EU Research & Innovation

EU Research & Innovation

Basic information:

Horizon 2020 is the new EU funding programme for research and innovation running from 2014 to 2020 with a €80 billion budget.

It has a prime focus on social challenges, as defined through aging populations and therefore putting health factors at the top of the priority list. It includes food security and energy efficiency to face consequences of climate change. Also it is said that high importance is going to be attached to such projects which embed socio-economic sciences and humanities into the work programme. However, a closer look at what is understood by especially 'humanities' does not become clear when reading what calls for various research strands are scanned over. It would be all the more important if the European Commission wishes to remind its researchers of the humanistic perspective, while Humanism of the kind Erasmus initiated meant already safeguarding indigenous cultures from extinction and this can only be done by not matching economic and military forms of expansion and occupation with religious forces that silence the contradictions.

Equally the EU Commissions claims that SMEs will be assisted by a new instrument to facilitate research and innovation. A critical question shall be here to what extent SME's shall make use thereof to finance research efforts.

It is also not always clear what distinguishes funds provided for research from hidden or indirect subsidies and therefore would violate any Free Trade Agreement the EU will strike with the United States. Related and similar to this issue is the claim that the extension of the Structural Fund by the new Regio policy is meant to be direct investments, even though the abundance of all types of constructions (roads, ports, bridges, other infrastructures etc.) have brought about a troublesome kind of landscape since there seems to be no regard for the need to leave as well landscapes alone i.e. untouched, if sustainable development is to mean something for future generations.

The first calls for proposals for Horizon 2020 (published on 11 December 2013), with a deadline of June 3, 2014 some relate to "reflective society" in times of a need for information being handled and disseminated all the time to be verified and validated. Of interest is that here can be found a call to finance a 5 Million bid for research into the link between cultural heritage and identity. And another call foresees the creation of a social platform, in order to advise the European Commission when seeking in near future a new research agenda. Now previous experience with the creation of Platforms has been rather a mixed bag of results. Too often the rough and contradictory does not reach the upper level of consideration but rather the filter acts negatively till all adopt the usual policy jargons so that it hardly amounts to a reflective basis for future policy decisions about research agendas.

The EU Commission provides the H2020 online manual.

H2020 wishes further to enhance EU international research cooperation by giving more opportunities for Third Country participation. Some calls are here most interesting since they wish to link science and culture within the foreign policy dimension. Calls cover Latin America, as much as Southern Mediterranean and would promise some clarifications, provided the usual interventions of diplomatic services out of touch with developments on the grounds could be avoided, and therefore projects with a true European and international dimension would be funded.

It is furthermore pointed out on the official website of the EU, that "H2020 has been built around the main societal challenges like an ageing population, food security, energy efficiency", consequently high importance is attached to embed socio-economic sciences and humanities into the work programme.

Another important priority of the Commission is to ensure gender is embedded in the design of Horizon 2020 project proposals.

For further information:

http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/home.html

HF Athens 5.5.2014

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