Last week, EU’s Research Commissioner, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, announced that the European Union would invest 6.4 billion euros (US$8.3 billion) in research and innovation in 2011.
This is the most money that the research and innovation sector has ever received from the EU.
“This is the biggest package ever from the Seventh Research Framework Program, itself the biggest single such program in the world, with well over 50 billion euros of funding for the period 2007 to 2013. That is big money and it has never been needed more than now,” said Geoghegan-Quinn.
The fund will go to 16,000 participants from universities, research organizations, and private industry including 3,000 small and medium enterprises.
“The investment I am announcing today will create 165,000 jobs over the relatively short term and potentially many more over the longer term,” said Geoghegan-Quinn in her announcement last week.
“Creating a true Innovation Union means more jobs, improved lives and a better and greener society. It means marrying world-class science with an innovation economy or ‘i-conomy.’ It means removing bottlenecks which hamper a single market in innovation and which prevent Europe competing as well as it should with the U.S. and others,” said the EU Research commissioner.
The funding will be allocated between many key sectors such as medicine, transport, biotechnology, nanotechnologies, information and communication technologies, energy, the environment, space exploration, and the economy.
“I am determined that the package we are announcing today will not only be the biggest ever, but also the most effective and the best administered,” said Geoghegan-Quinn.
More than 1.3 billion euros will be granted to the best creative scientists selected by the European Research Council. Small- to medium-sized enterprises—providing almost 99 percent of EU jobs—will get 800 million euros. Additionally, the medical industry will get 600 million euros, and the communication technology industry will receive 1.2 billion euros. Travel grants for researchers will be covered by a 772 million euro funding.
“It [the funding] also provides enormous opportunity to show people a Europe that is working for them. It is easier to explain to citizens that an EU-funded project—Life-Valve—is developing a heart valve that grows inside children and saves them from a whole series of operations, than it is to explain competition law, even though the latter is crucial,” said the EU Research commissioner.
This is the most money that the research and innovation sector has ever received from the EU.
“This is the biggest package ever from the Seventh Research Framework Program, itself the biggest single such program in the world, with well over 50 billion euros of funding for the period 2007 to 2013. That is big money and it has never been needed more than now,” said Geoghegan-Quinn.
The fund will go to 16,000 participants from universities, research organizations, and private industry including 3,000 small and medium enterprises.
“The investment I am announcing today will create 165,000 jobs over the relatively short term and potentially many more over the longer term,” said Geoghegan-Quinn in her announcement last week.
“Creating a true Innovation Union means more jobs, improved lives and a better and greener society. It means marrying world-class science with an innovation economy or ‘i-conomy.’ It means removing bottlenecks which hamper a single market in innovation and which prevent Europe competing as well as it should with the U.S. and others,” said the EU Research commissioner.
The funding will be allocated between many key sectors such as medicine, transport, biotechnology, nanotechnologies, information and communication technologies, energy, the environment, space exploration, and the economy.
“I am determined that the package we are announcing today will not only be the biggest ever, but also the most effective and the best administered,” said Geoghegan-Quinn.
More than 1.3 billion euros will be granted to the best creative scientists selected by the European Research Council. Small- to medium-sized enterprises—providing almost 99 percent of EU jobs—will get 800 million euros. Additionally, the medical industry will get 600 million euros, and the communication technology industry will receive 1.2 billion euros. Travel grants for researchers will be covered by a 772 million euro funding.
“It [the funding] also provides enormous opportunity to show people a Europe that is working for them. It is easier to explain to citizens that an EU-funded project—Life-Valve—is developing a heart valve that grows inside children and saves them from a whole series of operations, than it is to explain competition law, even though the latter is crucial,” said the EU Research commissioner.
