More Money on the Horizon in European R&D

Like many governing bodies in industrialized regions around the world, the European Commission has slammed the brakes on spending, with one notable exception--research and innovation funding. Instead of a cut, the Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, is proposing a 45 percent hike in R&D funding, from around 53 billion [euro] ($76 billion) over the current 2007-2013 period to 80 [euro] billion for the 2014-2020 period. It also hopes to invest 15.2 billion [euro] in education and vocational training, representing an increase of 68 percent over the previous budget. Presenting the draft budget in June, Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso emphasized the need to boost jobs and growth across the EU by investing more in Europe's brains. The R&D spending proposal, which is part of a broader l trillion [euro] EU budget plan, is likely to stir heated debate in the months ahead. For some members of the European Parliament, it falls short of the 100 billion [euro] they demand for R&D. For many member states, however, it comes at a time of unprecedented austerity following the global financial and economic crisis and amidst the ongoing sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone. And it could also wipe the smile off many farmers' faces: A 336 billion [euro] reduction in farm subsidiaries is planned to help pay for the increased research spending. Commission officials say that the total EU budget planned for 2014-2020 would be worth 5 percent more in real terms than the current one, which ends in 2013. The share for research and innovation would grow steadily, eventually doubling from 4.5 percent in 2007 to 9 percent by The research budget includes 4.5 billion [euro] that would be transferred from farm subsidies to pay for agriculture-related research. Although the European Commission's research budget amounts to only 5 percent of the EU's total public spending on research, the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) is today the largest single research program in the world with a budget of more than 53 billion [euro]. The proposal and the overall budget must be approved by the European Parliament and the European Council, which represents the 27 EU member states. A best-case timetable for adoption, according to the Commission, would be for an agreement at the European Council level in June 2012 and with the European Parliament in December 2012, with final adoption by 2013. The proposal sets a crucial milestone in a long, complex process that will eventually determine the size and structure of the successor to the FP7, to be called 2020. Replacing the longstanding series of Framework Programmes, the Horizon 2020 strategy will bring together all research and innovation projects in a move to eliminate fragmentation and bring EU-funded projects more in line with national research programs. The new R&D program will, for instance, pull in the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP), a 3.6 [euro] billion initiative designed to promote the competitiveness and innovation capacity of small and medium-sized enterprises, and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a 309 million [euro] program that seeks to emulate the combination of world-class education and research in the area of innovation exemplified by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). …