EU research ministers take the public–private route

As if overcoming obstacles to Galileo and the EIT, and re-energising the move towards a single patent system weren’t enough, Portugal also used last week’s meeting of EU national ministers to push through approval of a new kind of public– private research partnership that will see nearly €10 billion ploughed into programmes dubbed joint technology initiatives.

EU research ministers endorsed a €3 billion programme to spur the development of tiny nanotechnology; a €2.7 billion computer project; a €2 billion medicines initiative, and a €1.6 billion plan for cleaner and quieter aircraft. Companies will fund as much as 60 per cent of the research.

These unprecedented EU public–private partnerships in research and development aim to help the bloc raise R&D spending to 3 per cent of gross domestic product from 1.8 per cent and bridge the gap with the US and Japan. The goal is to overcome fragmentation in Europe by concentrating EU funds and enticing companies to invest more.

“We have to join forces in a specific way if we want to be competitive,” EU Research Commissioner Janez Potočnik told reporters after national ministers approved the four programmes at a meeting today in Brussels. “It’s a quantitative step forward.”

He said the new public–private partnerships wouldn’t suffer the fate of Galileo, because unlike with the satellite project, private research in the areas selected is already ongoing.

“It’s a bottom-up, business initiative which we’ve topped with public money,” he said. “Private investment was there well before public investment. I do not see any possibility of failure.”

The nanotechnology research programme is due to be 60 per cent financed by companies including STMicroelectronics NV, Infineon Technologies AG and NXP BV, and 40 per cent funded by the EU and national governments over six years. The computer programme is to be 60 percent funded by companies such as Royal Philips Electronics NV and Nokia Oyj, with the rest coming from national and EU coffers.

The medicines initiative aims to attract 50 per cent funding from companies such as GlaxoSmithKline, Roche and Eli Lilly, and the aircraft project is to be 50 per cent financed by companies including Airbus SAS and Rolls-Royce Group. The public funding for the medicines and aircraft programsme is due to come only from the EU budget.