The European Parliament adopted by 533 votes to 29 with 22 abstentions, a legislative resolution on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing Horizon 2020 - The Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.
Parliament adopted its position in first reading following the ordinary legislative procedure. The amendments adopted in plenary were the result of a compromise between Parliament and Council. They amend the Commission proposal as follows:
Objectives: Horizon 2020 should contribute to the achievement of the objective of 3% of GDP spent on research and development in the Union between now and 2020. The programme shall maximise Union added value and impact by:
Horizon 2020 should support all stages in the research and innovation chain, including non-technological and social innovation and activities that are closer to the market. The latter include innovative financial instruments.
Budget : the financial envelope for the implementation of Horizon 2020 is set at EUR 77 028,3 million in current prices, divided as follows :
The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) shall be financed through a maximum contribution from Horizon 2020 of EUR 2 711.4 million.
An appropriate proportion of the budget for research infrastructures should be devoted to e-infrastructures.
SMEs support : Horizon 2020 should provide a range of means to support the research and innovation activities and capacities of SMEs throughout the different stages of the innovation cycle. A dedicated SME instrument that is targeted at all types of SMEs with an innovation potential, in a broad sense, shall be created under a single centralised management system.
New participants: Horizon 2020 should be open to new participants, such as the members of EFTA, with a view to ensuring extensive and excellent cooperation with partners throughout the Union and with a view to ensuring an integrated European Research Area (ERA).
Attract researchers: Horizon 2020 should contribute to achieving the ERA, encouraging the development of framework conditions to help European researchers to remain in or to return to Europe, attract researchers from around the world and make Europe a more attractive destination for the best researchers.
Synergies with the structural Funds : to achieve maximum impact, Horizon 2020 should develop close synergies with other Union programmes in areas such as education, space, environment, energy, agriculture and fisheries, competitiveness and SMEs, internal security, culture and media.
It should also develop close interactions with the European Structural and Investment
Funds, for a more comprehensive alignment with the objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy.
Collaborative projects and partnership programmes: Horizon 2020 should be implemented primarily through transnational collaborative projects, delivered through calls for proposals. Those projects will be complemented by public-private and public-public partnerships.
By the end of 2017, as part of the Horizon 2020 interim evaluation, both existing and new public-private partnerships should be subject to an assessment, which should include an analysis of their openness, transparency and effectiveness.
Fast Track to Innovation: in order to accelerate the transformation of new technologies into innovative products and to reduce the time from idea to market, a Fast Track to Innovation (FTI) pilot should be implemented within the specific objective Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies and within the priority "Societal challenges".
Fast Track to Innovation (FTI) shall be implemented in the form of a full-scale pilot in, establishing an FTI call starting in 2015.
Access to knowledge: to increase the circulation and exploitation of knowledge, open access to scientific publications should be ensured. Furthermore, open access to research data resulting from publicly funded research under Horizon 2020 should be promoted, taking into account constraints pertaining to privacy, national security and intellectual property rights.
Lastly, public outreach activities must be carried out to generate and sustain public support for Horizon 2020.