What is Horizon2020?
Horizon2020 is the European Unions largest research and innovation programme, launched on 1January2014 and running until 31December2020. With a total budget of 80billion, it is designed to drive scientific excellence, industrial competitiveness, and societal challenges across the 28 Member States (now 27) and associated countries.
The programme succeeds previous EU frameworks FP7 (20072013) and sets the stage for the next longterm framework, Horizon Europe, which starts in 2021.
Key Objectives
- Scientific excellence: Support frontier research that expands knowledge and creates new technologies.
- Industrial leadership: Boost European companies, especially SMEs, to bring innovations to market.
- Societal challenges: Address pressing issues such as health, climate change, energy, food security, and inclusive growth.
- Open science and open innovation: Promote open access to results, data sharing, and collaborative platforms.
Structure & Pillars
Horizon2020 is organised around three interlinked pillars:
1. Excellent Science
Funded through the European Research Council (ERC), Marie SkodowskaCurie Actions, and Future & Emerging Technologies (FET). This pillar nurtures groundbreaking ideas and researchers at all career stages.
2. Industrial Leadership
Contains three clusters:
- Leadership in Enabling and Industrial Technologies (LEIT): robotics, nanotechnology, advanced manufacturing, etc.
- Smart Cities and Communities (SCC): urban mobility, digital services, sustainable infrastructures.
- Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment (FBNR): food safety, bio-based products, water management.
3. Societal Challenges
Eight challenge areas, each addressing a specific problem:
- Health, Demographic Change and WellBeing
- Secure, Clean and Efficient Energy
- Smart, Green and Integrated Transport
- Climate Action, Environment and Resource Efficiency
- Food Security, Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry
- Secure Societies
- Inclusive Societies
- Science with and for Society
Each challenge combines research, demonstration, and marketpull activities to bring solutions from laboratory to citizens.
Budget & Funding Instruments
The 80billion budget was split roughly as follows:
- 24bn Excellent Science
- 25bn Industrial Leadership
- 31bn Societal Challenges
Funding is delivered through grants, collaborative projects, and procurement contracts. The most common instruments are:
- Grant agreements: Typical for research consortia (24years).
- Innovation actions: Focus on prototyping, testing, and marketreadiness.
- Coordination and support actions: Provide networking, standardisation, and policy advice.
- Public procurement: Direct purchases of innovative solutions by EU institutions.
SMEs can receive up to 100% of eligible costs under the SME instrument, while larger organisations usually obtain up to 70%.
Impact & Success Stories
Health: The European Clinical Research Infrastructure Network (ECRIN) accelerated multicentre trials for rare diseases, expediting drug development.
Energy: The SmartGrids project demonstrated largescale integration of renewable sources, influencing EU policy on electricity markets.
Digital innovation: The LHC (Large Hadron Collider) dataprocessing techniques fostered the creation of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, a precursor to modern cloudcomputing services.
Overall, Horizon2020 generated more than 300000 peerreviewed publications, over 45000 patents, and contributed to the creation of thousands of jobs across the research ecosystem.
Beyond Horizon2020 Horizon Europe
Starting in 2021, Horizon Europe builds on the lessons of Horizon2020 with a 95.5billion budget for 20212027. It introduces new features such as:
- Missionoriented research: Dedicated missions on cancer, climateneutral cities, healthy oceans, etc.
- Enhanced support for the European Green Deal.
- Strengthened partnership with the private sector via the European Innovation Council (EIC).
The transition is designed to ensure continuity of funding, keep existing collaborations alive, and amplify Europe's global scientific standing.
