Results in Europe

Within the context of the EU’s Europe 2020 Strategy, universities play an important role in terms of participating in and developing the European Research Area (ERA) and strengthening and integrating the three sides of the ‘knowledge triangle’, an essential step to creating the conditions for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.

The EU’s 8th Framework Programme, called Horizon 2020, is key to implementing the Innovation Union, a flagship initiative intended to secure Europe’s global competitiveness.

Horizon 2020 is the EU’s largest research and innovation programme to date, with nearly €80 billion of funding available over the 2014-2020 period. It will provide funding for all phases of the innovation cycle, from basic research to the commercialization of new products, placing emphasis on excellent science, industrial leadership and tackling societal challenges.

In this regard, one of OPERA’s main objectives is to support the efforts of the A4U and its researchers to make their research more competitive at the European and international level.

Table 1 shows the A4U universities’ results under the current framework programme (Horizon 2020), whilst Table 2 shows the results by university under previous programmes.

Participation of Alliance 4-Universities in Horizon 2020 Programme per pillars*

Comparative participation of Alliance 4-Universities in European Framework Programmes