What is going on in Horizon2020?

The European Commission has launched the new biggest EU funding programme for Research and Innovation, Horizon 2020, and the first calls of the programme were published on Dec 11th, 2013. The first Project proposals have been submitted and some of them were already evaluated. The negotiation process for the participation to the H2020 finalized between the participating countries and the EU finalized. The new calls and some important information days are on the way.

Horizon 2020 is the new biggest EU funding programme for Research and Innovation with a budget of nearly EUR 80 billion over 7 years (2014 to 2020). Compared with the previous programmes, some novelties[1] of this new programme such as simpler funding rules, being single programme and market oriented and having fewer calls and topics make it more attractive.

HORIZON2020

The first calls of the programme were published on Dec 11th, 2013. The first Project proposals have been submitted and some of them have been already evaluated by the European Commission. One of them is the results of theNew SME Instrument Programme – Phase 1 Call which is admittedly one of the most attractive programme of the H2020 for SMEs where they can apply without building consortium. According to the results announced by the European Commission[2]; out of the 2666 proposals submitted, 2602 were eligible and 317 got a score above the threshold. 49% of these are pre-selected for funding. So, 155 projects from 21 countries have been pre-selected for funding. Spain had the most projects selected (39) followed by the United Kingdom (26), Italy (20), Germany (11), Ireland (10) and France (9). The next cut-off date for Phase 1 is on September 24, 2014.

The 2015 year calls will open in the next days. You can follow the open calls through the participant portal: http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/index.html. One of them is H2020-ICT-2015-1 Call. It will open on October 15, 2014 and the closing date of the call is April 14, 2015. The topics of the call are already available at the following link:https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/calls/h2020-ict-2015.html

In order to become successful in H2020 programme, it is very important to attend the information days, brokerage events and other topic related events. Some of the important upcoming events are listed below:

– ICT Proposers’ Day, October 9-10, 2014, Florence[3]

– PPP Info Day, October 21, 2014, Brussels[4]

– Open Living Lab Days, September 2-5, 2014, Amsterdam[5]

– Digital Action Day, September 29, 2014, Brussels[6]

– Smart City Expo, November 18-20, 2014, Barcelona[7]

– Smart, Green and Integrated Transport Info Day, February 02, 2015, Brussels[8]

Horizon 2020 National Launch Event – Turkey

Turkey finalized the negotiation process with the European Commission and became a member of the H2020 programme. The national launch event was organized by TUBITAK on June 4-5, 2014 in Istanbul and the memorandum of understanding for Turkey’s participation to H2020 have been signed by Ahmet Yucel, EU Affairs Deputy Undersecretary, on behalf of Turkey and Robert Jan Smits on behalf of the EU.

H2020TRLaunch

The event realized with great interest of over 900 participants including the representatives from academy and industry environment who are experienced in framework programme projects. During two-day event, the EC officers and experts gave information about the contents, calls and participating rules of the programme. TUBITAK also presented their H2020 supports and awards for Turkish participants. These are really very appreciated by the participants. More information is available on the official H2020 website of the TUBITAK: http://www.h2020.org.tr/

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