European Commission funding to boost ICT

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The European Commission (EC) will be spending €6.4 billion (£4.2 billion) on research and innovation within science, public policy and commerce in 2011.

This includes a €1.2 billion boost for the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector.

Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn claimed this would be Europe’s biggest investment in this area and represented a 12 per cent increase on this year and 30 per cent increase on 2009.

The ICT investment is broken down into several areas, but much of it aligns with the EC’s Digital Agenda initiative – Europe's strategy to develop a flourishing digital economy by 2020 – which was announced in May.

Around half of the ICT funding is earmarked for next generation network and service infrastructures, robotic systems, electronic and photonic components, and digital content technologies.

More than €400 million will support research into how ICT can address challenges such as a lower-carbon economy, an ageing society, and adaptable and sustainable factories.

A further €90 million is also earmarked in 2011 for the Future Internet Public Private Partnership (FI PPP), to make key European infrastructures, such as government, healthcare and private sector, "smart" by harnessing the automation and wide reach that the web offers.

Much of this FI PPP funding will be used to improve the roll-out of a European broadband infrastructure to support what the Commission calls the “Future Internet.” In addition to this funding there is a promised €210 million spread over the next three years and private sector companies are expected to match this investment.

The overall announcement stressed the need for reducing carbon output and the ICT area is no exception. Around €56 million is earmarked for low-carbon and carbon-free projects.

The EC is calling for proposals immediately and evaluations will be carried out over the next few months. The results will be announced next autumn.

In past years this has resulted in 8,000 contracts and it has taken the best part of a year to sign them all off. The Commission has taken this into account and hopes that improvements it has made to simplify the procedure will reduce this time substantially.

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