International Cooperation in Horizon 2020
Stéphane Hogan, EU Delegation to the AUC, provided a detailed and informative presentation of Horizon 2020 and the new approach proposed for International Cooperation during the Closing Plenary of IST-Africa 2013 Conference on 31 May. Click here to download the Horizon 2020 presentation.
Stéphane outlined that International Cooperation in FP7 incorporated bottom-up and top-down activities. During FP7 42 Africa countries participated with over 1,000 participations in 400 research projects with the majority of projects focused on health, agrifood and environment and some projects in ICT. In terms of participations there are several Africa countries in the top 20 countries funded under FP7. Stéphane highlighted three large strategic projects including the EDCTP (Europe and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Platform), which has received funding from the European Commission and Member States to enable funding of dozens of clinical trials on poverty-related diseases in Africa, the nuclear reactor experiment which is a very ambitious experiment and expensive initiative involving many international partners and GÉANT, providing connectivity to higher education institutions.
Stéphane outlined that in the preparation for Horizon 2020, the Commission Services is reviewing its strategy for international cooperation in international research and innovation, bearing in mind that innovation is being emphasised more and more in the past few years with the goal to strengthen Europe's position, tackle challenges and also support external policies through an open international research-funding programme in the world.
It is envisaged that Horizon 2020 will continue to be open to participation from anywhere across the world, not only academia, but also industry, independent research organisations, big or small companies. The list of countries receiving automatic funding in the event of a successful proposal has been slightly reviewed. The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and Mexico will no longer receive automatic funding but they can still get funding if that their participation to the project has to be demonstrated to be essential to the project. In terms of other African countries if an African institution is successful in a project, as a participant in a project, they will get funding automatically in the same way as in FP7.
In terms of targeted thematic actions, areas will be identified that make sense based on a broader policy agenda while incorporating a diversified differentiated approach by country or by region, depending also on the partners involved. The Commission Services hope to develop multi-annual roadmaps to try and map out how cooperation will be undertaken with each country or region amongst its strategic partners. Horizontal cooperation activities such as IST-Africa will continue as the Commission Services see a lot of value in the network, training and collaboration approach systems that have been put in place.
Coordination involves discussions with partners such as the OECD, the UN, the WHO. The Commission Services also wants to continue to promote some common principles when funding research and that includes promoting a level playing field, having mutually agreed principles to build trust and confidence, and also to address a number of issues including integrity and research, ethics, peer review, the role of women in science, research careers, IPR issues and open access. It is also necessary to tighten up the links with bilateral activities being supported by European Member States.
Stéphane summarised the key novelties or evolutions as being the general openness of Horizon 2020 is maintained, with slight restrictions on the funding issues; target activities where the Commission Services wants to have more scale and scope and achieve greater impact; the development of multiannual roadmaps with key partner countries and regions; stronger partnerships with Member States and common principles for the conduct of research and international cooperation.
Moving to the specifics of Horizon 2020, Stéphane outlined the three major pillars: Excellence in Science; Industrial Leadership and Societal Challenges. Under Excellence in Science there is increased funding proposed for the European Research Council. It is proposed to continue to support mobility and careers of researchers, with the well-known Marie Curie actions, which also include a strong international opening, both for African researchers for instance to come to Europe, and also for the reverse. Over 100 European researchers who have benefited from these grants to come to do research in Africa. Industrial Leadership includes development of leadership in enabling industrial technologies, more access to risk-finance, especially for small- and mediumsized companies. Promotion of innovation for SMEs is considered to be an important policy. Societal challenges include health, food security, agriculture, marine research, economy, secure, clean and efficient energy, smart, green and integrated transport, climate action, resource efficiency of raw materials, and inclusive, innovative, knowledge societies.
The Commission Services is striving to develop a set of simpler, more coherent participation rules, replacing different methods of calculating overheads to a single rate, and to try to get funding to the participants quicker.
The funding instruments will have a strong emphasis on the collaborative projects including where relevant a certain degree of third country participation in one or more regions of the world.
The first calls are currently being prepared for launch in January 2014 and will cover two years, so it will be big work programmes. There will also be some focus areas with dedicated calls. There is more interaction between DG Research, DG CONNECT and the other DGs which are directly controlling the funds, managing the funds, along with the other Director Generals of the European Commission managing other policy areas: health policy, development policy and so forth.
Stéphane concluded by emphasising that policies for international collaboration and research are as important as ever.
