The European Commission published a communication in which it invites to public and private actors to join forces at European level to apply research and innovation solutions to major challenges facing society. Furthermore the Commission works in some proposals in this sense that will form part of the Commission's Horizon 2020 package later this year.

An invitation to public and private actors to join forces at European level to apply research and innovation solutions to major challenges facing society has been issued by the European Commission. This is the reason why it proposes in a Communication to draw on first experience from pilot projects and outlines steps that will lead to more, and more effective, public-private and public-public partnerships. The Commission's Communication on creating an "Innovation Union" already highlighted the importance of European partnering in research and innovation.

According to the communication adopted by the Commission, when EU-level Partnerships are identified as necessary and useful, there is a need to make administrative arrangements simpler and more flexible. Bottlenecks and barriers to cross-border research need to be removed, and all partners, including EU Member States and the private sector, need to make long-term financial commitments to the projects. European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, believes that shortening the time to market for innovative new products and services will cement European leadership and boost our economic recovery.

Public-Public Partnerships (P2Ps), as well as public and private players in Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) have as main aims to achieve critical mass to ensure the scale and scope required to achieve and maintain competitiveness, and address major societal challenges; to move from a short-term to a long-term approach; to facilitate joint vision development and strategic agenda setting; to contribute to the evolution from a project-based to a programming approach in European research and innovation. This will ensure a broad approach that brings in all potential partners; to provide for tailor-made structures and arrangements for a partnership, depending on its nature and goals.

The EU has already put in place some initiatives under the Seventh Framework Programme for Research (FP7); valuable experience has been gained from different forms of partnering. These include Public-Public Partnerships in research through Joint Programming Initiatives (JPIs) and Article 185 Initiatives; PPPs arising from the Joint Technology Initiatives (JTIs); the Recovery Plan PPPs; and, the European Industrial Initiatives under the SET Plan.