Horizon 2020

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.

FP7 Calls for 2012 are published!

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!

DESCA version 3 available

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!

NET4SOCIETY published "SSH experiences with FP7 - a Commentary"

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.

New Head of office at Swisscore

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.

Update of FP7 grant agreement

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.