Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development
Strategic Initiatives
ENEA participates in several EU strategic initiatives that are leading-edge for the Agency’s activities:
AAL is a European research program, based on Article 185 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, launched in 2008 and lasting until 2013. AAL is focused on research on innovative technologies to assist the elderly at home. The areas involved are telecommunications, computing, nanotechnology, microsystems, robotics and new materials.
The purpose of the programme is the development and use of new technologies to allow elderly and disabled people to live comfortably at home, improving their autonomy, facilitating daily activities, ensuring better security, monitoring and treating sick people. This could avoid, in many cases, admission to hospitals or retirement homes, allowing a better quality of life and savings for the community.
The total cost of the program is € 700 million for 7 years, 25% of which from the Union, 25% from Member States and 50% paid by firms.
The European Commission’s contribution amounts to a total of € 150 million. AAL Member States grant funding to their participants, only if they are successful project partners, according to national provisions. Italy has allocated € 2.5 million per year, with funds provided by the Ministry of Education, University and Research. The AAL projects are coordinated by an expert from ENEA.
EUREKA is an international initiative launched in 1985 by 17 Western European countries to promote and support scientific and industrial research, with the overall objective "to increase productivity and competitiveness of European industry on the civilian world market."
Currently, 39 European countries are members of EUREKA, the European Union and an Associated country (South Korea). The initiative is strongly market- oriented and complementary to other European research programmes.
EUREKA is based on a bottom-up approach, that means the possibility that participants are directly given to launch European R & D projects according to their needs and by their own initiative, with minimum bureaucracy and maximum control and flexibility. This principle gives participants the entire responsibility for the definition and implementation of their project and ensures that all EUREKA projects are motivated by sound commercial and technological interests.
The participants in EUREKA projects are granted funds by their country of origin, based on existing funds and regulations. Self-financing participation is also possible.
The EUREKA initiative is of great importance for industrial research and is also a form of transnational collaboration for national companies. Assessments made on the Italian EUREKA projects, three and five years after their completion, have shown a good commercialization rate for research products.
The National Project Coordinators (NPCs) are the operational core of the network, and the interface between project participants and the EUREKA network . They work closely with the respective national funding authorities and their counterparts in other EUREKA countries. The National Coordinators and National EUREKA Offices assist participants in their partner research and provide help in the actual organization of a project. The Italian EUREKA National Project Coordinator is an expert from ENEA.
Eurostars is a program based on Article 185 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union designed, established and managed by the EUREKA initiative through its own Secretariat in Brussels. It is aimed at supporting industrial research of small- and medium-sized European enterprises (SMEs) capable to perform research activities on their own.
Thirty-three EUREKA Member Countries including Italy participate in Eurostars, providing human and financial resources. These countries also agreed to provide the necessary financial resources to fund R&D projects selected among those submitted to the periodic calls launched by the Initiative.
Eurostars’ main objectives are:
- Encourage SMEs to develop new businesses based on the results of R&D projects;
- Create an international network to support research activities of SMEs;
- Help SMEs to quickly develop new products, processes and services for market;
- Contribute to achieving the Lisbon goals of competitiveness by activating processes, innovation, economic development and employment.
The Eurostars programme keeps the bottom-up approach and all the typical characteristics of EUREKA projects. Therefore, there are no privileged areas and only military applications are excluded.
The main characteristics of a Eurostars project are as follows:
- it must be an innovative R&D project aimed at developing an innovative product, process or service to be marketed;
- it must be jointly conducted by at least two different subjects of two different nations;
- the project leader must be an innovative SME and at least half of the project costs must be borne by innovative SMEs. An SME is considered innovative if it invests at least 10% of its turnover or uses at least 10% of its staff in R&D.
The total cost of the program is € 800 million for 7 years (2007-2013), 12.5% of which will be covered by the Commission, 37.5% from National Funds and the remaining 50% by firms. The European Commission has allocated a total amount of € 100 million.
Italy contributes to the program with an amount of € 5 million per year with funds provided by the Ministry of Education, University and Research. The Eurostars project coordination is managed by an expert from ENEA.
The EMRP is a European Research Programme, supported by Art. 185 of the European Treaty, which will last until 2014. The EMRP is focused on the collaboration and integration of the national metrology research programmes in all technological and industrial ambits.
