This is your money

Most people are familiar with the Common Agriculture Policy to support the European agricultural agenda, but not so many people know of a parallel investment scheme by the European EU Commission into technology. The programme called “Framework”, has grown and evolved over the years and we are now into its seventh iteration, “Framework 7”, or FP7 as it is often referred.

Fundamentally the Commission acts as an investor in consortia assembled from European industry and academia to work on research projects associated with technological objectives set out by the Commission in a Work Programme. The EU Commission is quite generous with funding of between 50% and 100% of incurred cost, depending on the type of company and the nature of the activity.

There is also a wide range of technology themes supported by the programme including Information Communications Technology, Aerospace, Bio Sciences, Nanotechnologies, Manufacturing Processes, Security, Energy, Environment, Transport and Socio-economic sciences. This is a wide ranging list and plenty of opportunity for companies of all sizes to become involved. In fact there is a particular emphasis on getting an increased number of SME’s involved in this level of research with additional incentives.

There are many myths

As in a great number of institutions there are many myths that have grown up over the years around the European Framework programmes, and some would concede that in the past there was truth in some of these. The idea that to be successful you had to include a partner from some small Eastern European nation was always a popular one. Unfortunately these unwritten “rules” only serve to get in the way of preparing a business case.

The EU Commission, is the mechanism for seeding technological development in Europe. Since 1984 it has gone through several{/spin] iterations [spin]resulting in the current Framework 7 programme, with an combined budget of around €52 Billion to be “invested” over seven years till 2013. I use the word “invested” carefully because it describes the way anyone thinking of being involved in these programmes should view their relationship with the EU Commission.

The EU Framework programme is NOT one of these

The Commission invests money in companies because they recognise that unless significant early funding is made available then the high risk of leading edge research will put off many small organisations that are vital to the economic growth of the continent. However in return, the Commission requires recipients of funding to provide a serious return on the investment. Therefore any prospective participant should view the Commission as an investor and should respond to them as they would any other investor.

The Commission like any other investor is primarily interested in only three things.

• Is this something we wish to invest in?
• Can this group deliver?
• Will there be a return on investment?

Any other myths or “witchcraft” that gets in the way of meeting these three areas of consideration are simply counter productive.

This is a major investment area and literally thousands of organisations seek to participate in it, which results in over subscription of around 5:1. However there are steps you can take to vastly improve your chances of success and you can search online for the full Framework 7 - €52 Billion Opportunity – White Paper.

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