Austria seeks to gain large fund from EU research program

Austria aims to receive a 1.5 billion-euro (2 billion U.S. dollars) share of the EU's "Horizon 2020" research and innovation program this year, Minister of Science Reinhold Mitterlehner said Tuesday. The program's funding totals nearly 108 billion U.S. dollars and will be distributed over the seven years from 2014 to 2020 as part of the EU financial framework. The 2 billion U.S.dollars sum would be double the fund obtained from the previous iteration of the program, Mitterlehner said at the Horizon 2020 launch conference in Vienna, Der Standard reported. In order to secure greater funding, the Minister said he will seek increased advice from local Austrian companies and institutions. In addition, he hopes the creation of a new advisory body "European Research Area Council Forum Austria" headed by former President of the European Research Council (ERC) Helga Nowotny is able to lure increased grants. He also said the Horizon 2020 program reflected the entire "innovation chain," from base research through to operations research. European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science Maire Geoghegan-Quinn said Austria was excellent in the field of research and technology, which put it in a very good position to succeed in the Horizon 2020 program. She added the program was intended to bring results that "people could notice in their lives."