The European Commission’s FP7 Programme to Boost the Life Science R&D Funding in Europe, Finds Frost & Sullivan

28-Apr-2010 - United Kingdom

Europe is moving towards becoming a knowledge-based economy. Keeping in line with this objective, the European commission has instituted the Framework 7 (FP7) programme. Launched to support the re-launched Lisbon strategy, FP7 focuses on research themes rather than the framework programmes of the past. It has been designed to meet some of the persisting challenges of raising Europe to match global excellence in research, thereby benefiting the European life science funding.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, Life Sciences Funding - 2008, finds that the budget allocated in the FP6 was €2.51 billion and it witnessed a tremendous increase of 143 per cent, while the budget allocated for FP7 was €6.10 billion towards health from 2007 to 2013. The markets covered in this research service are Europe, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Spain.

“The key to a knowledge-based economy lies in research, education, and innovation and this is what the European commission is targeting in order to reach the Lisbon goals,” says Frost & Sullivan Consultant Shabeer Hussain. “The FP7 programme has incorporated European technology platforms and joint technology initiatives along with developing regions of knowledge and risk-sharing finance facility to nurture private investment in research.”

The EU member states have committed to increase their R&D spending from the current 2 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) to 3 per cent by 2010. The increase in FP7 budgets convey this message towards the 3 per cent GDP goal and, in turn, urge the member states to tackle their research insensitivity.

Innovation-driven growth can be achieved through superior human capital and increased competitiveness on a global scale. Scientific publications and patents that are generated out of Europe are still fewer when compared to the United States and Japan. Research personnel with higher skill-sets will contribute more towards innovation and productivity. Therefore, investment in this area is of prime importance.

However, as Europe has several policies to promote research, innovation and entrepreneurship in the EU member states, the EU countries vary significantly in their abilities to develop technology and knowledge transfer. This deters growth prospects of the EU countries, thereby retarding the growth of Europe as a whole.

“The move towards innovation-based growth is very crucial to raise the European research level on the global arena and innovation is possible only with better partnerships among the private and public sectors,” concludes Hussain. “Therefore, it becomes pivotal to form innovation clusters at the region level.”

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