European Union injects EUR 7 bln into innovation, launches calls for proposals

The European Union launched last week the biggest ever call for proposals to fund European research and innovation, totaling around EUR 7 billion, as announced by the European Commissioner for Research Innovation and Science, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn.

This chunk of financing is granted as part of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), the largest program that finances research in the world, with a budget of more than EUR 53 billion for 2007-2013. When they adopted the Europe 2020 strategy and, later, the flagship Innovation Union program in February 2011, EU member states committed to make research and innovation a priority and the foundation of their investment plans in jobs and sustainable growth. This should allow Europe to compete on a par with bigger and more dynamic countries like the United States and China.

Potential beneficiaries in all EU member states, which include Romania, can tap into this EUR 7 billion to finance their research projects. In total, it is estimated that the program will generate around 174,000 jobs in the near future. During the next 15 years, approximately 450,000 positions will be created and the EU’s GDP is estimated to grow by nearly EUR 80 billion.
There will be 16,000 beneficiaries of the financing – universities, research organizations and companies. Special attention will be given to small and medium sized enterprises, which will benefit from a financing package of nearly EUR 1 billion.     
Most of the calls for applications, which were made through a public auction to obtain funds, were published on July 20.

“Competition in the EU for these funds will gather the best researchers and innovators in Europe with a view to approaching the greatest challenges of our time, such as energy, food supply safety, climate change and the aging of the population. The Commission proposes a substantial growth in the funds allocated after 2013 to research and innovation in the program Horizon 2020,” said Geoghegan-Quinn.

Otilia Haraga

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EU Funding for research
EUR 656 mln available for research into healthcare, including EUR 220 mln for activities related to the challenge of population aging.
EUR 3.1 bln for research into IT and communication, including EUR 240 mln for activities related to population aging. The rest will go into developing network infrastructure and services, digital content, linguistic technologies and applications for health and energy efficiency.
EUR 1.6 bln will be granted by the European Research Council to the best researchers working in Europe.
EUR 900 mln will be used to support 10,000 highly qualified researchers, including EUR 20 million for a pilot project that finances European industrial PhDs, to stimulate entrepreneurship and cooperation among universities, research institutions and companies.
EUR 265 mln for environmental research for tackling climate change, the decline of biodiversity and efficient use of resources
EUR 307 mln will go towards healthier and safer food products by improving production methods.
SMEs will benefit from nearly EUR 1 bln of financing and special incentives to participate in the research initiative
EUR 488 mln will be invested into nanotechnology
EUR 313 mln will go into research and innovation into cleaner, safer and more efficient transport
EUR 40 mln will go into the Smart Cities initiative to find more efficient ways to use energy and run public transport