Getting ready for Horizon 2020 – Workshop notes

These are my notes from the “Getting ready for Horizon 2020” workshop, presented by Dr. Seán McCarthy from Hyperion Ltd at CWI on Oct 1 2012.

• Website associated with the workshop, for more information: http://www.hyperion.ie/horizon2020.htm
• There’s a ‘Horizon 2020’ group on LinkedIn
• Use http://europa.eu to follow ongoing debates on a certain topic (use Google and a conjunctive query)
• First part on the politics, made for ‘directors’ – the big picture
• Very few people aware of FP7, so first a zoom-in on these projects
  • A little history (from 2000 onwards)…
  • Horizon 2020 is not called FP-8, because it’s a mixture of programs, with strong links to other programs
• ‘”Innovation” will be the “new agriculture” for the next 15 years’
• H2020
• Europe 2020 Strategy: 7 flagship initiatives
  • Digital agenda for Europe
  • Innovation Union
  • Youth on the move
  • An agenda for new skills and jobs
  • Resource efficient Europe
  • Europe against poverty
  • An industrial policy for the globalisation era
• Horizon 2020 is like taking the FP-7 LEGO blocks and reassembling them
• Separate programs
  • “Innovation in SMEs” programme – valorisation
    • Bring technologies to the market
    • USA’s SBIR (~ “STW Valorisation”)
  • KETs (Key Enabling Technologies), since 2009 already.
    • http://www.hyperion.ie/ket.htm
    • 6.7b EUR
  • FET
    • “an idea that might work or not, doesn’t matter if it doesn’t”
    • e.g., wearable electronics (influence of music on physiology), nature as computing
  • EIT (European Institute of Innovation and Technology) = European MIT
    • Not really a programme, but it has relevant options
• Funding typically only for “Phase 1,” i.e., pre-competitive ideas/activities.
  • “Funding the checking of the patent, not the filing.” Examples of pre-competitive
  • Examples
    • ERC
    • FET
    • Industrial Leadership Societal Challenges
    • Eureka (actually between pre-competitive and competitive)
      • technology transfer
  • competitive
    • EIT
    • EIP (competitive)
      • Bv. “Smart cities”
• H2020
  • has money for VCs, covering the whole value chain
  • Budget (numbers are still changing)
    • ~ 87.7b EUR
    • EIT interesting, see the notes and below
  • Exercise: for each institute: walk through the documents and identify which programmes etc. are relevant
  • Trends
    • FP5-FP6-FP7-H2020: projects -> programmes
• Part II: FET
  • little topic in FP-7
  • Now: 3.5b EUR
  • radical innovations
  • FET Open
    • “what you submit is submitted (no resubmissions)” Although they are pre-proposals
  • FET Proactive
  • FET Flagships (FuturICT, e.g.)
    • two are selected: those will receive EUR 100m per year for 10 years. (But this will need to come from local governments.)
  • FET Young Explorers
  • SME
• EIT
  • part of DG education
  • 2007-2013 (309m EUR)
  • 2014-2020 (3.2b EUR)
  • proposed (H2020): transfer/valorisation
  • Research -> industry
  • 3 KICs (knowledge and innovation communities)
  • research centres + universities + education (local! regional…)
  • 1 of them is “EIT ICT Labs”
    • 2/3 of European R&D spending in ICT
    • e.g., Eindhoven: Philips + Twente + Novay + TNO-ICT.
  • another is EIT Climate KIC
    • e.g., Randstad
  • H2020: 3 new ones (so 3.2b EUR)
    • Added-value manufacturing (Key Enabling Tech)
    • Smart secure societies
    • Urban mobility
• “Joint programming”
  • Local money, no EC involvement although they want to
• ERA-Net, ERA-Net Plus
  • EU + national funding
  • next ones
    • urban Europe
    • climate change
    • microbial challenge
    • aging
    • water challenges
    • seas and oceans
• Public procurement
  • small companies can bid for small parts of projects (public tender)
• EIP (European Innovation Partnerships)
  • related to the EU 2020 flagships (see above)
• Part IV – changes in H2020 from FP7
  • overhead
    • FP7: actual overhead
    • H2020 (proposed): 20% of eligible costs
  • funding
    • FP7: 75% research, 50% demonstration, 100 mgmt
    • H2020 (proposed): 100% research, 75% innovation
    • impacts mainly SMEs, companies
  • productive hours (H2020) 1680 hours per annum)
  • decision expected before the end of the year
  • evaluation criteria
    • old
      • science
      • implementation
      • impact
    • new
      • excellence
      • impact
      • implementation
    • Open access, no time sheets
• Part V – Lobbying
  • Top-down (from EU) vs bottom-up (from researchers) lobbying. How? Through ERC, research infrastructure, etc.
  • “Lobbying,” i.e. the EU asks for comments on the drafts of the programme from EU researchers
  • Make sure your topic is in the call (draft first and final also of course)
  • Decision-making process…
• Part X – Getting ready for H2020
  • Getting ready for H2020
    • Different strategies, see the notes
• Last part