The European Commission (EC) has today presented the corner stones of its new framework programme Horizon 2020.

For the first time, Horizon 2020 brings together all EU research and innovation funding under a single programme. With Horizon 2020 the EC intents to turn scientific breakthroughs into innovative products and services that provide business opportunities and change people’s lives for the better. At the same time the programme is supposed to drastically cut red tape, with simplification of rules and procedures to attract more top researchers and a broader range of innovative businesses.

Horizon 2020 will focus funds on three key objectives. It aims to

- support the EU’s position as a world leader in science with a dedicated budget of €24.6 billion, including an increase in funding of 77% for the very successful European Research Council (ERC).
- help secure industrial leadership in innovation with a budget of €17.9 billion. This includes a major investment of €13.7 billion in key technologies, as well as greater access to capital and support for SMEs.
- with a budget of €31.7 billion address major concerns shared by all Europeans , across six key themes: Health, demographic change and well-being; Food security, sustainable agriculture, marine and maritime research and the bio-economy; Secure, clean and efficient energy; Smart, green and integrated transport; Climate action, resource efficiency and raw materials; and Inclusive, innovative and secure societies.

Funding provided by Horizon 2020 shall be easier to access thanks to a simpler programme architecture, a single set of rules and less red tape. Horizon 2020 promises a drastically simplified reimbursement by introducing a single flat rate for indirect costs (20%) and only two funding rates - for research (100%) and for close to market activities (70%) respectively; a single point of access for participants; less paperwork in preparing proposals; and no unnecessary controls and audits. One key goal is to reduce the time until funding is received following a grant application by 100 days on average, meaning projects can start more quickly.

For more information please refer to the original EC press release and the official documents.

Finally they are there! The FP7 calls for 2012 have been published on 20 July 11. After some technical problems they are now all available - for the first time ever on the Research participant portal.

The Participant Portal has become the European Commission's single authoritative website for the publication of FP7 calls. The FP7 call-related information is no longer published on CORDIS. Users of the 'Find a call' section on CORDIS are redirected to the relevant pages of the 'FP7 Calls' section of the Participant Portal. Also the Electronic submission system (EPSS) is now hosted on this single entry portal.

The calls are worth € 7 billion - the biggest ever calls for proposals, up by 9 % from last year. Their focus lies on innovation and the promotion of SMEs. Projects are expected to tackle today's challenges, in particular climate change, energy and food security, the need for greater resource efficiency, health and our ageing population. To add two years of healthy life for the average European by 2020 is a major goal.

Struggling in the jungle of 11 thematic priorities and their work programmes, buzz words, and secret codes? Contact us, we will guide you through and support you in the preparation of your proposal - sichern Sie sich Ihren Teil am Kuchen, gagnez avec nous!

A revised version of the DESCA models for consortium agreements is now available on the DESCA website. You can find there

-DESCA 3.0 with elucidations
-DESCA 3.0 working document without elucidations
-Overview of modifications to DESCA 2.0
-DESCA report on the stakeholder consultation

and much more information and supporting documents.

We would like to cordially thank the DESCA team for all its efforts!

How to improve conditions for SSH researchers in FP7 and beyond?

Last year NET4SOCIETY, a network of the 44 National Contact Points (NCPs) for Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities (SSH), carried out a survey about the experiences of researchers from the scoio-economic sciences and humanities with FP7.

The full results of the survey have recently been published and presented to the European Commission.

A summary of results and the report are available for download here.

In its latest newsletter of Jan 2011, Swisscore informs that on 1 March 2011, Maryline Maillard, Head of Office since February 2007, will leave SwissCore. She will work for the University of Fribourg where she will be responsible for third-party fundraising, in close contact with both Euresearch and the Swiss national science foundation SNSF.

Her successor David Bohmert started on 1 February 2011. Born and raised in Switzerland, he studied public administration in the Netherlands and has worked there in several positions in tech transfer, fundraising and research policies. Prior to starting at Swisscore, he has worked in Brussels already, contributing to setting-up the Netherlands house for Education and Research (Neth-ER).

Download the newsletter.

The Finance Hekpdesk informs that on 24 Jan 2011, the European Commission adopted new measures that affect current and future FP7 Grant Agreements.

The Commission adopted three measures with immediate effect on the management of EU research grants in the current EU research programme (FP7):
· Allowing more flexibility in how personnel costs are calculated so that EU research grant-holders can apply their usual accounting methods when requesting reimbursement for average personnel costs. They will no longer need to set up entire parallel accounting systems just for this purpose;
· SME owners whose salaries are not formally registered in their accounts can now be reimbursed, through flat-rate payments, for their contribution to work on research projects.
· A new steering group of senior officials from all the Commission departments and agencies involved will remove inconsistencies in the application of the rules on research funding.

