Council approves innovation partnerships

The Council of the European Union has adopted the legal acts for a new generation of public and private partnerships that will allow large scale, long term innovation projects to be carried out under Horizon 2020.

The Innovation Investment Package, which implements the Innovation Union strategy to stimulate the creation of growth and jobs, will help pool research and innovation investments up to €22bn in sectors tackling the major societal challenges in the next seven years.

Welcoming the adoption, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science said: “This is essential investment in our economy and in a better quality of life. The fact that we can now launch first calls for research projects on 9 July 2014 is good news as there is a lot of work to be done. I urge businesses and academic researchers to respond to these calls – we need everyone working together on challenges like finding the next generation of antibiotics or alternatives to fossil fuels.”

Five public private partnerships will be set up or developed further as Joint Technology Initiatives in the fields of bio-based industries, aeronautics, electronics, fuel cells and hydrogen, and innovative medicines. Additionally, four public-public partnerships, jointly undertaken by EU member states and the European Commission, will be further developed  in the areas of active and assisted living, clinical trials in Africa, metrology, and research and development performing SMEs (Eurostars).