The European Commission has unveiled its plans for FP7 which propose a duration of seven years (2007to 2013), it is considered as the EU main instrument for funding research in Europe during this period.

The FP7 is not only designed to respond to Europe's employment needs and competitiveness, but also to carry it further towards international research cooperation. An Agreement for Scientific and Technological Cooperation between the European Union and Egypt has been signed on 21st of June 2005 in order to promote bilateral cooperation in Science and Technology field.

The approach on international cooperation under FP7 is significantly different than under FP6. It aims at integrating international research collaboration throughout the Framework Programme and includes both geographical and thematic targeting.

Three basic principles have been adopted in order to expand the international collaboration:

Programming: unlike previous RTD framework programmes, FP7 includes both a broad opening ('mainstreaming') of international research collaboration in both programmes and in research themes across the whole Framework Programme and a programming of specific priorities for third countries and regions in different calls for proposals across the thematic work programmes;

Targeting: by defining specific actions for collaboration with third countries and regions in each of the thematic programmes, FP7 ensures that budgets for international cooperation are built in at the level of each of the relevant calls for proposals;

Partnership and dialogue: the principle of partnership will be a particular focus of the specific international cooperation actions for third countries and regions under FP7. The Specific International Cooperation Actions will aim at a fair level of participation for third countries in the collaboration with their European partners.

FP7 Specific Programmes

The FP7 is made up of 4 main blocks of activities forming 4 specific programmes: Cooperation, Ideas, People, and Capacities, plus a fifth specific programme on nuclear research ــــ Euratom.

Cooperation

Budget: €32 billion Under the programme “Cooperation”, research support will be provided to international cooperation projects across the European Union and beyond. In 10 thematic areas, corresponding to major fields in science and research, the programme will promote the progress of knowledge and technology. Research will be supported and strengthened to address European social, economic, environmental, public health and industrial challenges, serve the public good and support developing countries. “Cooperation” supports research actions in the following thematic areas:

1. Health
2. Food, Agriculture and Biotechnology
3. Information and Communication Technologies

4. Nanosciences, Nanotechnologies, Materials and new Production Technologies

5. Energy
6. Environment (including Climate Change)
7. Transport (including Aeronautics)
8. Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities
9. Space
10. Security

International collaborative research in the Cooperation Programme is supported in tow ways to ensure a balanced thematic and geographic participation by third countries and regions:

(i) The opening of the thematic areas to all third countries
The calls for proposals to be published in 2007-2008, include some regional targeting of the industrialised countries and emerging economies by including specific priorities where their participation is particularly encouraged.

(ii) Specific International Cooperation Actions (SICA) in each thematic area (dedicated to third countries where there is mutual interest on the basis of both the S&T level and the needs of the countries concerned.

These actions are a novelty in FP7 and are prepared towards the research and development needs of third countries. They are aimed at reinforcing research capacity in non-associated candidate and neighbourhood countries and at addressing the particular needs of developing and emerging economies by means of dedicated cooperative activities. This action apply to the International Cooperation Partner Countries, ICPC

Ideas

This programme will enhance the dynamic character, creativity and excellence of European research at frontier knowledge.

People

The FP7 programme’s activities will be based on the long and successful experience of the Marie Curie actions and will cover all stages of a researcher’s professional life, from initial research training to life long learning and career development. While building on the positive experiences of the Marie Curie programme so far, there will be an increased focus on three aspects:

• Better structuring: While existing European post-doctoral fellowships have reached a degree of maturity, there is fragmentation among regional, national and international (non-Community) programmes, which are often limited in their European dimension. European co-funding for these programmes (based on open calls) could bring a better structure;
   
• Industrial participation: FP7 will introduce a stronger focus on training and career development (especially in the private sector). There will be a stronger emphasis on developing the complementary skills needed to better understand research in enterprises and on an active role for industrial actors, especially SMEs.
   
• A stronger international dimension: FP7 will reinforce cooperation with researchers from third countries and introduce new dimensions for collaboration with the EU’s neighbouring countries. ‘Scientific Diasporas’ of European researchers abroad and foreign researchers in Europe will also be supported.

The 'People' Specific Programme will be implemented through actions under five headings:

• 'Initial training of researchers to improve mostly young researchers' career perspectives in both public and private sectors, by broadening their scientific and generic skills, including those related to technology transfer and entrepreneurship.

• 'Life-long training and career development' to support experienced researchers in complementing or acquiring new skills and competencies or in enhancing inter/multidisciplinarity and/or intersectoral mobility, in resuming a research career after a break and in (re)integrating into a longer term research position in Europe after a trans-national mobility experience.

• 'Industry-academia pathways and partnerships'to stimulate intersectoral mobility and increase knowledge sharing through joint research partnerships in longer term co-operation programmes between organisations from academia and industry, in particular SMEs and including traditional manufacturing industries.

• 'International dimension' , to contribute to the life-long training and career development of EU-researchers, to attract research talent from outside Europe and to foster mutually beneficial research collaboration with research actors from outside Europe.

• 'Specific actions' to support removing obstacles to mobility and enhancing the career perspectives of researchers in Europe.

