EIT Health Position Statement lauds EC proposal for innovation support, calls for more funding

EIT Health issued on 28 June 2018 a Position Statement supporting Horizon Europe – the European Commission’s Research and Innovation Programme, which will replace Horizon 2020 and was outlined in the European Commission’s 7 June 2018 proposals – while also urging increased funding for research and for the EIT in particular.

In the statement, EIT Health:

• Welcomes the EC proposal as a “step in the right direction”, and cites several positive aspects of the proposal and its formation.

• Calls on the Member States to support a very significant investment into research and innovation as part of the upcoming Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).

• Invites Member States and the European Parliament to increase further the R&I budget within the MFF to an amount around €120 billion for the next financial period 2021-2027.

• Notes that the European Commission proposals would result in a significant decrease of the share of Framework Programme (FP) funding for health research and innovation and calls on the European Parliament and Member States to increase the budget allocation for the health cluster to €10 billion, to at least maintain the current share of FP budget allocated to health.

• Calls on the European Institutions to protect the mandate of the EIT and allocate at least €4 billion to the EIT and its KICs during the seven-year period of the next financial planning period (2021-2017).

A PDF of the full EIT Health Position Statement can be downloaded below. The statement was issued in reaction to the EC proposals published on 7 June 2018.

• Horizon Europe Key Positions EIT Health