Bone Abstracts

Turn your challenges into opportunities through EU funding for research and innovation.

The European Union encompasses several funding mechanisms to support research and innovation (R&I). One of its main instruments is Seventh Framework programme (FP7), established for the period 2007–2013, which is now approaching its end.

The successor EU instrument, called Horizon 2020 (H2020), is currently under discussion and preparation and it is scheduled to be launched in January 2014. This 7 years R&I Programme will contribute for turning European challenges into opportunities, through the creation of new knowledge, technologies, and innovations. The H2020 proposed structure (budget proposal of €80 billion) is organised in three main pillars: ‘Excellent Science’; ‘Industrial Leadership’, and ‘Societal Challenges’, which, in turn, include the ‘Health, Demographic Change and Well Being’ Challenge with a multitude of funding opportunities for clinical, pre-clinical scientists and healthcare professionals. H2020 will support disruptive, high-risk research ideas and also the career of both young and established researchers. It will foster the collaboration between academia and industry, while boosting the European industrial leadership. H2020 will pave the way for the exploitation of the research outputs, namely through transnational, inter and multidisciplinary collaborative research, throughout the full innovation cycle. The R&I community will find ways to support their basic research, programmes from bench-to-bedside, in a personalized health and care approach, as well as the development of innovative applications for health. Furthermore, it will support the EU Health Strategy, and the delivery of the Europe 2020 Flagship Initiative ‘Innovation Union’ goals towards an active and healthy ageing.

One of the cornerstones of H2020 will be the strategic programming, by which the European Commission will launch biannual work programmes for calls for proposals.

With less than one year for the start of H2020, it is time to full speed the preparation of the R&I community for the maximum exploitation of these funding opportunities.

This session will present the major known features and background of the upcoming H2020, and will show how the R&I stakeholders can be prepared for the calls and contribute to the priority setting. This session will be concluded by a landscape of available tools that can support the response to the upcoming calls for proposals.