Funding the Research Activity through the Seventh Framework Program
Funding the Research Activity through the Seventh Framework Program

Summary/Abstract: The research activity is rightfully considered to be the real engine of the economy. This is even more relevant because the results of this activity are implemented in the economy. In time, there were conceived several ways to finance research activity. Thus, while in the USA, the funding is based especially on capital funds, in Europe, the research is funded through this Framework Programs, since 1984. From one framework to the other, the value of the funding has increased. In this way, the Seventh Framework Program provided a budget of almost 53.5 billion euro. The funding of the research activity through this program reunited five blocks of specific programs: Cooperation, Ideas, People, Capacities and Nuclear Research, and each program had very different activity areas. The European Union conceived, in 2010, in the context of the economic crisis, a funding project that worked simultaneously with the Seventh Framework Program, called “Innovation Union”, whose purpose was to reduce the distance between the funding of the research in the USA, or Japan. The results appeared quickly: in 2011, the value of the funding, in the private sector, in the European Union was almost equivalent with that of the USA, and bigger than the value of the funding at a global level. The next project of funding is called “Horizon 2020” and it is envisaged that it will have a budget of over 80 billion euro, from which over 70 billion euro meant for research, development and innovation.

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