1. Citizen engagement is a process and a continuous activity 
  2. Citizens participation should be promoted in all levels of ministration
  3. Citizens engagement should be promoted in all policy areas 

23.9.2020

Mission Area: SOIL

Life depends on healthy soils for the provision of food, clean water, biodiversity, climate resilience and other functions. Soil is a fragile and threatened resource. The mission “Caring for soils is caring for life” aims to ensure that by 2030, EU soils are safeguarded for future generations.

Moderator Wolfgang Burtscher, Director-General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI, European Commission), focused in his short introduction on the main goal of the mission: Caring for soil is caring for life, and that is why the mission is called “SOIL”. 
Teresa Pinto-Correia in her function as Vice Chair of Mission Board Soil, Health and Food presented a summary of the mission report. She emphazised that whole life on earth depends on healthy soils and therefore it is important having at least 75% of all soils in all EU member states in a healthy state by 2030.

The Austrian Alfred Grand (Farmer/Owner, GRAND FARM) showed very striking and emotional examples of the dependency of healthy soil and healthy food based on his experiences.

Mariana Debernardini (Sustainability Liaison/Member of Farming Systems Ecology group, European Council of Young Farmers/Wageningen University and Research) tried to bridging two worlds. Her goal is to bringing young farmers to researchers and vice versa; in addition she wants to show the importance on involving young (farmers) people in mission activities, becoming part of it as they are the future of life.

Bastien Sachet as the entrepreneur (CEO, Earthworm Foundation) suggests a measuring scale for soils, providing information about the state of soil. He pointed out that soils are important for business matters.

All participants agreed on the need to have a more efficient focus on soil and that we must understand its value in our lives.

Mission Area: CITIES

The interactive panel discussion on the Horizon Europe Cities Mission was supplemented with perspectives on the Doughnut Economy Model, citizen engagement and R&I in Europe and beyond.

The Horizon Europe Mission on CITIES aims to support climate neutrality in cities through R&I activities. The mission is to have 100 climate neutral cities across Europe by 2030. 
Director-General Jean-Eric Paquet (DG RTD, European Commission), Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz (Chair of Mission Board, Former Mayor of Warsaw), Kate Raworth (University of Oxford, University of Cambridge), Lina Galvez Munoz (MEP) and Mohamed Ridouani (Mayor of Leuven) discussed the following topics:

  • Selection of the “right” cities and financing of governance will be important aspects
  • EU should be more ambitious than focusing on 100 cities until 2030, though it is an important start
  • The mission is about climate neutrality, but ambitions need to go beyond that and overcome traditional R&I strategies: a system change, including all aspects of our (Western) lifestyle and economic system
  • Systemic change should aim at nature-based solutions on city level and the Doughnut Economy Model, which incorporates both social issues and planetary boundaries
  • Social innovation is as important as technological innovation; the needs of citizens should be at the center, striving for the best quality of life and leaving no one behind. 
  • Governance & social innovation / technological innovation / climate innovation  citizens’ health and well-being
  • The gender perspective must be more visible in the mission report
  • Political support, involvement of all administrative levels (from European to local level) and lasting cooperation between all actors is crucial
  • Amsterdam and Leuven are good examples of cities already implementing dialogue-driven strategies towards climate neutrality
  • Way to get there: united leadership behind joint goals, a re-invention of “we”

24.9.2020

Mission area: CANCER

The final report of the Mission Board has been handed over to the EC this week; it includes 13 recommendations in five areas, which have been broken down into detailed actions. Irene Norstedt from the European Commission (EC) introduced the Mission. Cancer has become the first cause of death in an increasing number of European countries. Key actors and end-users, such as patients and patient advocates, debated on how to deliver on the cancer Mission’s main goal: how to save more than three million lives, living longer and better by 2030. 

At the beginning, Véronique Trillet-Lenoir, a member of the European Parliament (EP), commented on the Mission Cancer, especially on how it will work together with the “European beating cancer plan”, on which the EP is currently working. Cancer has to be considered as a real social injustice, we have to fight inequalities, and fight against cancer as a global health situation in co-creation with third countries including Africa. EU competencies in health are quite restricted, and have to be updated. She listed her priorities for the Mission Cancer: Understand and accelerate research; prevention, promotion of healthy behaviour; at  least one registry per European region; increase the number and quality of European Reference networks; create a European Health data space; improve treatment, with a specific focus on paediatric and orphan medicines. All measures need to be regularly evaluated and need KPIs in order to have real impact. 

Next, patients, patient advocates and nurses listed their views and priorities (Ivica Belina, Mikko Viitanen, Eva-Maria Strömsholm). Key points were:

  • Cancer needs constant awareness, and needs to be present in media and for the public. We need to educate people on the early signs of disease and when to search medical help.
  • It needs a clear pathway of cancer patients in the health care systems, we need Centers of Excellence for treatment of cancer.
  • Patients must remain part of the labour force to prevent social exclusion.
  • Introduce health promotion in school systems, use gamification methods as a tool to deliver adolescent health education (an example from Finland was given).
  • Psychological support is needed right after diagnosis, and should be implemented into health systems. One possibility: introduce a “diagnosis curator” as support for cancer patients. 

Veronika Von Messling represented the German ministry BMBF: Germany launched a national decade on cancer last year. She highlighted the need for an improved exchange between research and health care, and on closely involving patients. In the first 1,5 years of the German cancer decade, actions focused on cancer prevention (special research funding, build a national cancer prevention center, open to participants, and citizen information center) and on expanding the national center for tumor diseases, e.g. four new sites have just been selected to give cancer patients better and more local access. 

After these inputs, the Mission Board was asked for their feedback:

Christine Chomienne (Vice Chair of the Mission Board member, INSERM) thanked for the very positive concrete suggestions, esp. concerning patient involvements and communication needs. In her view, the speakers resonated the importance of the suggested actions and 13 recommendations.

Walter Ricciardi (Chair of the Mission Board) thanked everyone for the great inputs. We need to start the community building now and make cancer a social responsibility. 
How will we determine if the Mission on Cancer has been accomplished after seven years? 

  • Some people will never get cancer (through prevention, screening)
  • Every European citizen can access best possible measures (diagnosis, treatment)
  • Every cancer survivor will have the right to lead a normal life

This can only happen in Europe, where we share the value of equity, justice and quality of life.

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Kontakt

Mag. Birgit STEININGER
Teamleiterin Life Sciences, ERC & Marie Curie
T 0043577554101
DI Andrea HOFFMANN
Teamleiterin Energie, Umwelt, Sozial-, Wirtschafts- und Geisteswissenschaften
T 0043577554404