European R&D FP7 Funding
Opportunities for Future and
Emerging Technologies (FET)
– focus on ICT
Dr John L Collins, BIC Innovation Ltd.
13th June 2012
FP7 – ICT ~ €3.4bn over 2012 & 2013
FP7 in General
• FP7 is the short name for the Seventh
Framework Programme for Research and
Technological Development.
• This is the EU's main instrument for
funding research in Europe and it runs
from 2007 to 2013.
• The EC budget for the seven years is
€50.5 billion.
• FP7 supports research in selected
priority areas - the aim being to make, or
keep, the EU as a world leader in those
sectors.
Funding Fundamentals
• Innovative Projects
• 50% support – more for an SME, academic, etc
• The EC give their fraction of what is spent • Involving Partners from Multiple
Countries - at least 3
• In Topics identified by the EC’s Workprogramme
• In response to specific calls for Proposals (or ‘Open’)
• By means of a Grant Agreement with EC
Business Development Drivers
Funding activities must be seen as a Business Development Tool.
• Engagement in activities that are value added – strategically and operationally if possible.
• Assistance in helping to develop
IP, products and people.
• Partnering with strategic
customers and end-users
• Forming Supply Chain alliances
Funding is competitive - applying needs to be value added!
Examples of Collaborative Projects
Small or medium-scale focused research projects
• <€4m funding (typically €2-3m, ~6-10 organisations)
• Generally research focused with some end markets &
applications
Examples of Collaborative Projects
Large scale integrating collaborative projects
• >€4m funding (typically €6-8m, ~12-20 organisations)
• Still pre-competitive research, but tying closer into end
markets and applications
• Higher dissemination & training element
Examples of Collaborative Projects
SME collaborative projects
• Aimed at making SMEs research and knowledge-driven
• >35% SME participation (no prescribed no. of participants)
• SME driven (not necessarily by the coordinator)
Opportunities identified by the ’Cooperation’ strand of the
FP7 programme
10 Themes: • Health • Food, agriculture and fisheries, and biotechnology • Information & communication technologies • Nanosciences, nanotechnologies, materials and new production technologies • Energy • Environment (including climate change) • Transport (including aeronautics) • Socio-economic sciences and humanities • Space • Security
FP7 Themes
Malta Council for Science and Technology
Brief Introduction to FP714th September 2007
Anthea Frendo
National Contact Point for FP7
Core Technology or End Market
Collaborative FP7 R&D Themes
ICT
NMP
Health
Transport
Energy
Environment
Space Security
Food
Agriculture
Biotech
Large Projects Small Projects Networks of Excellence Support Actions
Socio & Humanities
Opportunities identified by the FP7 Cooperation Agreement
This document addresses eight ICT challenges:
• Pervasive and Trusted Network and Service Infrastructures
• Cognitive Systems and Robotics
• Alternative Paths to Components and Systems
• Technologies for Digital Content and Languages
• ICT for Health, Ageing Well, Inclusion and Governance
• ICT for a low carbon economy
• ICT for the Enterprise and Manufacturing
• ICT for Learning and Access to Cultural Resources
FP7 ICT Themes
ICT ~ €3.4bn over 2012 & 2013
FP7 help is at hand - National Contact Points
Driven by FP7UK
• Enterprise Europe Networks
• UK Knowledge Transfer Networks
• NCPs from all other EC countries
• European Technology Platforms
It’s complicated – use the help!
Advice and Assistance in the UK
FP7UK National Contact Points:
• 0300 321 4357 (Generic)
• 0870 191 0112 (ICT Specific)
• The Technology Strategy Board FP7 NCP site:
• https://connect.innovateuk.org/web/fp7uk
• The EC FP7 site, Cordis:
• http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/home_en.html
It’s complicated – use the help!
Advice and Assistance in the UK
Enterprise Europe Network NE Contacts:
• 01642 384068
• www.een-northeast.co.uk
It’s complicated – use the help!
Fu
ture
& E
merg
ing
Tech
no
log
ies (
FE
T)
1. Network and
Service
Infrastructures
ICT for socio-economic challenges B
asic
IC
T t
echnolo
gie
s &
infr
astr
uctu
res
~10% ~9%
~11%
International cooperation, Cooperation in an enlarged Europe, Pre-commercial Procurement
3. Component
and
Systems
4. Digital
Content and
Languages
2. Cognitive
Systems and
Robotics
5. ICT for
Health,
Ageing,
Inclusion &
Gov.
~26%
~6%
~17%
~7%
~11%
6. ICT for
Lower-Carbon
Economy
~12%
7. ICT for
Manufac. &
Enterprise
8. ICT for
Learning &
Cultural
Resources
~6% ~4%
What’s the money spent on?
FP7 – ICT ~ €3.4bn over 2012 & 2013
Future and Emerging Technologies
FET
FP7 Future & Emerging Technologies (FET)
Flagships
• FET Flagships are ambitious large-
scale, science-driven, research
initiatives
that aim to achieve a visionary goal.
• The scientific advance should provide a
strong and broad basis for future
technological innovation and economic
exploitation
in a variety of areas, as well as novel
benefits for society.
FP7 Future & Emerging Technologies - ICT
• FET – ICT is the ICT incubator and
pathfinder for new ideas and themes
for long-term research in the area of
information and communication
technologies.
• Its mission is to promote high risk
research, offset by potential
breakthrough with high technological
or societal impact.
