The European Commission published the grants for research and innovation which are the biggest ever such funding package. Its main goal is to promote research to tackle the biggest societal challenges facing Europe and the world. With these grants, the Commission is expected to create nearly 450,000 jobs and nearly €80 billion in GDP growth over 15 years.

The grants are part of the FP7, the largest research funding programme in the world, with a budget of more than €53 billion for 2007-2013. Member States have put research and innovation at the top of the European political agenda, by adopting the Europe 2020 strategy and endorsing the Innovation Union, making it the cornerstone of plans for investment in sustainable growth and jobs.

In order to achieve these objectives, it will be provided more support than ever before for activities that help bridge the gap between research and the market, for example by demonstrating that new technologies have commercial potential or can work on a sufficiently large scale to be industrially viable. This market-linked approach is also central to the European Innovation Partnerships (EIPs). Each EIP, including the pilot on Active and Healthy Ageing will be supported by FP7 projects. €220 million of the €656 million available for health research and €240 million of the €1.3 billion in funding for information and communication technology (ICT) will be allocated to work aimed at tackling the challenge of providing for an ageing population. The rest of the ICT funding will go to key developments in network and service infrastructures, in nano-/micro-systems, photonics and robotics, in digital content and language technologies and for applications such as ICT for health and ICT for energy-efficiency.

There are expected to have more than 16.000 funding recipients including universities, research organisations and industry. Special attention will be given to SMEs, including a package close to €1 billion. There will also be among the call for proposals a new EU Prize for Women Innovators whose work has been funded by FP7 or earlier programmes.