Brussels, 19/07/2010 (Agence Europe) - Next year, the European Commission is to make available €6.4 billion for research and innovation, which will help to create 165,000 jobs in the short term, Commissioner for Research Máire Geoghegan-Quinn announced on Monday 19 July. This money, the largest sum ever awarded to this area, will help to cover a whole range of scientific disciplines, public policy domains and commercial sectors.
“We are offering researchers and innovators €6.4 billion for cutting-edge projects focusing on big economic and societal challenges: climate change, energy and food security, health and an ageing population”, she said. “Investment in research and innovation is the only smart and lasting way out of crisis and towards sustainable and socially equitable growth”, she added.
Nearly 16,000 participants from research organisations, universities and industry, including 3,000 SMEs, will receive funding. The subsidies will be awarded by means of calls for proposals (invitations to bid) and evaluations over the next 14 months. Many calls will be formally published on Tuesday 20 July. Interested parties will be able to apply for funding under the seventh framework-programme of the EU across a wide range of fields.
For example, more than €600 million have been earmarked for the field of healthcare. Research into information and communication technologies (ICT) will receive €1.2 billion. More than €1.3 billion has been reserved for the most creative scientists selected by the European Research Council, and mobility bursaries, worth a total of €772 million, will go to 7,000 highly qualified researchers in the framework of “Marie Curie” actions. The main priority goes to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are the basis of the European innovation system and which represent 99% of European businesses. SMEs will receive nearly €800 million and, for the first time, budgets will be earmarked for them in a number of domains: health, the knowledge-based bio-economy, the environment and nanotechnologies. In the field of healthcare research alone, some €206 million (or a third of the total budget for 2011) will go to clinical trials proposed by the researchers themselves to help new drugs get to market more quickly. As for nanotechnologies (€270 million), emphasis will be laid on research activities leading to patenting and marketing opportunities. Around €600 million of the ICT funding will go to network infrastructures and new-generation services, robotics, electronic and photonic components and digital content technologies. More than €400 million will be channelled into research activities into how ICT can help meet various challenges, such as a low-carbon economy, an ageing society and adaptable and sustainable factories. In 2011, €90 million will also be granted to the public-private partnership on the future of the internet, to boost the “intelligence” of key European infrastructures. (B.C./transl.fl)