Europe’s 7th Framework programme [FP7] supports company Research and Development with grant funding, the aim being to put European companies, organisations and research bodies at the forefront of research internationally. The FP7 budget is Euro 53 billion, despite the current financial crisis this remains “ring-fenced”.
The funding is allocated to key categories: Capacities, Cooperation, Ideas and People and also divided between industrial research sectors such as IT, Health, Environment and Aerospace. The European Commission grant is 75% of project cost for SMEs and 50% of cost for large companies.
On 20th July 2010 the EC issued fifty one “Calls” for bids covering sectors such as Energy, Micro and Nano-technology, Health, IT, Space and Environment, with closing dates in December 2010. This was followed by a number of further calls with closing dates from January to March 2011; lending credence to the idea that the Commission is trying to spend the bulk of the FP7 budget before Member States try to renegotiate the budget.
How do companies access this funding? The basic Commission model is the “Consortium bid”. A consortium is a collaboration between companies and organisations from different member states of the Union addressing an R&D problem or set of problems. For different programme types the Commission set a minimum number of organisations and member states to be involved. So bidding for funding requires an “idea” which fits into one of the calls issued by the Commission, a consortium of European partners to address the R&D problem and the completed bid documentation. See: the “CORDIS” website www.cordis.eu .
A major cause of bid failure is poor understanding of the beneficiaries of a proposal. The Commission expects to see evidence of what the project does for a range of beneficiaries. Successful bids recognise that all in the consortium must benefit, not just the lead partner. The project must allow consortium suppliers to develop new product lines, academic institutions to extend their capability and end user to have greater influence on products. The Commission itself expects to be a beneficiary; dissemination activities are regular good news about the project funded by the FP7 programme. Most bids devote a few sentences to this issue, a full page of detailed activity, reflected in the project budget would be far more appropriate.
Society as a whole should be a beneficiary. There is a need in any bid to show the wider benefits of the proposed project. Benefits may be in job creation, less pollution or competitive positioning of European companies with respect to the USA and Japan. Whatever the arguments, they must be clearly articulated. Furthermore, these arguments should not be hand waving, but should be backed by evidence from market research. Cardio-vascular disease [CVD] may well be a massive problem in Europe, but if you product development is in stents, how many CVD patients require stents and how many will actually have a stent fitted? If you understand “beneficiaries” FP7 can be a very attractive source of company funding in these constrained times.
