Following the publication of a €10 million call in January, the Commission has secured an additional €37.5 million for urgently needed research on COVID-19 vaccine development, treatment and diagnostics. This action is part of the coordinated EU response to the public health threat of COVID-19.
With the additional amount from the Horizon 2020 programme, the Commission is scaling up the emergency call launched in January to fight the COVID-19 outbreak to €47.5 million. This allowed to select 17 projects involving 136 research teams from across the EU and beyond, which will start working on developing vaccines, new treatments, diagnostic tests and medical systems aimed at preventing the spread of the Coronavirus.
Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said: “The emergency funding from Horizon 2020 enables researchers to work immediately to tackle the outbreak of the Coronavirus on several fronts. Seeing the research community getting in action so rapidly gives us new hope that we will soon be one step closer to our goal of stopping the spread of the virus.”
The 17 projects will work on:
- Development of new vaccines.
- Rapid point-of-care diagnostic tests.
- Improving epidemiology and public health, including our preparedness and response to outbreaks.
Original source: European Commission
Published on 06 March 2020
