Russia to create scheme to support Horizon 2020 involvement

The Russian Education and Science Minister has said Moscow will create a scheme to help increase the country’s participation in Horizon 2020.

In an interview with the journal Nature, Dmitry Livanov said that Russia was planning support for researchers in potential areas of international collaboration in Horizon 2020, notably the Future and Emerging Technologies objective under the Excellent Science pillar, as well as the ERA-NET projects.

Under Horizon 2020, Russia, along with other industrialised countries and emerging economies, is not eligible to receive funding from the European Commission and must therefore bring their own money to a research project consortium.

Livanov said that such a scheme to support Russian scientists’ participation in Horizon 2020 “will start next year” and that the government “expects significant developments in international co-operation as a result of its implementation”.

The year 2014 was defined as the ‘EU-Russia Year of Science’ and the BILAT-RUS and ERA.Net RUS projects support the development of a “common space on research, education and culture”. Russia is currently involved in ITER, the Large Hadron Collider and the European X-Ray Laser Project and will soon participate in European Synchrotron Radiation Facility.