Geoghegan-Quinn attends Horizon 2020 launch in Rome

Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, has said she was “delighted to be back in Rome for the launch in Italy of Horizon 2020” during her keynote address at the country’s launch event.

She emphasised the importance of simplifying the rules of the new programme, saying it had been her “top priority to make it easier for our scientists and business people to access EU funding so they can spend less time on administration and more time on research and innovation”.

Geoghegan-Quinn added: “Simplification applies across the whole programme. While the Seventh Framework Programme had lots of different rules, Horizon 2020 applies the same rules everywhere, making it much easier to apply and to participate in projects. As well as reforming how we administer funding, we have redesigned the programme architecture from top to bottom to be much more coherent.”

Speaking about the European Research Council (ERC), the Commissioner expressed her “delight” that Professor Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, the president of the Council, was also present at the event.

She said that there would be “a significant increase in funding for the prestigious European Research Council and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions on researcher training, mobility, and careers” and added: “Horizon 2020 will invest even more in the ERC’s mission to give world class scientists of any nationality the chance to conduct top-flight research in Europe.”

She encouraged Italians to “keep focusing on growth-enhancing investment” in order to reach the “national target of 1.53% of GDP expenditure on R&D by 2020”.