In line with these changes, Annex II of the FP7 Grant Agreement has been updated. The new version is available here.

The Finance Helpdesk also published an interesting list of FAQs around this topic, enjoy reading their related newsletter.

On 16 Nov 2010, DG RTD published the 6th progress report on SME participation in FP7. The full report is available here.

According to this report there is hope that the 15% target of SME participation will be met before the end of FP7 in 2013: The EU contribution to SMEs in the Cooperation scheme sees a positive trend (15.4 % in 2010 as compared to 14.7% for the whole duration of FP7 so far). SMEs represent 35,4% of the participating entities in FP7 so far, which is the "highest single group participating in FP7".

The report of the recent FP7 interim evaluation (see for example the related SCIPROM news below), however, states that SMEs have a "success rate of only 17% compared to 20% for all applicants". "Most important, the participation rate of SMEs does not reflect the actual exploitation of results nor the global competitiveness of SMEs". And: “More attention should be paid to the quality and constructive engagement of SME participation rather than just widening it. In this way, the key role of SMEs as the bridge from pre-competitive research to innovation could be enhanced.”

On 12 Nov 2010, an independent expert group has published a report summarizing the results of their interim evaluation of FP7.

The group lists the following "key strengths" of FP7:

- FP7 is considered broad, well equilibrated in terms of geographical spread and and topics covered.
- The principle of excellence in project selection is largely achieved
- Mobility and training are making a valuable contribution to capacity building
- FP7 has a positive influence on research infrastructures
- Calls have been processed effectively and funds have been allocated in a reasonably timely manner

As "Areas in need of improvement" the group has identified the following:

- Administrative burdens
- The goal of boosting female participation to 40% has not been reached, currently only 30% of the researchers involved are female.
- Industrial participation in particular of SMEs is still hampered by complex procedures

Issues considered "New concerns and dilemmas" include the following:

- Research at national and EU levels needs to be better coordinated
- Success rates are low in many areas and imply a considerable waste of research resources; success rates are generally lower in the member states which only recently joined the EU
- Joint Technology Initiatives (JTIs) are perceived inconsistent in legal structures and procedures and the overhead rates are considered too low to cover the costs of participants

The full report is available here.

The number of EU-funded research projects with international participation is growing steadily. To face borderless challenges, international approaches are required and more and more collaborative projects are open to partners from outside Europe.

The EC recently published a brochure entitled "International collaboration in EU-funded research" presenting a number of HEALTH projects with international participation - providing both an interesting insight into existing initiatives and an inspiration for future project ideas.

DG INFSO proposes a new approach, the so-called pre-commercial procurement (PCP), another public-private partnership.

Cordis informs about the objectives of this initiative: "By acting as technologically demanding first buyers, public procurers can drive innovation from the demand side. In addition to improving the quality and effectiveness of public services this can help creating opportunities for companies to take international leadership in new markets".

Practically, these PCPs combine collaborative projects (CP) with a coordination and support action (CSA).

The CSA part allows the consortium of public bodies to define their needs and to launch a call for tender to the ICT industry to develop the required tools. Through this CSA, max 100% of the eligible direct costs inked to the preparation, management and coordination of the joint PCP call are funded, with an allowance of max 7% as a contribution to the indirect costs.

Additionally, the CP part foresees a reimbursement of maximum 50% of the eligible costs the public bodies incur for implementing the successful tender(s) to develop the new ICT solutions.

According to cordis, the following PCP calls are launched or planned:

1. Targeted calls for joint PCPs in specific areas of public interest (€3M each)
- ICT for health (Objective 5.3.(d), Call 7) - Topic: Services for mobile access to patient health info
- ICT for ageing well (Objective 5.4(d), Call 7) - Topic: Robotics solutions for ageing well
- Photonics (Objective 3.5.(d), Call 8) - Topic: Innovative photonics solutions improving quality and/or efficiency of public sector challenges

2. An open call for PCP proposals addressing any area of public interest (€5M each)
Proposals for joint PCPs in this open call (Objective 11.1, Call 8) can relate to for exampe public sector needs for new ICT solutions in healthcare, inclusion, e-government, transport, energy efficiency, environment, security, eduction etc

For more information, please contact Dunja Swierstra or Patrick Furrer at Euresearch or refer to the extensive PCP information provided on cordis.