Intelligence
FET: multidisciplinary transformative research
Biology &
Life-sciences
Cognitive
sciences
Social
Sciences
Neuro
sciences
Material
Sciences
Core ICTs IT, Communications,
Interfaces
Core ICTs IT, Communications,
Interfaces
Bringing new science into technology!
Components Systems
Co-evolution of societal and
technological change
Two complementary funding schemes
FET Proactive
• Top-down approach
• Set of novel pre-defined
themes
FET Open
• Bottom-up approach
• Open to any research idea
FET funding schemes
FP7 Future & Emerging Technologies - ICT
• Budget of around €50m per year
• FET–Proactive is a 'top-down'
approach fostering novel non-
conventional approaches and
foundational research in selected
themes in response to emerging societal
and industrial needs.
It acts as a pathfinder for the ICT programme by
fostering novel non-conventional approaches,
foundational research and supporting initial
developments on long-term collaborative research and
technological innovation in selected themes.
FP7 Future & Emerging Technologies - ICT
• Budget of around €50m per year
• FET - Open is a 'roots-up' approach for
exploring promising visionary ideas that
can contribute to challenges of long
term importance for Europe.
It is a light, topic-agnostic and deadline free research
funding scheme specifically designed to be open and
continuously responsive to novel and fragile ideas that
challenge current thinking, whenever they arise and
wherever they come from.
It targets foundational breakthroughs that can open
radically new directions for information and
communication technologies in the future.
FET Open examples
FET Open Projects
• ~ 270 projects in all
• ~ 20% completed
• Mapped onto domains
• Network communications
• Human-Computer interactions
• Bio-ICT
• Emerging Device Technology
• AI Cognitive Systems
• Computer Architectures
• Computer Science
• Modelling
• Complex Systems
• Information Management
FET Open examples
DYNANETS - Computing Real-World Phenomena with Dynamically Changing Complex Networks
Coordinated by Universiteit van Amsterdam, Netherlands
7th Framework programme
STREP
2009 - 2012
EU contribution of 2.7M€
Recent advances in experimental techniques such as detectors, sensors, and scanners have opened up
new windows into physical and biological processes on many levels of detail. The complete cascade from
the individual components to the fully integrated multi-science systems crosses many orders of magnitude
in temporal and spatial scales. The challenge is to study not only the fundamental processes on all these
separate scales, but also their mutual coupling through the scales in the overall system, and the resulting
emergent properties. These complex systems display endless signatures of order, disorder, self-
organization and self-annihilation. Understanding, quantifying and handling this information complexity is
one of the biggest scientific challenges of our time. Amazingly nature seems to be able to process
information on many spatial scales simultaneously. DynaNets will study and develop a new paradigm of
computing through Dynamically Changing Complex Networks reproducing the way nature processes
information. It will develop theory and methods of dynamical networks providing us with new insights into
the underlying processes of nature, economy, and society. As a pilot study we will investigate the
dynamics of the HIV and influenza epidemics from the molecule all the way up to the population.
FET Open examples
FOC II - Forecasting Financial Crises
Coordinated by Conciglio Nazionale delle Richerche, Italy
7th Framework programme
STREP
2009 - 2013
EU contribution of 1.8M€
In this project we set up an interdisciplinary consortium of computer scientists, physicists, economists and
policy makers to deal with the problem of understanding and forecasting systemic risk and global financial
instabilities. By leveraging on expertise in the various disciplines, we want to provide a novel integrated and
network-oriented approach to the issue. On one hand, we will offer a theoretical framework to measure
systemic risk in global financial market and financial networks. On the other hand, we will deliver an ICT
collaborative platform for monitoring systemic fragility and the propagation of financial distress across
institutions and markets around the world. Experts will be able to evaluate algorithms and models to forecast
financial crises as well as visualise interactively possible future scenarios.
FET Open examples
Contact Enterprise Europe Network NE:
• 01642 384068
• www.een-northeast.co.uk
It’s complicated – use the help!
How to participate
How to participate
http://cordis.europa.eu/eu-funding-
guide/home_en.html
Read all the guides
Ask the
National Contact Point
for help
Identifier: FP7-ICT-2011-C
Publication Date: 20 July 2010
Budget: € 93 000 000
Final Deadline: 12 March 2013 at 17:00:00 (Brussels
local time)
OJ Reference: OJ C196 of 20 July 2010
Intermediate Deadline(s):
25 September 2012 at 17:00:00 (Brussels local time)
Specific Programme(s): COOPERATION
Theme(s): Information and Communication Technologies
How to participate
Find a (the) call
How to participate
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/participating/create-
project_en.html
Contact Enterprise Europe Network NE
Create a project
“Advanced Word
Processing
neural network
interface”
Typo
How to participate
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/participating/
partner_en.html
Find a partner or partners
using the online finder
How to participate
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/participating/granta
greement-prep_en.html
Jump through hoops
Become a circus performer
Wait for months
How to participate
FP7UK National Contact Points:
• 0300 321 4357 (Generic)
• 0870 191 0112 (ICT Specific)
• The Technology Strategy Board FP7 NCP site:
• https://connect.innovateuk.org/web/fp7uk
• The EC FP7 site, Cordis:
• http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/home_en.html
It’s complicated – use the help!
Contact Enterprise Europe Network NE:
• 01642 384068
• www.een-northeast.co.uk
It’s complicated – use the help!
How to participate
It’s complicated – use the help!
Questions?
Dr John L Collins
Emerging Technologies Associate
BIC Innovation Ltd.
London NW2 4RG
M:07876 750 624
W: www.bic-innovation.com