The Horizon 2020 Programme is a key pillar of Innovation Union. This programme will reinforce Europe's leading position in a field in which the EU has lost ground. Today's EPP Group Hearing on Horizon 2020, the EU Framework Programme on Research and Innovation, was the occasion to analyse in detail the opportunities offered by the new framework programme. The EU is an important global leader in many technologies but it faces increasing competition from traditional powers and emerging economies alike.
"In the negotiations concerning the MFF 2014-2020, Horizon 2020 is the specific programme that occupies more space in the overall budget. All the stakeholders along the research and innovation chain have great expectations of the opportunities it can address. We have been debating Horizon 2020 for months and myself, along with all the Members, are very much concerned about its importance, mainly to give concrete answers to the needs of growth and new jobs that the whole of Europe and each Member State need", said Amalia Sartori MEP, Chairwoman of the Industry, Research and Energy Committee of the European Parliament.
Maria da Graça Carvalho MEP, EPP Group Rapporteur for the Specific Programme implementing Horizon 2020, said: "Europe requires a strategy for growth to counterbalance the effects of the austerity measures that have recently been taken: Horizon 2020 is an immediately available programme that should play an absolutely fundamental role in achieving robust rates of growth. It is essential that Horizon 2020 is simple, that it is properly funded and that it strikes the right balance between bottom up and top down research and the programme should cover the whole innovation cycle. Horizon 2020 should aim to foster balanced participation from across Europe reflecting its diversity and human potential", concluded the Portuguese MEP.
"The economic crisis in Europe would have been less severe had the Member States invested more in research and innovation since 2000. The aim is 3% of GDP. And what has been achieved is only 2%. With Horizon 2020, Europe has the chance to make up for it, for the sake of sustainable growth and jobs", said Christian Ehler MEP, Rapporteur on Horizon 2020-Framework Programme for Research and Innovation 2014-2020: rules for participation and dissemination.
The Commission proposal will now be discussed by the Council and the European Parliament, with a view to adoption before the end of 2013. Funding provided by Horizon 2020 will be easier to access thanks to this simpler programme architecture, a single set of rules and less red tape but the budget for Horizon 2020 will depend on the negotiations on the MFF.