What is Horizon 2020 and how can the opportunity be taken to innovate in the health and social areas?
18 de març de 2014
The European Commission in the coming two years will put more than 15,000 million euros of the Horizon 2020 Programme into driving the economy of knowledge in Europe and seeking solutions to improve people’s lives. The Fundació TicSalut has presented the Health Department with the main funding opportunities for social healthcare service providers, technology centres, research groups of universities and companies in Catalonia.
At the meeting, Elsa Alonso of AGAUR, and Cristina Peña of ACCIÓ, introduced the Horizon 2020 Programme which, by bringing together all of the research and innovation programmes (EIT, CIP and FP7) into a single programme, will be called fewer times. Furthermore, the programme’s funding lines have opened up and will fundamentally assess the projects’ real impact on society. What’s more, for the first time the programme will give funding to all stages of the innovation process, from the basic research and generation of knowledge to the time when the product reaches the market.
Horizon 2020 and the ICT and health sector
For the period from 2014 to 2015, the European Commission has specifically established twelve priority areas, amongst which is personalised healthcare, with an assigned funding budget of 549 million euros for 2014.
In the context of the increase in the ageing population and chronic disease, funds will be put into projects to exploit big data in understanding health and disease, to promote health and the prevention of diseases and to implement ICTs in support of active and healthy ageing, amongst other things. Furthermore, Digital Security and the development of smart cities and communities are two further questions to be taken into account. Ignasi Garcia-Milà, EU Project Manager of Fundació TicSalut, at the meeting presented the alignment of these subjects with the strategic lines of the Health Plan 2011-2015.
All of these calls are published by the European Commission on the Participant Portal. The researchers, universities, companies (including smes) can present their projects on this website. Margarita Hospedales, another EU Project Manager in TicSalut, explained the steps to be followed in answering these calls.
During the meeting, the Fundació TicSalut offered itself to all of the players in the system (social healthcare service providers, technology centres and ICT and service companies) to find partners and give their projects an impact both locally and in Europe.
Towards the end of the meeting, Javier Echávarri, technician for Innovative Market Management of the Centre for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI), explained how this entity, which depends on the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, can also give smes a hand in going forward for the calls to Horizon 2020.
Further information
- The presentations of the speakers at the Horizon 2020 meeting can be seen on this link.
- Other useful resources on Horizon 2020 and the social healthcare sector:
