EU-LIFE, the alliance of research centres in life sciences to support and strengthen European research excellence released today a statement with its recommendations for next framework Programme for Research & Innovation, FP9. Strong key message is: to drive European leadership in innovation, boost excellent ground breaking research in combination with professional technology transfer.
 
The Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), together with other 12 European research institutes composing the EU-LIFE alliance, contributes shaping the future of European research and innovation. In a statement released today, they envision the future for the next framework programme. Excellent scientific research should be prioritised as the major booster of innovation by significantly increasing the funding of the highly successful European Research Council. To raise the potential for disruptive innovation, collaborative, open-ended research across Europe should again be a focus of the next framework programme. It will be crucial to initiate a clear deviation from current push for short-term impact of research by clearly supporting all technology readiness levels (TRLs) in the innovation cycle and building a strong, silo-breaking approach of knowledge and technology transfer.  FP9 should also support and strengthen the pool of talent and infrastructure that is at the heart of ground-breaking research & innovation.

Through all these recommendations, EU-LIFE contributes to discuss the challenging perspectives of research in Europe including the next framework programme (FP9) and overall science policy. “Again, this is an example on how small institutes performing research under the excellence basis can be crucial also shaping the future research and innovation activities in Europe. EU-LIFE started operating in 2013 and, in only 3 years, we are a strong voice in Europe contributing on how research and innovation can best contribute to our society, and pushing European science forward,” states Luis Serrano, director of the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona and member of the EU-LIFE Consortium.

In particular, EU-LIFE members highlight the need to refocus on strong support to excellent research irrespective of its technology readiness level. “We, the Directors of 13 leading research institutes that are members of the EU-LIFE alliance, call the European Commission to recognize that for research & Innovation to be impactful beyond 2020, excellent science must be prioritised at all levels of the innovation cycle,” says Jo Bury, current Chair of EU-LIFE and Managing Director of VIB, the Flemish Centre of life sciences in Belgium.

“H2020 has created a new paradigm in research and innovation. We are happy to support the drive for more and better impact of R&I in Europe, but there still are key aspects to be improved if we want excellent research to address crucial societal challenges in fields such as health, environment or social equality,” states Marta Agostinho, EU-LIFE coordinator.

More information:

• EU-LIFE statement "The Next Horizon: EU-LIFE's vision for FP9"

• About EU-LIFE
  EU-LIFE is an alliance of 13 European research centres in life sciences to support and strengthen research excellence. Representing over 7200 researchers, partners in EU-LIFE are renowned research centres across Europe operating with similar principles of excellence, external reviews, independence, competitiveness, and internationality, contributing to pushing European science forward. Kicked off in May 2013, the alliance has established as a voice for research institutes in European policy, currently participating in the two stakeholders’ organizations platforms which advise regularly Commissioner Moedas and European Commission’s DG RTD - the Open Science Policy Platform and the European Research Area Stakeholders’ platform.