New R&D funding opportunities in Europe - FP7

The DTI organised a major event to mark the start of the EU's Seventh R&D Framework Programme ( FP7 ), held in London on the 6th February 2007. It was also an event I decided not to miss, especially as Mike Carr, BT's head of research and venturing, was presenting and talking about the commercial importance of Open Innovation.

Entitled "Global challenges and global opportunities" the event was attended by some 500 people from the UK research community, industry and government.

Scientists working in university and other institutional laboratories, research divisions in large companies and even small enterprises can apply for funding from the FP7 pot.

Malcolm Wicks, the UK Minister for Science and Innovation opened the event with his keynote speech. He commented that ".......The UK is good at science. We have an envied record in research and have long been a key player in the Framework Programme. We need to maintain our strong position in the face of increasing international competition for the best researchers and research investments. ...........UK organisations have traditionally done well in the programme and secured significant levels of funding. In the previous sixth programme, FP6, the UK has so far received around 14.5 per cent of the overall funding, second only to Germany"

Ashley Ibbett, from UK's Office of Science & Innovation commented in his presentation that "Britain is involved in more projects than any other country in the EU. In a globalising economy, our scientists are on the front foot in co-operating with their counterparts across Europe".

Most of the UK's projects are based in universities. The UK government wants greater involvement from industry; it wants more corporations to follow the example of BT which now has 10-15% of its research spend tied up in Framework-funded projects.

"If you look at the technologies out there today, the window for exploitation is extremely short," explained Mike Carr, head of BT's research and venturing. "....From our point of view, the only way to succeed is to have a very rapid implementation strategy, and that means you've got to tap into technology from wherever it's from - open innovation. ....In BT we probably only do something like 1% of the world's research in telecoms; 99% is going to come from somewhere else. And FP7 is all about tapping into that wider community of knowledge."

At present the EU spends about 2% of its GDP on research and development, significantly less than the US (2.8%) and Japan (over 3%). Some emerging Asian countries, such as China, are now increasing their R&D investment to a rate where they will soon catch and overtake Europe. Business investment has stumbled of late. As a consequence, Europe is now on track to miss the so-called Lisbon objective of boosting its spend to 3% of GDP by 2010. "We need to do much more and we need to do it quicker," said Janez Potocnik, the European commissioner for science and research.

Shak Gohir