EU launches €6.4M FP7 call with promise to SMEs

But it was a case of giving with one hand and taking away with the other, as the Commission proposed that some Framework Programme 7 funds be diverted to plug the gap in the budget of the ITER nuclear fusion project. 

“I am determined that the package we are announcing today will not only be the biggest ever, but also the most effective and the best administered,” Geoghegan-Quinn promised.

Climate change, energy and food security, health and ageing are the central areas to be focused on. The subjects highlighted feed directly into the EU’s Innovation Strategy and are crucial areas for the European Innovation Partnerships, to be launched this autumn, the Commissioner said at a press conference in Brussels.

“We are offering researchers and innovators €6.4 billion for cutting-edge projects focusing on big economic and societal challenges,” Geoghegan-Quinn said. “This is a huge and efficient economic stimulus and an investment in our future.”

The budget is for the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7)’s calls for proposals in 2011 and represents a 12 per cent increase from last year’s €5.7 billion. While the European Commission trumpeted this as the EU’s biggest ever package of research and innovation investment, FP7 is structured so that the amounts increase year by year.

In total, around 16,000 participants will receive funding and the Commission expects the package to create more than 165,000 jobs.

“We need to keep investing in research and innovation not despite the crisis, not despite the fiscal problems we face, but because of those challenges,” Geoghegan-Quinn said.

A partial breakdown of the total includes more than €1.3 billion reserved for scientists funded by the European Research Council, €1.2 billion going to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) research, €800 million for SMEs, €600 million for health-related research and about €200 million for environment research projects.

Of the ICT funding, more than €400 million will support research into how ICT can be applied in fields such as a lower-carbon economy, an ageing society, and adaptable and sustainable factories.

In its efforts to give higher priority to SMEs, the Commission has stipulated that SME participation must reach 35 per cent of the total budget for a number of topics within the areas of health, biotechnology, environment and nanotechnology.

Many of the calls that form part of the 2011 package were announced this week; others will follow later. Once a call has closed, evaluations are carried out during the following two to three months, with the first evaluation results available three to four months after the deadline. The Commission aims to reduce the average time needed to complete signing the contracts, which currently stands at 350 days after the closure of the call, by improving and simplifying procedures.