This is the EU's main instrument for funding research in Europe and it will run from 2007-2013. The programme has a total budget of over € 50 billion. This amount will (for the most part) be spent on grants to research actors all over Europe and beyond, in order to co-finance research, technological development and demonstration projects. Grants are determined on the basis of calls for proposals and a peer review process, which are highly competitive. In order to complement national research programmes, activities funded from FP7 must have a “European added value”. One key aspect of the European added value is the transnationality of many actions: research projects are carried out by consortia which include participants from different European (and other) countries; fellowships in FP7 require mobility over national borders. In FP7 there is also a new action for “individual teams” with no obligation for transnational cooperation. In this case, the “European added value” lies in raising the competition between scientists in fundamental “frontier” research from the national to the European level.

FP7 is composed by five major specific programmes:

• Cooperation
• Ideas
• People
• Capacities
• Nuclear Research

Cooperation is the major specific programme under FP7 that aims to foster collaborative research across Europe and other partner countries through projects by transnational consortia of industry and academia. Research is carried out in ten key thematic areas, one of which is Nanotechnologies, Materials and Production Technologies with a total budget of Budget: €3,475 million for 2007 – 2013.  

For more information on FP7 please visit:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/fp7/index_en.cfm