In the news

The European Commission has announced its plans for the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), the EU's instrument for funding research and development. The Commission's plan will now be treated by the Codecision process of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. FP7 is scheduled to begin in 2007 and last seven years, until 2013. The budget is 72.73 billion euro and will be organised into four programmes: Cooperation, Ideas, People and Capacities.

More than half of the FP7 budget will be allocated to the ‘Cooperation’ programme, under which cooperative transnational research activities, such as those between universities, industry, research centres and public authorities, will be funded. Nine thematic areas are listed for collaborative research: health; food, agriculture and biotechnology; information and communication technologies; nanosciences, nanotechnologies, materials and new production technologies; energy; environment; transport; socio-economic sciences and the humanities; and security and space research. The European Research Council will set up under the ‘Ideas’ programme. It will fund basic or ‘frontier’ research proposed by individual teams competing at the European level. Under the ‘People’ programme, individuals will be able to apply for training and careers development funding, as well as funding for activities such as researcher exchange programmes. Finally, the ‘Capacities’ programme will focus on improving and strengthening research infrastructures.

The Commission has noted that under FP7 less emphasis will be placed on the mechanisms that will be used to fund projects. Under the Sixth Framework Programme, collaboration was a fundamental requirement for funding submissions, often requiring three of more Member States as participants and a strong emphasis was placed on the use of specific instruments for the delivery of funds. Under FP7, these requirements will be de-emphasised and there will be a wider range of funding mechanisms that can be used when responding to calls for proposals, which should be welcome news for researchers. Also, the Commission's proposal states that "All research activities...shall be carried out in compliance with fundamental ethical principles." This requirement is discussed further in a memo outlining ethical issues within FP7 (see related PHGU newsarticle).