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EU — Hori­zon 2020 expert advis­ory groups appointed

08.11.2013
The advis­ory groups are the most diverse yet, draw­ing on pub­lic, private and civil soci­ety sources. Nearly 40% of their mem­bers have not advised on pre­vi­ous EU research pro­grammes, ensur­ing a ​‘fresh approach’ in the new pro­gramme. Advis­ory groups have also for the first time over­come the under­rep­res­ent­a­tion of women, with female par­ti­cip­a­tion aver­aging 52% across the groups. The diverse com­pos­i­tion of the groups will help in decid­ing how EU-fun­ded research and innov­a­tion can help address major con­cerns for Europe, such as provid­ing bet­ter health­care and clean, effi­cient energy. Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, European Com­mis­sion­er for Research, Innov­a­tion and Sci­ence, said: ​“Hori­zon 2020 is a totally new research and innov­a­tion pro­gramme, geared towards tack­ling the chal­lenges of the 21st Cen­tury. That is why we needed the best and the bright­est for our experts, and I am grate­ful that the European research and innov­a­tion com­munity has respon­ded. I am in par­tic­u­lar delighted to see a high num­ber of women and new experts want­ing to get involved.” Fol­low­ing an open call invit­ing experts from all fields to par­ti­cip­ate, more than 15,000 respon­ded by the first dead­line in March of this year. From these, around 400 experts were chosen for the 15 groups, with 20 – 30 in each. The groups have a good bal­ance, includ­ing industry and pub­lic research act­ors as well as rep­res­ent­at­ives of civil soci­ety. The groups are one of the key sources of advice on the imple­ment­a­tion of Hori­zon 2020, in par­tic­u­lar the pri­or­it­ies for the devel­op­ment of the work pro­grammes from which the calls for research and innov­a­tion pro­pos­als are pub­lished. While all groups have been appoin­ted, groups are being final­ised on an on-going basis as indi­vidu­al experts accept the appoint­ment. Most of the groups can already be found on the European Commission’s online register for expert groups, along with some addi­tion­al inform­a­tion and the ori­gin­al call text: ec​.europa​.eu/​r​e​s​e​a​r​c​h​/​h​o​r​i​z​o​n​2​0​2​0​/​i​n​d​e​x​_​e​n​.​c​f​m​?​p​g​=​h​2​0​2​0​-​e​x​perts The call for expres­sions of interest will stay open for the life­time of the Hori­zon 2020 pro­gramme in order to accom­mod­ate the renew­al of groups at the end of each man­date. The man­date of the selec­ted experts is for a peri­od of 2 years with the pos­sib­il­ity of renew­al for a fur­ther max­im­um 2 years.

The 15 Hori­zon advis­ory groups cov­er the fol­low­ing areas:

  • Future and Emer­ging Tech­no­lo­gies (FET)
  • Mar­ie Skłodowska-Curie actions on skills, train­ing and career development
  • European research infra­struc­tures includ­ing e‑Infrastructures
  • Inform­a­tion and com­mu­nic­a­tion technologies
  • Nan­o­tech­no­lo­gies, advanced mater­i­als and advanced man­u­fac­tur­ing and processing
  • Space
  • Access to risk fin­ance (debt and equity financing)
  • Innov­a­tion in small and medi­um-sized enter­prises (SMEs)
  • Health, demo­graph­ic change and wellbeing
  • Food secur­ity, sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture and forestry, mar­ine and mari­time and inland water research and the bioeconomy and biotechnology
  • Secure, clean and effi­cient energy and Euratom
  • Smart, green and integ­rated transport
  • Cli­mate action, envir­on­ment, resource effi­ciency and raw materials
  • Europe in a chan­ging world – inclus­ive, innov­at­ive and reflect­ive societies
  • Secure soci­et­ies – pro­tect­ing free­dom and secur­ity of Europe and its citizens

Back­ground

In 2014 the European Uni­on will launch a new, sev­en year research and innov­a­tion fund­ing pro­gramme called Hori­zon 2020. Hori­zon 2020 will have an even great­er focus on turn­ing excel­lent ideas into mar­ket­able products, pro­cesses and ser­vices. The work pro­grammes under Hori­zon 2020 will provide a two year per­spect­ive with less pre­script­ive top­ics, to allow research­ers more time to pre­pare pro­pos­als and more scope to make innov­at­ive pro­pos­als. In addi­tion to the advis­ory groups, the Com­mis­sion will soon launch a fur­ther call to estab­lish a data­base of experts to advise and assist on activ­it­ies like eval­u­ation of pro­pos­als and the pre­par­a­tion of future programmes. More about Hori­zon 2020: ec​.europa​.eu/​r​e​s​e​a​r​c​h​/​h​o​r​i​z​o​n​2​0​2​0​/​i​n​d​e​x​_​e​n.cfm Source: European Commission
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