HORIZON 2020 : AGREEMENT CONCLUDED BETWEEN COUNCIL AND PARLIAMENT.

The new framework programme for research, Horizon 2020, for the period 2014-2020, will indeed enter into force on 1 January 2014 following agreement on the programme (whose indicative budget of 70 billion is subject to agreement on the multiannual financial framework) reached between the Council and Parliament, on 25 June. "It is a programme that provides for funding research excellence, encouragement of technology diffusion, the enabling of public-private partnerships, engagement with SMEs and wider industry, and in this way will contribute to the EU's economic recovery," stressed the Irish Minister for Research, Sean Sherlock. The agreement still needs to be confirmed by member states and the European Parliament.

"After months of intense and complicated negotiations, agreement comes just in time to allow for a timely start of the programme in 2014. Horizon 2020 will be a real growth factor for the European economy," said MEP Christian Ehler (EPP, Germany), rapporteur for Horizon 2020's rules for participation. "With agreement on Horizon 2020 we have a high class research and innovation programme, which will boost economic recovery and job creation," reiterated Amalia Sartori (ALDE, Italy), chair of the ITRE committee.

The programme is based on three pillars. The first is scientific excellence, which will include funding for the European Research Centre, vital infrastructures and future and emerging technologies. The second is industrial leadership, the truly innovative element of the programme as it contains specific supports for SMEs (for which 2.7 billion has been put aside) and for enabling industrial technologies, such as nanotechnologies, biotechnologies and information and communication technologies (ICT). The third pillar concerns societal challenges and aims to ensure that research is directed at areas of most concern to citizens and business, such as health, climate, food, security, transport and energy.

A new bottom-up mechanism...