The role of industry in FP9

By Ingemar Pongratz

We at Fenix Scientific AB / Pongratz Consulting are closely monitoring the developments of the future EU framework programme FP9. The current programme Horizon 2020 is in the process of publishing the final calls which will be active in 2018 to 2020, so interest in the next programme is increasing. In fact, we have already presented some news in this area previously.

The process is still ongoing and many decisions still need to be taken but the discussion are very interesting. One example of the ongoing discussions relate to the role of industry in the coming FP9 programme. One interesting discussions is related to the The role of industry in FP9.

The Horizon 2020 has been very industry friendly, in particular towards the European Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME’s). Horizon 2020 is rather unique and promotes both research and innovation. However, the participation of industrial partners and SME are still under-represented in Horizon 2020, although the participation of this sector has improved compared to FP7.

However, there are concerns that industry participation, specially of large industry partners, takes a large part of the available European research and Innovation funding.

The European Parliament has recently prepared a draft report asking for justification of the funds provided to large enterprises. The report acknowledges the need of public funding for large enterprises, but calls for industry participation through loans or at that large industry covers their own costs.

Interesting, the European Parliament report calls for a substantial increase in funding for FP9, suggesting that 100 billion Euros should be allocated to FP9.

These and other points are discussed in the European Parliament report. The report is interesting as it introduces for the first time the concept of loans for certain partners. This concept should also be viewed in the concept of suggestions that FP9 should also be used for other purposes such as military funding.

Other priority areas include a push for international collaboration, mobility and gender balance in research and in the evaluation process.

Taken together it seems that there will be many reasons to revisit this topic in the near future.

Ingemar Pongratz is CEO of Fenix Scientific AB / Pongratz Consulting. We help organizations apply for public funding specially from European sources. If you are interested in our services please contact us either through the Online Contact Form or by email:

Ingemar.Pongratz (a) pongratzconsulting.com

The Royal Castle and Parliament House By Ingemar Pongratz