Synergies in detail
With around € 550 million, by half time in the EU’s Horizon 2020 research programme in the autumn of 2016 NRW had acquired one of the largest shares of the budget. “This figure shows how strong North Rhine-Westphalia is. The EU’s investment in outstanding research in NRW is very high. This has a major impact on growth both in employment and the economy as a whole,” said Minister Schulze at the Horizon 2020 Mid-term Conference in November 2016 in Düsseldorf.
34 percent of the total EU budget, i.e. around € 352 billion, is reserved for structural policy from 2014 to 2020. € 1.21 billion in EU funding will be invested in the OP ERDF NRW 2014-2020 alone, making it the largest funding programme in the state’s history. 40 percent of this sum, or € 465 million in EU funding, will serve to boost research, technological development and innovation. At the heart are eight lead markets that are taken care of by an agency, the LeitmarktAgentur.NRW. Synergies can be achieved by using the freedoms and flexibility to be found in existing programme structures too and can deliver additional stimuli for innovation.
- LeitmarktAgentur.NRW: Assists in sensitising all innovation stakeholders towards synergies and cooperation with the Brückenbildung NRW project
- Competitions: Upgrading and greater priority for the transfer of EU research results into lead market projects when decisions on funding are made
- Calls for proposals: Where programme-compliant and possible, greater alignment of research themes with Horizon 2020 work programmes