Billion-euro boost to EU science

European science is set for a serious shot in the arm, after the European Union's commissioner for research and innovation announced yesterday (19th July) that the EU will invest approximately €6.4 billion in research and development on the continent through 2011. Image: S. Solberg J. via WikimediaThe investment package, the largest ever infusion of funding into research activities across Europe, will create more than 165,000 jobs and help save struggling economies, said Ireland's M&aacut

Written byBob Grant
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European science is set for a serious shot in the arm, after the European Union's commissioner for research and innovation announced yesterday (19th July) that the EU will invest approximately €6.4 billion in research and development on the continent through 2011.
Image: S. Solberg J. via Wikimedia
The investment package, the largest ever infusion of funding into research activities across Europe, will create more than 165,000 jobs and help save struggling economies, said Ireland's Máire Geoghegan-Quinn in a linkurl:statement.;http://ec.europa.eu/research/index.cfm?pg=newsalert&lg=en&year=2010&na=na-190710 "Investment in research and innovation is the only smart and lasting way out of crisis and towards sustainable and socially equitable growth," she added. "This European package will contribute to new and better products and services, a more competitive and greener Europe, and a better society with a higher quality of life." Health researchers can expect €600 million of the total funding, with a third of that going towards clinical trials designed to speed important new drugs to market, according to Geoghegan-Quinn. An additional €1.3 billion will go to scientists hand-picked by the linkurl:European Research Council,;http://erc.europa.eu/ and small and medium-sized enterprises in the EU will vie for about €800 million. Another €772 million is slated to go to 7,000 researchers through the linkurl:Marie Curie Actions,;http://ec.europa.eu/research/fp6/mariecurie-actions/action/fellow_en.html a fellowship program designed to encourage cross-border collaboration. The funding is part of the EU's new project, dubbed "Innovation Union Flagship," which gets underway in earnest this autumn.
**__Related stories:__***linkurl:New head for European research;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/57151/
[19th February 2010]*linkurl:Is America competing?;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/56275/
[15th January 2010]*linkurl:More promises for EU research;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/56114/
[22nd October 2009]
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Meet the Author

  • From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.

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