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PRIORITY 'Excellent science'

 

PRIORITY 'Excellent science'


This Part aims to reinforce and extend the excellence of the Union's science base and to consolidate the ERA in order to make the Union's research and innovation system more competitive on a global scale. It consists of four specific objectives:
a) "The European Research Council (ERC)" shall provide attractive and flexible funding to enable talented and creative individual researchers and their teams to pursue the most promising avenues at the frontier of science, on the basis of Union-wide competition. H2020-EU.1.1. (http://cordis.europa.eu/programme/rcn/664099_en.html)
b) "Future and emerging technologies (FET)" shall support collaborative research in order to extend Europe's capacity for advanced and paradigm-changing innovation. It shall foster scientific collaboration across disciplines on radically new, high-risk ideas and accelerate development of the most promising emerging areas of science and technology as well as the Union-wide structuring of the corresponding scientific communities. H2020-EU.1.2. (http://cordis.europa.eu/programme/rcn/664101_en.html)
c) "Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions" shall provide excellent and innovative research training as well as attractive career and knowledge-exchange opportunities through cross-border and cross-sector mobility of researchers to best prepare them to face current and future societal challenges. H2020-EU.1.3. (http://cordis.europa.eu/programme/rcn/664109_en.html)
d) "Research infrastructures" shall develop and support excellent European research infrastructures and assist them to contribute to the ERA by fostering their innovation potential, attracting world-level researchers and training human capital, and complement this with the related Union policy and international cooperation. H2020-EU.1.4. (http://cordis.europa.eu/programme/rcn/664121_en.html)
Each of those objectives has been proven to have high Union added value. Together, they form a powerful and balanced set of activities which, in concert with activities at national, regional and local level, span the breadth of Europe's needs regarding advanced science and technology. Bringing them together in a single programme will enable them to operate with greater coherence, in a rationalised, simplified and more focused way, while maintaining the continuity which is vital to sustain their effectiveness.
The activities are inherently forward-looking, building skills in the long term, focusing on the next generation of science, technology, researchers and innovations and providing support for emerging talent from across the Union and associated countries, as well as worldwide. In view of their science-driven nature and largely 'bottom-up', investigator-driven funding arrangements, the European scientific community will play a strong role in determining the avenues of research followed under Horizon 2020