Partnerships
Partnerships aim to tackle global challenges, in particular in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, in a coordinated way through creating scale and critical mass. Partnerships serve EU countries, private sector partners and other stakeholders to create a common vision, to align national policy and research, to pool resources and to invest in joint research activities. Investments that can be cofunded by the European Commission. By doing so, the partners in a partnership can make better use of Europe's research and development resources. The new partnership approach increasingly strives to integrate the 'demand-side' of policies with end-users engagement.
Partnerships in Horizon Europe
The partnership approach has been significantly reformed under Horizon Europe, based on experiences in the previous Framework Programme (H2020). The aim with the new proposed partnerships, is to increase synergies between initiatives and to engage new partners. It furthermore attempts to consolidate and rationalise the number of (existing) partnerships to avoid overlaps and duplication, and advocates a new and more impact-focused approach, that is better aligned with policy priorities. Candidate partnerships should combine and coordinate a broad range of (existing and new) research and innovation activities to address common priorities jointly with Member States, the private sector, foundations and other stakeholders.
Types
In the Horizon Europe proposal, the conditions and principles for establishing European Partnerships are laid down. There are three options.
- Co-programmed European Partnerships between the Commission and private and/or public partners. They are based on memoranda of understanding and/or contractual arrangements; 
- Co-funded European Partnerships using a programme co-fund action and involving EU countries, with research funders and other public authorities at the core of the consortium; 
- Institutionalised European Partnerships, where the EU participates in research and innovation funding programmes that are undertaken by EU countries. 
Brief timeline
The identification of European Partnerships has been an integral part of Horizon Europe’s strategic planning process. In June 2018, following the European Commission's proposal for Horizon Europe, the first twelve candidates were proposed. During the second half of 2018, and in 2019, other candidate partnerships could be proposed. The Commission organised impact assessments, feedback rounds and open consultations to ensure ‘ço-creation’, culminating at the September 2019 European Research and Innovation Days, where the proposed candidates were discussed in dedicated sessions, thus inviting more feedback. Based on all the input, currently, there are 49 candidate partnerships, which have now been taken into the next step of preparations.
Overview
The partnership candidates are grouped in five areas. Some candidates have a proposal published, while others are still writing one. The link takes you to the European Commission's website, where per partnership, the relevant information and documents are available.
- European Partnership for EU-Africa Global Health 
- European Partnership for Innovative Health (Initiative) 
- European Partnership for Chemicals Risk Assessment 
- European Partnership - ERA for Health Research 
- European Partnership on Health and Care Systems Transformation 
- European Partnership for Personalised Medicine 
- European Partnership on Rare Diseases 
- European Partnership for One Health/AMR Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) 
- European Partnership for High Performance Computing 
- European Partnership for Key Digital Technologies (KDT) 
- European Partnership for Smart Networks and Services 
- European Partnership on Artifical Intelligence, Data and Robotics 
- European Partnership for Photonics 
- European Partnership for Clean Steel - Low Carbon Steelmaking 
- European Partnership on Metrology 
- European Partnership Made in Europe 
- Processes4Planet – Transforming the European Process Industry for a sustainable society 
- European Partnership for transforming Europe's rail system 
- European Partnership for Integrated Air Traffic Management (ATM) 
- European Partnership for Clean Aviation 
- European Partnership on Clean Hydrogen 
- People-centric sustainable built environment (Built4People) 
- European Partnership – Towards zero-emission road transport (2ZERO) 
- European Partnership on Connected and Automated Driving (CCAM) 
- European Partnership on zero-emission waterborne transport 
- European Partnership for an Industrial Battery Value Chain 
- European Partnership – driving urban transitions to a sustainable future (DUT) 
Food, bioeconomy, natural resources, agriculture and environment
- European Partnership accelerating farming systems transition: agroecology living labs and research infrastructures 
- European Partnership for Animal health (PAH) 
- Agriculture of data 
- European Partnership for rescuing biodiversity to safeguard life on Earth 
- European Partnership for a climate neutral, sustainable and productive Blue Economy 
- European Partnership for Safe and Sustainable Food Systems 
- European Partnership for a Circular bio-based Europe 
- European Partnership Water Security for the Planet (Water4All) 
- European Partnerships Innovative SMEs 
- European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) Partnership 
- EIT Climate-KIC 
- EIT InnoEnergy-KIC 
- EIT Digital-KIC 
- EIT Health-KIC 
- EIT Food-KIC 
- EIT Manufacturing-KIC 
- EIT Raw materials-KIC 
- EIT Urban Mobility-KIC 
- EIT Cultural and Creative Industries-KIC 
