Information provided through portal is intended to support investment in critical technologies

The European Commission has launched an online portal for the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform, an initiative pulling together various EU funding streams to support investment in key technology areas.

People will be able to use the platform to find funding opportunities and other information relating to the planned Step investments in digital tech, clean tech and biotech, the Commission said on 10 September.

Step was proposed by the Commission in June 2023 instead of a previously planned European sovereignty fund, which would have had a stand-alone budget of new funding.

Even the less ambitious Step initiative was not allocated the €10 billion sought by the Commission, with it ending up primarily as an addition of €1.5bn to the European Defence Fund for military R&D that falls under the Step umbrella.

But the Commission maintains high hopes for Step: it said the initiative could fund the development of treatments for viral infections or artificial intelligence models, for example.

The new portal will also promote projects deemed to be of high quality, to encourage further investment from other sources.

The Commission is expected to publish a list of projects that have been funded by Step in the coming months.