13.7.3. Research

One of the most powerful tools to promote basic, applied and translational health research is represented by the Framework Programme of the Directorate General Research, which is currently running the 7^th time (FP7) with the subtitle “Building the European research area of knowledge for growth”. The programme has been designed to respond to the competitiveness and employment needs of the EU, with a budget more than doubled compared to that of FP6. According to the Commission proposal and the European Parliament and Council Decision , FP7 will be organised into four specific programmes stimulating, respectively: (i) transnational cooperation of industry and research institutions; (ii) competitiveness in top research by initiating an autonomous European Research Council; (iii) strengthening the human potential of European research through support to training, mobility of researchers (Marie Curie programme and networks) and the development of European research careers (‘Marie Curie’ actions); and (iv) developing research capacities and research infrastructures. More than in previous FPs, there are currently substantial investments in relation to the health domain in several of the ten FP7 themes. The “Health” theme (EUR 6.0 billion) currently covers a broader scope compared to the previous programmes and focused on three fields: biotechnology, generic tools and technologies for human health translational research and the optimised delivery of healthcare to European citizens. The “Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)” theme - the largest in FP7with EUR 9.1 billion - supports the development of healthcare technologies and healthcare provision in Europe, its goal being ‘to improve illness prevention and safety of care, facilitate active participation of patients, and enable personalisation of care that open new opportunities in health and disease management’. A special focus is dedicated to e-Health research. In the Food, agriculture and biotechnology theme (EUR 1.9 billion), the food, health and well-being topic is considered as a priority, together with life sciences and biotechnology for sustainable non-food products and processes. Also other (of the in total nine) themes concern research in the health domain. The Environment area (EU 1.9 billion) facilitates research in line with the priorities of the European Environment and Health Actions Plan and, among others, the WHO research agenda. Research activities include health effects of the exposure to environmental stressors and integrated approaches for environment and health risk assessment. Overall, the reimbursement by FP7 covers 75% of project costs, while the researchers’ institutions have to take care for the remaining 25%.

It has been noted that the criteria for transnational cooperation and industry involvement may limit the funding opportunities for top level basic research and for research with a more public health (and less industrial) focus. For this reason, the European Research Council (ERC) started its work in 2007 to support “frontier research”. This is to be carried out by research teams, either individually or in partnership, competing at European level, in all scientific and technological fields including engineering, socio-economic sciences and humanities. This represents a landmark event, a further step towards the formation of a common European Research Area. While the ERC is funded with EUR 7.5 billion over 7 years, it has already become clear that the amount of applications will considerably exceed the funding possibilities, which emphasizes both the need for support and the competitiveness to be expected. While the ERC will assign 45% of its budget to life sciences, experience will have to learn what the appropriate future funding volume should be in order to ensure a good balance between competition and chance for support.

Certainly within the context of FP7, with its new possibilities provided by the European Research Council, the opportunities for basic, applied, and translational health research will be more favourable than in the previous FP versions. This is very welcome and timely, since for Member States and for Europe as a whole, there are many important and challenging research issues to be addressed by the scientific community. In addition to generic knowledge development, for example in the fields of genomics, oncology, cardiovascular medicine, virology, and brain & behaviour, significant public health and healthcare related topics should be prominently represented in the European research agenda. Transnational collaborative research can especially be important in two ways. In the first place, from the perspective of the issues to be studied for example in case of an international, boarding crossing character of the problem (e.g., infectious diseases and environmental issues), problems of scale (e.g. when studying very infrequent problems and outcomes such as certain metabolic disorders and cancers in infants, and heart transplantation in children), evaluation of scarce high technologies needing international cooperation, making comparisons between member states as to demographic changes and chronic illness, health promotion strategies/policies, socio-economic determinants of health, or health system improvement. And in second place, from the perspective of available expertise: the need to internationally combine scarce expertise (in both basic and applies sciences). Accordingly, while recognising the importance of competition as to quality and productivity of research, in order to optimise the opportunities for transnational research collaboration throughout the EU complementarity and cooperation between national and European research funds have an important potential added value.

Translational research

Several initiatives and funding schemes have been activated by the EU for the development of networks and infrastructures aimed at promoting and accelerating the practical applications of new scientific knowledge.