New €400M FP7 scheme to promote industry-academic staff exchanges

Researchers gathered in Brussels this week to hear details of the Framework Programme 7 Marie Curie scheme which will provide €400 million between now and 2013 to fund staff exchanges between businesses and universities.

The Marie Curie Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways scheme is particularly designed to involve small businesses, opening doors to enable them to apply and commercialise research results.

Delegates heard case studies of past successes with industry/academia partnerships, examined the barriers that currently exist to movement between public and private sectors and were advised how to draw up research partnerships.

“A knowledge based economy is all about its people. Making it easier to move between the public and private sectors is a challenge for all of Europe, and I think that the Marie Curie Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways action blazes a trail, which other research funders can follow,” European Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potočnik told delegates.

The Marie Curie Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways scheme is open to all organisations active in research. Partnerships must involve at least one private and one public research organisation and at least two countries. Support is provided for exchange of know-how and experience through two-way secondments of research staff; research and networking activities; recruitment of experienced researchers from outside the partnership; the organisation of workshops and conferences and, for SMEs, research equipment.

Funding is typically for 4 years for up to 100 percent of the costs of the project with no matching financing required.

The second call for proposals, worth Euro 45 million, is now open with a deadline of 25 March. The scheme is the only one in which a single SME can apply for Community research funding with a single university partner. It builds on the “Transfer of Knowledge Industry Academia Partnerships” scheme in FP6, under which many successful research collaborations were formed.

For example, Anil Kokaram of Trinity College Dublin collaborated with a British company, The Foundry, to win a 2007 Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for their research into post-production software supported by their FP6 contract. The Foundry sent staff to Dublin to study the latest research in 3D imaging processing while a research fellow from Trinity College gained valuable commercial experience in the industry.