The Commission today launched the 'Practical Guide to EU funding opportunities for Research and Innovation' to help all stakeholders to find their way into the different existing EU funding. Central to the realisation of the goals of the Lisbon Agenda is the need to promote the knowledge economy, in particular through research, technological development and innovation (RTDI). EU support for RTDI is provided mainly through the 7th Research Framework Programme, the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme and the Structural & Cohesion Funds. If their impact is to be maximised, it is essential that these sources of funding are used in a coherent way.

The “Practical Guide to EU funding for research, development and innovation”, launched today provides with user-friendly information on combining the different funding sources; it includes a description of each fund, advices for policy makers and an innovative Checklist and Scorecard. The Checklist and Scorecard allow potential beneficiaries to quickly identify exactly how they can access European funding at every stage of the development and implementation of a project.

The EU possesses three key funding instruments to support research and innovation: the 7th Research Framework Programme; the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme and Cohesion policy which is funded through the Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund.

When operating individually, these three funding sources already act as effective tools in support of RTDI. However, their value can be further enhanced by combining them.

The Practical Guide arises directly from the conclusions of the European Commission's Communication “Competitive European Regions through Research and Innovation”[1], adopted in August 2007, which examined the current situation in relation to EU funding for research and innovation and called on Member States and regions to make more effective use of the available funding instruments.

Background

In order to ensure that it responds to the real needs of potential beneficiaries of the funds, a public consultation was undertaken on a draft version of the guide.

From today, the official text of the Practical Guide is available for download in English from CORDIS, the official portal of FP7, at the link

http://cordis.europa.eu/EU-funding-guide/home_en.html

The guide will soon be available in the other Community languages and will also be developed as a user friendly web based application.