Call for proposals under the 2011 'Ideas' work programme of the Seventh EC Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration activities
The European Commission has published a call for proposals under the 2011 'Ideas' Theme of the Seventh EC Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration activities. The objective of this call is to provide funds to enable European Research Council- funded ideas to be brought to a pre-demonstration stage where potential commercialisation opportunities have been identified. The initiative is motivated by the view that Europe offers insufficient opportunities for funding in the earliest stage of an innovation, where a potentially commercial concept needs verification through testing or prototypes, through the identification of a potentially appropriate market, and also through the creation of protectable intellectual property rights, in terms of patents or other forms of protection. Because of the difficulty of attracting investors, many excellent useful ideas with near-term market potential get lost in the period of transition when they are already deemed promising, but too new to validate their commercial potential. The initiative seeks to address this situation by making resources available for European Research Council (ERC) grant holders to establish a 'proof of concept', identify a development path and an intellectual property rights (IPR) strategy for ideas arising from an ERC-funded project. The commercialisation process of an innovation may vary widely between different fields of research/invention (e.g. life science technologies taking normally longer to reach market than software technologies) and depending on which model of commercialisation is pursued. Innovations can be commercialised through licenses to a new or existing company or through a venture funded start-up, depending on the nature of the invention/idea, its potential markets, the inventor's plans for future involvement in the commercialisation, and so on. The ERC funds excellent research at the frontier of knowledge. This frontier research in emerging areas can often cover elements of both basic and applied research. ERC-funded ideas are therefore expected to lead to social and technological innovations which, when successfully applied, could generate enormous economic and societal benefits for Europe. By covering the funding gap which can occur at the earliest stages of an innovation the ERC aims to capture the maximum value from the frontier research that it funds. The total budget for this call is EUR 10 million.To see the official call announcement, please consult: OJ No C 96 of 29 March 2011(opens in new window) and the following link(opens in new window)