In a position paper published this week, the three industry associations involved in an EU R&D electronics collaboration, the Electronic Components and Systems for European Leadership (ECSEL) joint technology initiative, urge that its mandate should be extended beyond 2020, and into the next Framework Programme.
Under Horizon 2020, the initiative has built an ecosystem of companies, universities and research institutes for the development of key technologies in electronic components and their applications in healthcare, energy, transportation and industrial production.
In this paper, ECSEL private members, representing three industrial associations, outline the reasons why the public-private partnership should be continued under FP9 and why it deserves a larger budget.
The paper recommends:
- Widen the scope and budget of ECSEL under FP9
- FP9 should continue to provide public funding to large firms, as these will play a pivotal role in creating and maintaining innovation ecosystems, public-private partnerships and global value chains, from which also many smaller firms will benefit
- ECSEL should primarily remain grant-based and focused on collaborative research and innovation
- Industry should remain strongly involved in driving the research and innovation agenda
- ECSEL’s ‘’lighthouse’ projects could fit in the mission-oriented approach of the FP9
“For implementing the above, ECSEL2 will need a larger budget, also depending on a potential widening of its scope,” the paper reads.
Read the full document, here.