The European Commission (EC) has announced that 96 new projects selected under the Twinning 2023 action in the WIDERA programme part of Horizon Europe will receive over €143 million of funding. The general objective of the Twinning action is to strengthen research and innovation performance in Widening Countries by enhancing cooperation with advanced partners. This cooperation is implemented via networking and training activities such as workshops, conferences, staff exchanges, summer or winter schools, and other support actions.
For the first time since the establishment of this instrument, the Twinning call for proposals adopted a partially directional approach, allowing proposals in line with the European Green Deal objectives to have a specific budget. Applicants had to submit their proposals under either Topic A: The (usual) Twinning Bottom-Up or, Topic B: The Twinning Green Deal.
The call for proposals had closed on 28 September 2023 and had generated great interest. 848 proposals were submitted, and 96 were selected for funding: 20 for the Green Deal call, 76 for the Bottom-Up call.