Agreement on HORIZON 2020, the EU's research and innovation programme

The Committee of Permanent Representatives endorsed on 17 July 2013 the agreement reached last June between the Presidency of the Council and the European Parliament representatives on the "Horizon 2020" programme for the years 2014 to 2020. The agreement paves the way for the formal adoption of the "Horizon 2020" legislative package by the European Parliament and the Council through a vote in the coming months.

Horizon 2020 will replace the EU's 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7), which runs until the end of 2013. Compared with FP7, the new programme is expected to further eliminate fragmentation in the fields of scientific research and innovation.

Horizon 2020, which has a budget of around 70 billion euros, will underpin the objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy for growth and jobs, as well as the goal of strengthening the scientific and technological bases by contributing to achieving a European Research Area in which researchers, scientific knowledge and technology circulate freely.

Horizon 2020 focuses on three priorities, namely generating excellent science in order to strengthen the Union's world-class scientific excellence and make the Union research and innovation system more competitive, fostering industrial leadership to speed up the development of technologies that will support businesses and innovation, including for small companies, and tackling societal challenges in order to respond to the priorities identified in the Europe 2020 strategy by supporting activities covering the entire chain from research to market.

Some of the main features of the Horizon 2020 programme include:

  • Simplification
  • European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT)
  • Small and medium-sized enterprises
  • Science with and for society
  • Spreading excellence and widening participation
  • Ethical principles
  • Partnerships for research and innovation
  • Open access to results

Budget
The new funding programme will have a budget of around 70 billion euros for the seven year period, thus making Horizon 2020 the world's largest research programme. The previous multi-annual programme FP7 had a financial allocation of 53 billion euros.

For a detailed overview on the Agreement on "HORIZON 2020", please consult: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/intm/138118.pdf