New Opportunities of Public-Private Partnerships to Develop R&D and Innovation Activities

As a part of the European Economic Recovery Plan, the Commission has launched in 2009 three Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs). On 20 July 2010, new PPPs call has been launched with Future Internet

The PPPs (Factories of the Future (FoF), Energy Efficient Buildings (EeB), Green Cars (GCI), Future Internet (FI)) represent a powerful means of boosting research efforts in three large industrial sectors – automotive, construction and manufacturing – which have been particularly affected by the economic downturn and where innovation can significantly contribute towards a more green and sustainable economy.

In the PPP approach, there are the following advantages:

• renewed confidence to invest in long-term research even when faced with short-term economic problems;
• a leading role for industry, including SMEs, in the definition of the strategic priorities and the implementation of the research;
• a multi-annual integrated work programme with a pre-defined budget, ensuring continuity and allowing industry to make long-term investment plans,
• a cross-thematic approach going from basic and applied research through to validation and large-scale demonstration, with an increased emphasis on impact and exploitation;
• increased opportunities to support innovation in SMEs; and
• a single-stage submission of proposals leading to a faster evaluation process and time to contract.
• The Factories of the Future PPP Initiative which has € 160.000.000 budget aims at helping EU manufacturing enterprises, in particular SMEs, to adapt to global competitive pressures by developing the necessary enabling technologies to support EU manufacturing across a broad range of sectors. http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/dc/index.cfm?fuseaction=UserSite.CooperationDetailsCallPage&call_id=339
• The Energy-efficient Buildings PPP Initiative which has € 85.500.000 budget aims to deliver, implement and optimise building and district concepts that have the technical, economic and societal potential to drastically reduce energy consumption and decrease CO2 emissions, both in relation to new buildings and to the renovation of existing buildings. For more details of the call you can visit http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/dc/index.cfm?fuseaction=UserSite.CooperationDetailsCallPage&call_id=355

• The ‘European Green Cars’ PPP Initiative is a series of measures boosting research and innovation aiming at facilitating the deployment of a new generation of passenger cars, trucks and buses that will spare our environment and lives and ensure jobs, economic activity and competitive advantage to car industries in the global market. The call which has € 30.000.000 budget includes three major research and development avenues within its RTD pillar:
• Research for heavy duty vehicles based on internal combustion engines (ICE)
• Research on electric and hybrid vehicles
• Logistics and co-modality combined with intelligent transport system technologies

For more details of the call you can visit http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/dc/index.cfm?fuseaction=UserSite.CooperationDetailsCallPage&call_id=331

• Call 1 of the Future Internet Public Private Partnership (FI-PPP) which has € 90.000.000 budget aims to advance Europe’s competitiveness in Future Internet technologies and systems and to support the emergence of Future Internet-enhanced applications of public and social relevance. In this new funding mechanism for future-Internet programme, Internet operators, service developers and equipment manufacturers will cooperate with public associates to develop inter-sectors service platforms and especially 2-3 years market-oriented R&D projects will be funded. Within this FI-PPP call totally around 10 projects will be funded under the specific 4 objectives. Especially IP projects with high budgets will be supported so strong consortiums will be built and It will be much more competitive. You can access the call text and the full Work Programme of Future Internet Public Private Partnership from http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/dc/index.cfm?fuseaction=UserSite.CooperationDetailsCallPage&call_id=328

Also to support preparation of proposals for the Research Public Private Partnerships, an Info Day was held on 9 July in Brussels. You can access the presentation videos from the following links:

Plenary Session morning:

http://scic.ec.europa.eu/str/index.php?sessionno=1379

Afternoon Session on Energy Efficient Buildings:

http://scic.ec.europa.eu/str/index.php?sessionno=1380

Afternoon Session on Factories of the Future:

http://scic.ec.europa.eu/str/index.php?sessionno=1381

Afternoon session of Green Cars:

http://scic.ec.europa.eu/str/index.php?sessionno=1387

Brokerage Factories of the Future:

http://scic.ec.europa.eu/str/index.php?sessionno=1383

Brokerage Energy Efficient Buildings:

http://scic.ec.europa.eu/str/index.php?sessionno=1384

Brokerage Green Cars:

http://scic.ec.europa.eu/str/index.php?sessionno=1388

Also the topics which will be support in the calls were told in the information day which was organized by Enterprise Europe Network -Istanbul Chamber of Industry and TUBITAK EU Framework Programmes National Coordination Office between 2^nd and 5^th of July 2010 in Istanbul Chamber of Commerce Odakule Assembly Hall. Çiğdem Özenç from TEMSA, Dr. Gereon MEYER, Senior Consultant of VDI/VDE-IT, John REINER, Senior Manager of Infineon Technologies AG, David STORER from Fiat Research Center participated to information day to share their R&D project experience in transportation and environment areas. The presentations of the projects became useful for participants to have an idea for results and process of projects and understand the multidisciplinary side of the projects. Also participants made bilateral meetings to evaluate the cooperation opportunities.

The Public Private Partnerships funds will be very useful for favouring the R&D activities in different sectors. Please have a look at the work programmes and presentations of info day to see the opportunities of 2011 call of PPPs.