• H2020
• Policy & Research

The European Parliament has approved the regulation setting up Horizon 2020, the EU’s research and innovation programme for 2014-2020, as well as its accompanying rules for participation and the future legislation governing the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT.

Horizon 2020 is now expected to receive €78.6bn in current prices over the next seven years and includes funding for nuclear research under the EURATOM. The final budget is an increase of nearly 30% in real terms compared with its predecessor, FP7.

Industrial leadership has been allocated €17bn in the budget, whilst Societal Challenges is given €29.7bn. Excellent Science, which includes grants for individual researchers from the European Research Council and Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowships, has been assigned €24.4bn. The EITwill receive €2.7bn.

Due to its different legal base, the budget for EURATOM is set for five years. For the years 2014-2018, the budget is foreseen to be €1.6bn and an ‘envelope’ for the years 2019-2020 is estimated for a total amount of €770m

The 2014-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework was negotiated on the basis of 2011 ‘constant’ prices in order to make comparisons easier. On this basis, the budget agreed for Horizon 2020 was €70.2bn. This baseline is adjusted for inflation (assumed to be 2% a year) over the lifetime of the programme to get to amounts in current prices. Current prices represent the real money that will be requested to the budget authority and finally distributed to beneficiaries through calls.