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About EU Funding

The Seventh Framework Programme (FP7)

The Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) is the main funding instrument of the European Union to support research and technological development in all scientific disciplines. After nearly two years of negotiations, the political procedure has come to an end with the FP7 research programme officially launched on January 1, 2007. The total amount of FP7 funding for the next seven years (2007-2013) is €50.5 billion. The first calls of FP7 were published on December 22, 2006.

 DG Research has published fact sheets entitled "Understanding FP7"

FP7 is made up of four main blocks of activities:

1) Cooperation - Collaborative Research
The "Cooperation" Programme supports research in ten selected thematic areas and receives the greatest share of the total FP7 budget, i.e. €32 billion. The aim is to fund cooperative international research to promote the progress of knowledge and technology in these fields.

2) Ideas - European Research Council
The "Ideas" Programme receives a total of €7.5 billion from the FP7 budget and its activities include the setting up of a European Research Council (ERC). The main aim of the ERC is to support ground-breaking "investigator-driven" basic research projects across all themes. The proposals are evaluated on the sole criterion of excellence. Two types of grants will be applied, i.e. "ERC Starting Grants" and "ERC Advanced Grants".

3) People - Human Potential and Marie Curie Actions
The "People" Programme dedicates a total of €4.7 billion from the global FP7 budget to improve the quality of human potential in European R&D. It will fund a number of activities spanning across the entire career of a researcher. Moreover, a stronger focus than before will be present on three aspects: (1) better structuring, e.g. through co-funding existing fellowship programmes; (2) industrial participation, especially from small- and medium-sized enterprises; and (3) a stronger international dimension with new activities directed at European researchers abroad and foreign researchers in Europe.

4) Capacities - Research Capacities
The "Capacities" Programme provides a total of €4 billion with the aim of enhancing the cooperation and innovation capacities in Europe and enhancing their optimal use.

 Further information on FP7

Research themes in FP7

The "Cooperation" Programme will receive a financial contribution of more than €32 billion between 2007 and 2013 and consists of the following ten identified themes:

Budget breakdown of the Cooperation Programme in EUR million
  • Health: 6,100
  • Food, agriculture and fisheries, biotechnology: 1,935
  • Information and communication technologies: 9,050
  • Nanosciences, nanotechnologies, materials and new production technologies: 3,475
  • Energy: 2,350
  • Environment including climate change: 1,890
  • Transport including aeronautics: 4,160
  • Socioeconomic sciences and humanities: 623
  • Space: 1,430
  • Security: 1,400
Total budget: 32,413

Most relevant themes

The most relevant themes with possible openings for research in the field of respiratory medicine, tobacco and medicine for children are under the "Health" and "Environment" themes.

Elsewhere, health research with some relevance to respiratory medicine may also be somewhat covered in other FP7 themes, specifically:

  • Food, agriculture and fisheries, and biotechnology
  • Information and communication technologies
  • Nanosciences, nanotechnologies, materials and new production technologies