Public-private partnerships: delivering innovation and growth in Europe

Through the Horizon 2020 programme, the European Commission aims to support EU-level partnerships as part of the Europe 2020 strategy's target of investing 3 % of gross domestic product (GDP) in research and development (R & D). Overall, the European Commission, EU countries and industry plan to invest more than €22 billion over the next seven years in research and innovation.

ACT

Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Public-private partnerships in Horizon 2020: a powerful tool to deliver on innovation and growth in Europe (COM(2013) 494 final,10.7.2013).

SUMMARY

To encourage EU research and innovation, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) includes two articles which have been used as a legal basis for establishing public-private and public-public partnerships in research and innovation:

• Article 187 TFEU covers public-private partnerships, typically involving the EU, industrial association(s) and other partners. These partnerships are managed by legal entities called joint undertakings which are responsible for implementing the research agenda in the area they cover.
• Article 185 TFEU covers public-public partnerships, with participation of the EU in research and development programmes undertaken by several EU countries.

Public-private partnerships

In meeting the objectives of Horizon 2020 public private partnerships help to:

• enable a long-term, strategic approach to research and innovation and reduce uncertainties by allowing for long-term commitments;
• share common resources and critical mass thanks to their legal structure. This enables a scale of research effort that individual firms would not be able to achieve on their own. This is thanks to smart specialisation and the combining of Horizon 2020 and European structural and investment funding;
• make research and innovation funding across the EU more efficient by sharing financial, human and infrastructure resources. This reduces the risk of fragmentation (i.e. where research is dispersed and uncoordinated), and leads to economies of scale and reduced costs for all partners involved;
• better address complex challenges as they help develop interdisciplinary approaches and allow for a more efficient sharing of knowledge and expertise;
• facilitate the creation of an internal market for innovative products and services, by advancing jointly on critical issues such as access to finance, standardisation and norm setting;
• enable innovative technologies to get faster to the market, including by allowing companies to collaborate and share information, thereby accelerating the learning process;
• provide the right framework for international companies to anchor their research and innovation investments in Europe and benefit from European strengths such as a well-trained workforce, diversity in approaches and sectorial creativity; and
• enable the scale of research and innovation effort needed to address critical societal challenges and major EU policy objectives under the Europe 2020 strategy.

Some of the public-private partnerships under Horizon 2020 involve partnerships that were initially established under EU's seventh framework programme (FP7) for Research and Development (R&D) or are new partnerships:

• Bio-based Industries JTI JU, new under Horizon 2020,
• Clean Sky 2 JTI JU, successor of the Clean Sky JTI JU,
• ECSEL (Electronic Components and Systems for European Leadership - a merger of the former ARTEMIS embedded systems JTI JU and of the former ENIAC nanoelectronics JTI JU, expanded to also address smart systems),
• Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 JTI JU, successor of the FCH JTI JU,
• Innovative Medicines 2 JTI JU, successor of the IMI JTI JU.

Besides the abovementioned JTI JUs, another form of public-private partnership on the basis of Article 187 TFEU also operates under Horizon 2020:

• the Single European Sky ATM Research Joint Undertaking (SESAR JU) established in FP7 will continue in Horizon 2020 (coordination of the technical pillar of the Single European Sky initiative which aims at modernising Air Traffic Management in Europe),
• the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking (S2R JU), new under Horizon 2020 (coordination and management of the Union research and innovation investments in the European rail sector).

Contractual Public-Private partnerships

Under Horizon 2020, these are based on a contractual arrangement between the Commission and industry partners (not under Art. 187 TFEU and different from the abovementioned institutionalised public private partnerships). These contractual public private partnerships were considered in the following areas:

• Factories of the Future;
• Energy-efficient Buildings;
• Green Vehicles Initiative;
• Sustainable Process Industry;
• Photonics;
• Robotics;
• High Performance Computing;
• Advanced 5G networks for the Future Internet.

Public-public partnerships

Article 185 TFEU enables the EU to participate in research programmes undertaken jointly by several EU countries, including participation in the structures created for the execution of national programmes.

Some of the public-public partnerships under Horizon 2020 involve partnerships that were launched under previous Framework Programmes (FP6 or FP7) for R & D or are new partnerships:

• the Active and Assisted Living Research and Development Programme,
• the second European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP 2),
• the European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research (EMPIR),
• the Eurostars 2 programme supporting research and development performing SMEs.

RELATED ACTS

1291/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2013 establishing Horizon 2020 - the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2014-2020) and repealing Decision No 1982/2006/EC (Official Journal L 347, 20.12.2013, pp. 104-173).

Last updated: 19.05.2014