PPPs

Commission Economic Recovery Plan:  Public Private Partnerships

In Autumn 2008, the European Parliament agreed to support and focus strategic research in three key industrial sectors.

The aim of these public private partnerships (PPPs) is to ensure European leadership, strength and value-add over the next decade and beyond.

The three PPPs are:
The Factory of the Future: To help EU manufacturing across all sectors, in particular SMEs, to adapt to global competitive pressures by increasing their technological knowhow and capability.

Energy Efficient Buildings: To promote green technologies and the development of energy-efficient systems and materials in new and renovated buildings with a view to radically reducing energy consumption and CO2 emission.

The Green Car: To achieve a breakthrough in the use of renewable and non-polluting energy sources, safety and traffic fluidity.

These Initiatives together form a four year programme and the Commission will spend around 1.7 billion Euros across the three domains

There will be calls for research proposals in each PPP, involving relevant Commission Directorates General.

This year, and in 2010, call will be organised and run alongside established FP7 calls, and run to FP7 rules.

The Commission's Cooperation workprogramme includes an annexe which describes draws together the various PPP sections of the different thematic workprogrammes. A copy of that document may be downloaded here

INFORMATION DAYS

A UK information event on all three PPPs was held on 17 September 2009 in London. Presentations from the day can be downloaded here.

The Commission held an Information day on the PPP initiatives in Brussels on 13 July 2009. The talks at the event were video recorded and can be found at the Commission’s Web page  http://ec.europa.eu/research/industrial_technologies/lists/events-fp7-information-day_en.html

Powerpoint presentations are also available at:  http://ec.europa.eu/research/industrial_technologies/lists/events-fp7-programme_en.html

Brokerage activities amongst the  Initiatives  took place  in the  afternoon. Slidesets from these sessions are available from: http://ec.europa.eu/research/industrial_technologies/lists/events-fp7-brokerage_en.html

A further event of  particular importance to those interested in the Green Cars PPP is  planned: Transport Information Days on 28-29 September 2009 where special attention will be given to the Green Car initiative. Further details from http://ec.europa.eu/research/transport/events/infodays2009_en.html

THE FIRST PPP CALLS
The Commission has gathered together all of the PPP topics this year into a single document:http://ec.europa.eu/research/industrial_technologies/lists/useful-documents_en.html

The call topics, which opened on 30th July 2009 with are tied into the ICT, NMP, Energy, Transport and Environment calls, depending on which area owns a particular topic. A simple breakdown of the call structure shows how topics are linked to the individual thematic work programmes.

It should be noted the nature of PPPs will evolve as projects develop. In the short term, it means FP7 collaborative funding in the familiar projects forms such as IPs, STREPs, and coordinated actions.  In the longer term, a call and administration model that is more JTI-like (such as Artemis or Eniac) may evolve, but this is not likely to happen until at least 2011.

A document which may be of use to proposers giving a more detailed breakdown of the individual topics within Call 1 – may be found here

HELP IS AT HAND

UK National Contact points are available to help parties interested in pursuing the various aspects of these calls: Contact can be made via the FP7UK Support line on 0870  600 6080