Maximising the impact of EU research and innovation programmes - BusinessEurope's views

Key messages

• EU framework programmes play a pivotal role in strengthening European finances for research and innovation. What is at stake is that the programmes bring a clear European added value.
• BusinessEurope strongly supports the objective and architecture of Horizon 2020. It brings major achievements such as support over the whole ecosystem of research and innovation and more targeted progress such as the two-stage evaluation procedure. Still, further improvements are needed, in particular tackling the over-subscription and low success rate.
• Industry is highly committed to the societal changes and the industrial leadership pillars. Public-rivate partnerships (PPPs) and joint technology initiatives (JTIs) are strongly supported as unique platforms to foster cooperation between public and private actors and to leverage the necessary funds for large-scale European projects.
• The next EU framework programme must build on the achievements of Horizon 2020, which should not be put into question. Great attention is called upon:

- Scaling-up the overall EU budget for research and innovation
- Keeping a strong focus on the industrial leadership pillar
- Pursuing financial support to secure active participation of large companies
- Making the European Innovation Council fit-for-purpose
- Continuing with grants for innovative research projects
- Achieving synergies with other Union programmes
- Handling access to research data with care

Key facts and figures

• In terms of funding, success rate went from 14% in 2014 to 11% in 2015.
• Over seven years, 8 billion euros from H2020 through PPPs and JTIs will leverage 10 billions from industry.
• Should the framework programme stop financial support for large companies, the risk of ‘innovation leakage’ is real.