The EMRP is jointly supported by the European Commission and the participating countries within the European Association of National Metrology Institutes (EURAMET e.V.), of which ENEA is member. The Programme is the answer to a Europe increasingly demanding for cutting-edge metrology, mostly in the emerging technological areas, as a means of innovation, scientific research and support to decision-making processes.
The Programme aims at speeding up the development, validation and use of methods, technologies, samples, equipment, materials, knowledge in the field of metrology for higher innovation and competitiveness in Europe. The EMRP ensures the collaboration among the national metrology institutes, reducing possible duplicates and increasing their impact. It also funds multi-partner and transnational projects on research activities, technological development, training and dissemination.
The Programme is co-funded by the European Union and the participating countries, which are estimated to contribute at least € 200 million. The EMRP also can rely on a reserve fund capacity of € 100 million for the 2007-2014 period. The European Commission’s contribution is as much as that of participating countries (€ 200 million).
Joint Programming aims at reinforcing cross-border cooperation and the coordination and integration of research programmes in Member States benefiting from public funding in a limited number of fields. Its objective is thus to help Europe tackle societal challenges by making the most of national budgets allocated to research.
Joint programming consists in defining a joint vision of the main socio-economic and environmental challenges with a view to preparing and implementing strategic research visions and agendas. For Member States, this can mean coordinating existing national programmes or designing new ones. In practice, this implies sharing resources, selecting the most appropriate instruments, implementing, monitoring and reviewing mutual progress. The participation of Member States is completely voluntary. Specifically, Member States are free to participate or nor to commit themselves, in accordance with the "variable geometry" principle.
Between 2009 and 2010 the following ten joint programming themes have been identified and launched:
- Neurodegenerative Diseases / Alzheimer's
- Cultural Heritage and Global Change: a new challenge for Europe
- Agriculture, Food security and climate change
- A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life
- More Years, Better Lives – The Potential and Challenges of Demographic Change
- Urban Europe
- Antimicrobial Resistance
- Healthy and Productive Seas and Oceans
- Water Challenges for a Changing World
10. Connecting Climate Knowledge for Europe (JPI Climate).
Italy participates in all these initiatives through the combined efforts of all concerned ministries and research organizations, including ENEA, under the coordination of the Ministry of Education, University and Research. In particular, our country has been given the overall Coordination of the JPI Cultural heritage and Global Change.
JTIs are a new form of public-private R&D partnerships, fostering research in any specific sector requiring the mobilization of huge public and private resources and investments so that ambitious large-scale goals may be achieved.
The JTIs ARTEMIS and ENIAC are managed under Joint Undertakings established by the European Commission, an industrial association representing all enterprises, universities and research organizations specifically operating in the field of technology and those Member States that have applied for membership.
The JTI ARTEMIS supports research on embedded systems, whereas ENIAC focuses on nano-electronics and microprocessor-manufacturing technologies.
ARTEMIS and ENIAC were both launched in 2007 and their activities will end in 2013. They are financed with EU funds, € 410 million for ARTEMIS and € 440 million for ENIAC, and with national funds amounting to about 1.8 times as much as the Community’s. Italy is represented by the Ministry of Education, University and Research, which has already granted an overall amount of € 70 million drawn from a specific research-dedicated fund (FAR, Fondo per le Agevolazioni alla Ricerca). The Italian participation in both JTIs and the Public Authorities Board are managed and chaired by an ENEA expert, respectively.
JTIs are a new form of public-private R&D partnerships, fostering research in any specific sector requiring the mobilization of huge public and private resources and investments so that ambitious large-scale goals may be achieved.
The JTI FCH (Fuel Cells and Hydrogen) is managed by a Joint Undertaking under the European Commission and an industrial association representing all enterprises, universities and research organizations specifically operating in the field of technology. ENEA is one of the members of this association.
The JTI FCH shall create the necessary conditions for the fuel cells and hydrogen technology to be introduced in the market. This includes creating a critical mass of research resources such as to persuade industries, investors and public authorities to embark on a program with such a long time span. In fact, although many resources are already committed at both Community and national levels, they are still not sufficient to overcome the enormous challenges posed by the actual transition from an oil- to an hydrogen-based economy. A greater and primarily a perfectly coordinated effort is needed at the continental level, to ensure that all European actors in the field share a favorable environment for the continuation of research activities and achieve the ambitious goals set.
