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Informal Deal Agreed On EUR 80 Billion Horizon 2020 Research Programme

By David Dalton
25 June 2013

25 Jun (NucNet): An informal deal on a package of laws to establish the European Union’s next research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020, was reached by negotiators for the European Parliament and the Irish presidency of the European Council today.

Running from 2014 to 2020 with a proposed budget of 80 billion euros (EUR) (104 billion US dollars), the programme includes research into nuclear waste management, nuclear security and nuclear safety. According to the European Commission (EC), Horizon 2020 will have “a stronger focus on nuclear safety and nuclear training”.

According to the European Nuclear Society, the Euratom Programme, which covers the period 2014-2018, should receive EUR 1.79 billion from Horizon 2020. This will be allocated to fission research, fusion research, and research programmes run by the EC’s Joint Research Centre (JRC). Horizon 2020 does not include the budget for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter) project.

The informal deal agreed today still needs to be confirmed by member states and MEPs. The package must be politically endorsed by the Committee of Permanent Representives of EU member states in Brussels. Its proposed EUR 80 billion budget will depend on the outcome of current talks on the EU's long-run budget.

Amalia Sartori, the European Parliament’s Industry, Research and Energy Committee chair, said: “We now have a deal on Horizon 2020, a world-class research and innovation programme to drive economic recovery and job creation.”

According to the EC, Horizon 2020 should provide “a major simplification” through a single set of rules and will combine all research and innovation funding currently provided through the Framework Programmes for Research and Technical Development, the innovation related activities of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT).

Horizon 2020 will fund the JRC, where research is carried out into nuclear waste management, nuclear safety and nuclear security.

The JRC is the in-house science service of the European Commission. Its mission is to provide scientific and technical support to EU policy making.

The JRC has seven scientific institutes at six different sites in Belgium (Brussels and Geel), Germany (Karlsruhe), Italy (Ispra), the Netherlands (Petten) and Spain (Seville), with a range of laboratories and research facilities. Its headquarters are in Brussels.

In September 2012, the Brussels-based industry group Foratom said that the European industry “strongly supports” the continuing emphasis on the public funding of nuclear fission research at EU level and welcomes the overall increase in funding provided under Horizon 2020.

However, Foratom said the industry was disappointed that proposed funding for fission activities (EUR 355 million compared to EUR 287 million previously) has not been increased in the same proportion.

The industry also criticised what it sees as the “almost total dedication of the programme’s scope to safety”, which tends to undermine other important research objectives such as reactor life extension, new reactor designs and the promotion of the European Sustainable Nuclear Industrial Initiative (ESNII), launched in 2010 under the Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan).

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