Europe Pitches $90 Billion R&D Budget

LONDON — The European Commission set out on Wednesday (Sept. 21) further details of its proposal for the Seventh Framework Program (FP7) of collaborative R&D in Europe for the period 2007 to 2013, including its proposed budget of more than 74.53 billion euros (about $90 billion).

The overall framework is divided into elements which are each divided into a number of themes which in turn are set to contain hundreds of collaborative projects for which financial support is available. The four main elements are: Cooperation, Ideas, People and Capacities.

Cooperation is set to be the largest element and the Commission has proposed that this should receive 44.43 billion euro (about $53.66 billion), or about 60 percent of total proposed FP7 expenditure. These figures are based on 2004 values and there is scope for the numbers to be raised in-line with inflation throughout the life of the framework, the Commission said.

Within Cooperation the largest research theme is set to be Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The objective of ICT is to improve the competitiveness of European industry and enable Europe to master and shape the future of information and communication technologies to meet the demands of society and the economy — for which the European Commission has proposed 11.20 billion euro (about $13.59 billion).

At the same time nanosciences, nanotechnologies, materials and production technologies, get their own thematic area of research and a propose budget of 4.27 billion euro (about $5.18 billion).

“Europe needs a solid framework for its research from 2007”, said Janez Potocnik, European Commissioner for Science and Research. “Our proposal is designed to deliver what Europe needs for its future. What is important now is to allocate sufficient funds to allow this project to achieve its objective of greater competitiveness for Europe and a better quality of life for its citizens. The Commission will take all steps it can to make sure that we are ready to implement the programs once the legislative process has been completed.”