Launched in 2008, the JTI FCH will end in 2013 and is financed with EU funds amounting to € 470 million. The Italian participation in FCH is managed by an ENEA expert.
JTIs are a new form of public-private R&D partnerships, fostering research in any specific sector requiring the mobilization of huge public and private resources and investments, so that ambitious large-scale goals may be achieved. The JTI IMI (Innovative Medicines Initiative) is managed by a Joint Undertaking between the European Commission, a pharmaceutical industry association represented by EFPIA (The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations), and IMI member organizations. IMI stems from the European Technology Platform of the same name under the Sixth Framework Programme.
The JTI IMI provides new technologies and instruments aiming at speeding up the development of more efficient and safer medicines, overcoming the typical bottlenecks of pre-competitive research during the drug development process. Research is mainly focused on the development and testing of new techniques and approaches allowing to achieve a higher level of reliability in terms of safety and efficacy of the newly drugs.
Set up in 2007, the JTI IMI manages a € 2 billion budget, of which € 1 billion is contributed by the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme and € 1 billion are in-kind contributions from member companies of EFPIA.
JTIs are a new form of public-private R&D partnerships, fostering research in any specific sector requiring the mobilization of huge public and private resources and investments, so that ambitious large-scale goals may be achieved. The JTI CLEAN SKY (aeronautics and air transport) is managed by a Joint Undertaking between the European Commission and 86 members, of which 12 are leading companies and the remaining are European industries, universities, SMEs and research centres. Some of these organizations are grouped into clusters.
The JTI CLEAN SKY aims at increasing the competitiveness of the European Aeronautical Industry while reducing emissions and noise by speeding up the development of breakthrough technologies for new-generation “green aircraft”. The JTI main target is to reduce, by 2020, CO2 emissions by 50%, NOx emissions by 80%, and noise pollution by 50%, whilst introducing a greener life cycle of products involving all production phases: design, manufacturing, maintenance and disposal/recycling.
Set up in 2007, the JTI CLEAN SKY manages a € 1.6 billion budget, of which € 800 million is contributed by the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme and € 800 million comes from member companies. The JTI is structured into six technical areas called Integrated Technology Demonstrators (ITD): SMART Fixed Wing Aircraft; Green Regional Aircraft; Green Rotorcraft; Systems for Green Operations; Sustainable and Green Engines, and Eco-Design.
Launched on October 4th, 2001 at the European Parliament, the European Climate Research Alliance (ECRA) aims at developing a network of research institutions representing member countries and focusing their activities on the scientific challenges in the field of climate for the next decade. Indeed the network is a key means to strengthen, expand and optimize the European climate research capabilities through the sharing of knowledge and the excellence national research facilities, as well as through a bottom-up approach by realizing collaborative pan-European programmes and infrastructures. Specifically, ECRA’s effort is targeted at the long-term, durable integration of the excellent but often dispersed European research expertise, in the attempt to optimize the use of human resources, the observation capability, the modelling (from global to regional), the interaction between observation and technologies (satellites, new measurements, etc), field activities and infrastructures. By so doing, the impact of scientific results would be maximized and the European climate research reinforced.
Equally important is ECRA’s objective to act as a means to give climate and climate change researchers a single and more authoritative voice so that, on the one hand, the European Union could use ECRA as a technical and knowledge support for developing EU climate and climate change policies, and, on the other, it could consider the experts’ proposals and opinions when identifying the key climate research themes for Europe through the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation "Horizon 2020".
ENEA is one of the founding members of the Alliance, along with the eight leading climate and climate change research centres from Germany, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden. The member research institutions are, respectively: Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres (HFG), Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), Norwegian Meteorological Institute on behalf of the Norwegian Climate Centre (NMI), Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI). Later on, also the National Centre for Atmospheric Sciences (NCAS) in the United Kingdom, and the Global Change Research Centre in the Czech Republic became members of the ECRA Executive Committee. Among the Italian members other than ENEA it is worth mentioning: CNR and AREA Science Park in Trieste.
To date, four Collaborative Programmes have been started:
- Arctic Climate Stability and Change
- High Impact Events and Climate Change
- Sea Level and Climate Change
- Changes in the Hydrological Cycle.
More information at: ecra-climate.eu
PUBLISHED: 31/05/2012
UPDATED: 31/03/2020