EU research funding reaches 15% target for SMEs

The European Commission has published its latest progress report on the participation of SMEs in the 7th Framework Programme.

According to this report, 15,3% of the used FP7 budget from its biggest sub programme "Cooperation" went so far (2007 - end 2011) to SMEs. This represents a budget of about € 2.4 bn. This surpasses the goal set by the European Parliament and European Council for FP7.

Concrete measures to encourage SME participation were taken across the so-called 'Thematic Priorities' of the Cooperation Programme under FP7. A focus on SME-friendly measures in the calls of 2011 to encourage SMEs to participate, such as ring-fenced budgets for SMEs or topics highly relevant for SMEs, had a positive impact on achieving the 15% target. The last months of 2011 therefore saw a significant increase in the budget share allocated to SMEs.

The main outcomes in a nutshell:

· In 73% of research projects funded at least one SME is involved

· 17.6% of participants in FP7 projects are from SMEs.

· SMEs participate on average in 1.6 different research projects.

· A research project consortium has on average 11 partners, of which two are SMEs

· 10% of the projects are coordinated by an SME.

· Within the 10 Thematic Priorities of FP7, R&D SME's participate the most (28%), followed by SMEs from the Manufacturing sector (25%), the Service sector (24%) and the ICT sector (18%)

· € 774 million goes directly to SMEs under the Capacities programme

· € 167 million goes to SMEs under the People programme

· € 106.5 million (85.2 from MS and 21.3 from EU), 76% of public funding goes to SMEs under Eurostars /Eureka initiatives.

The increase from 14.4% (according to data as of 1st April 2011) towards today's 15.3% of the budget share going to SMEs was mainly due to SME-friendly measures found in the following themes:

· Health research (an increase from 10.3% to 12.4%)

· Research in Food, agriculture, fisheries and biotechnology (an increase from 8.5% to 12.0%)

· Information and Communication Technologies research (reaching 15% of the EU contribution in the signed contracts to SMEs).

The Thematic Priorities in which SMEs have the highest budget shares are:

· Nanosciences, nanotechnologies, materials and production technologies (23%)

· Security research (21.5%)

· Energy research (18%)

· Transport research, including aeronautics (17%)