Opportunities for 3rd countries researchers

The main features through which the researchers from 3rd countries could participate are the following:

• Host-Driven actions open to 3rd country researchers
• Incoming individual fellowships
• Schemes for Neighbouring countries and those with S&T agreement
• Scientific “Diaspora” of Europeans abroad and foreigners in Europe

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Capacities

Budget: €4.2 billion The “Capacities” programme aims to optimise the use and development of research infrastructures, while enhancing the innovative capacities of SMEs to benefit from research. The programme is designed to support regional research-driven clusters and at the same time unlock the research potential in the EU’s convergence and outermost regions. Support is to be provided for horizontal actions and measures underlining international cooperation. Finally, European society and science should be brought closer under the initiatives of the “Capacities” programme. “Capacities” will operate in seven broad areas:

• Research infrastructures;
• Research for the benefit of SMEs;
• Regions of knowledge and support for regional research-driven clusters;
• Research potential of Convergence Regions;
• Science in society;
• Support to the coherent development of research policies;
• International co-operation.

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Euratom

Budget: €2.7 billion The European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) adopts a separate Framework Programme for nuclear research and training activities. The initial five-year period can be extended to full seven years from 2007 to 2013.

International cooperation in the area of research in fission and radiation protection is an important element of the Euratom Programme. High-level agreements between Euratom and certain third countries facilitate the cooperation, moreover participation of the third countries in projects is possible on an ad hoc basis.

In fusion research, international collaboration is supported by bilateral or multilateral fusion agreements; the legal basis of these agreements is Art. 101 of the Euratom Treaty.

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Budget
The EC assigned budget for the next seven years is € 50.5 billion and the Euratom budget for the next five years is € 2.7 billion. Overall this represents a 41% increase from FP6 at 2004 prices and 63% at current prices.







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Eligibility & Participation

While FP7 participants can in principle be based anywhere, there are different categories of country which may have varying eligibility for different specific and work programmes:

• Member States - The EU-27;
• Associated Countries – with science and technology cooperation agreements that involved contributing to the framework programme budget;
• Candidate Countries – currently recognised as candidates for future accession;
• Third Countries - the participation of organisations or individuals established in countries that are not Member States, candidates or associated should also be justified in terms of the enhanced contribution to the objectives of FP7.

There are two ways for EGYPT to participate:

1. Opening of all themes to 3rd countries in which minimum of 3 different EU Member States (MS) or Associated countries (AC) should be participating and beyond this minimum all 3rd countries can participate, and hence EGYPT is funded.
    
2. Specific International Cooperation Actions (SICA) minimum of 4 participants from different countries, 2 from International Cooperation Partner Countries (ICPC) – e.g. Egypt and other Mediterranean, or African country + 2 MS or AC.
   • ICPC including EGYPT would always be funded
   • Participants or Legal Entities shall include researchers from universities, research centers or any other academic entity, private sector and industry, NGOs.

Being one of the ICPCs, MPCs, Neighbouring countries, African countries, and countries with S&T agreement, ALL ACTIVITIES will be opened to EGYPTIAN participation.

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Funding Schemes

Collaborative research projects will be funded through the following funding schemes (Annex III ‘Funding Schemes’):

• Collaborative Projects: Support to research projects carried out by consortia with participants from different countries, aiming at developing new knowledge, new technology, products, demonstration activities or common resources for research. The size, scope and internal organisation of projects can vary from field to field and from topic to topic. Projects can range from small or medium-scale focused research actions to large-scale integrating projects for achieving a defined objective. Projects may also be targeted to special groups such as SMEs.
   
• Network of Excellence: Support to a Joint Programme of Activities implemented by a number of research organisations integrating their activities in a given field, carried out by research teams in the framework of longer term cooperation. The implementation of this Joint Programme of Activities will require a formal commitment from the organisations integrating part of their resources and their activities.
   
• Coordination and Support Actions: Support to activities aimed at coordinating or supporting research activities and policies (networking, exchanges, trans-national access to research infrastructures, studies, conferences, etc). These actions may also be implemented by means other than calls for proposals.
   
• Other schemes: Individual projects Support for “frontier” research, Support for training and career development of researchers, Research for the benefit of specific groups (in particular SMEs).

Funding under these schemes will be granted by competitive calls for proposals published on the website: http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/home_en.html

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Calls for Proposals

Calls for proposals are available on the website: http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/home_en.html  From 22nd of December 2006

Call for Individual Evaluation Experts
Experts are also invited to register in the Call for Individual Experts who will participate in the evaluation process of the proposals received in response to calls made under the programmes implementing the Seventh Framework Programme. If you wish to register as a potential FP7 Expert, please access the Expert Management Module (EMM) at http://cordis.europa.eu/research_openings/home.html  … for more information Click here

How to Write a Successful Proposal?

In order to write a successful proposal, you should have first ample background about the FP7: its structure, terminologies used in the programme, official sources of information, funding schemes, legal and financial rules … etc. One should also highlight and define the potential impact of the proposal, the project management.

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Guidelines and Support Information

FP7 factsheets The FP7 Fact Sheets will help you to answer questions related to these specific programmes FP7 Flyer Legal and official references Work Programmes Cooperation Idea People Capacities Euratom Guide for Applicants IPR Provisions under FP6 and FP7: Main Changes

 

For More information about Marie Curie actions, please check the following website: http://ec.europa.eu/research/mariecurieactions/