‘Mission-driven’ focus of FP9 clarified

The next EU Framework programme will have about 20 or 30 research and innovation “missions”, the European Commission has indicated.

For the past few months, the research commissioner Carlos Moedas has been using his speeches at various events to signal that Framework 9 will have a focus on “mission-driven research and innovation” to increase its appeal to the public. Example missions he has referred to include the United States’ successful effort to put people on the moon, and its unsuccessful attempt to cure cancer in the 1970s.

Today the Commission’s director-general of research, Robert-Jan Smits, said at an event hosted by Science Business in Brussels that Framework 9 will have several such missions in each of its Societal Challenge areas. There are seven Societal Challenges in Horizon 2020, so there would be about 20-30 such missions if the structure of this pillar is largely unchanged in Framework 9.