WGMApril06/EN
WG MEthodology
7 APRIL 2016
Item 3.2of the agenda
Research and Innovation
Horizon2020
Eurostat1WGM April 2016/EN
Research and Innovation – Horizon2020
1Background –Horizon2020
Horizon 2020 (H2020) is the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme ever with nearly €80 billion of funding available over 7 years (2014 to 2020).
The first Horizon 2020 Work Programme (for 2014-2015) was established towards the end of 2013, and included some research opportunities with a potential link to official statistics[1]. However, it appears that, owing to the lack of an explicit link between official statistics on the Work Programme, consortia including NSIs have rarely been successful in bidding for Horizon 2020 funding over the past years.
The Horizon 2020 research Framework programme[2] has been established in line with the CommissionCommunication “A Budget for Europe 2020”[3]. It wholly supports the Europe 2020 strategy, which identifies research and innovation as central to achieving the objectives of smart,sustainable and inclusive growth.
The current Horizon 2020 work programme for 2016-2017was published in October 2015.
2 H2020 calls of relevance to the Official Statistics
Eurostat has analysed the work programme and indicated Horizon2020 calls relevant for Official Statistics on the CROS portal. These calls mainly relate to the seven societal challenges:
- Health, demographic change and wellbeing;
- Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and maritime and inland water research, and the bBioeconomy;
- Secure, clean and efficient energy;
- Smart, green and integrated transport;
- Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials;
- Europe in a changing world - inclusive, innovative and reflective societies;
- Secure societies - protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens.
A number of these calls require statistical expertise; search for appropriate indicators, modelling and data mining.Needin exploiting new sources and data integration is largely envisaged.
2.1Call explicitly targeting official statistics
An explicit reference in the heading to oOfficial statistics can be found in thecall CO-CREATION-07-2017: Towards a new growth strategy in Europe – Improved economic and social measurement, data and official statistics.
This call has two different actions: a(a) Research and Innovation action – directed to the improvement of tangible and intangible investments, capital stock and the composition of labour inputs at industry level and/or firm level; and a(b) Coordination and Support action focuses on growth approaches, social, environmental and sustainable indicators, new consumption models and “Beyond GDP” domain.
Official statisticsis central for this project; proposal should incorporate a strong statistical methodological component focusing on obtaining consistency, representativity/social inclusion (in particular when innovative data collection methods are used) and measures of uncertainty.
Disaggregation of statistics - geographically, or by other domains (e.g. identifying vulnerable population groups) is a key issue of this call, as well as metadata and other aspects of quality of statistics. At the same time data protection concerns should be addressed.
2.2Calls related to Big Data
There is a very large number of calls in the 2016-2017 work programme related to Big Data. For many of those there is no apparent link to official statistics research. However, there are some notable exceptions, which members of the official statistics research community are strongly encouraged to examine in detail with a view to preparing project consortia.
A remarkable example is the call CO-CREATION-06-2017: Policy-development in the age of big data: data-driven policy-making, policy-modelling and policy-implementation – (a) Research and Innovation Action. The aims aremethodological development for using Big Ddata in policy development, assessment of economic, political, ethical and legal premises and implication of Bbig Ddata practices; developingof methods and tools for compilation analysis and visualization of data, developing of methods for metadata schemes, data linking or for reconciliation of multiple data sets for coherence; data mining methods for policy modelling and simulation.
The call SC1-PM-18–2016: Big Data supporting Public Health policies foresees proposal acquisition, management, sharing, modeling processing and exploiting data to develop integrated solutions that support public health authorities of Member States and associated countries in particular in healthcare system management, long-term policy making and increase the ability to provide actionable insights at the point of care.
Big Data exploitation is relevant for many other calls of the societal challenges listed above, for example MG-8.2-2017 -Big data in Transport: Research opportunities, challenges and limitation.
2.3Other calls requiring statistical expertise
Other calls require statistical expertise in the consortium:
In the call SC6-REV-INEQUAL-2016-2017 Intra-EU mobility and its impacts for social and economic systems 1) Social and economic impact of intra-EU mobility , research should investigate patterns and networks of intra-EU mobility... It should map the paths of their geographical mobility and devise a set of innovative comparative cross-country indicators of mobility…Research may also consider the socio-economic impact on (predominantly) sending Eastern European countries including reverse migration… issues to be explored may include remittances, loss of human capital, impact of migration on family life(separations, impact on children and the elderly) and local communities, gender, equality, demographic trends as well as the impact on the tax base and labour market. …Research could also consider whether and to what extent intra-EU mobility relates to inequalities, in particular whether and to what extent it helps to reverse or exasperates existing inequalities and/or generates new ones.
The aim of REV-INEQUAL-03-2016 Dynamics of inequalities across the life-course is to contribute to exploring the underlying dynamics, structures processes and measurement of inequality across life-courses and contribute to better understanding some of the most pressing problems of present-day society related to inequality and social cohesion...research should compare the life-courses of different generationsin Europe and alsoset them into relation to disposable time and income. Comparisons should be made between time-use patterns of various generations, whereby special attention should be paid to the elderly, gender differences and of rural and urban populations in Europe, in order to investigate the conditioning factors of disposable time at various stages of the life-course at both the individual and structural level… Research should examine how crucial points in the life-course of individuals and crucial demographic events can precipitate or mitigate the risk of poverty and social exclusion. It should disentangle the impact of past events and current circumstances on later outcomes. Research could also address issues such as intergenerational justice. It may be opportune to employ demographic modelling. Research should provide the evidence base for effectively planning time in the working environment, but also insights on how relevant policies, such as pension, employment including extended working life, social, housing or education policies, can provide the frameworks in which men and women feel that they can use their life time in a manner they experience as healthy, comfortable and fair. Research should make recommendations regarding possible harmonization of European data sources available to study inequalities.
Whereas In call EE-08-2016: Socio-economic research on consumer's behaviour related to energy efficiencycalls for empirical research is needed to better understand consumer's decision making to improve the design of future energy efficiency policies in such a way that existing barriers can be removed, to better reflect the behaviour of consumers in energy models and also to better reflect the impact of energy efficiency policies on the different consumers' decision making processes in energy models.
3Action needed by NSIs wishing to participate in H2020 calls
3.1Scan and contribute to the current work programme (2016-2017)
As the list provided above is by no means exhaustive, NSIs are invited to closely examine the full programme in order to identify the calls that better aligned with their strategic goals and where they can significantly contribute.
3.2Network and build consortia
Furthermore, as many calls require multidisciplinary skills, it is essential to build consortia embracing NSIs, rResearchers from different fields and possibly also private partners.
Eurostat endeavors to draw the attention of the official statistics research community to calls regarding research of potential relevance to official statistics. [hahnmar1]Moreover, NSIs are encouraged invited to exchange experiences, learn about the state-of-the art within a domain, and network with a view to submit research project proposals for Horizon 2020. Opportunities for doing so include e.g. the forthcoming to participate at theESS visualisation workshop (presented under agenda item 4):
At that workshop, ESS NSIs are given the opportunity to exchange experiences, learn about the state-of-the art within the domain, and network with a view to submit research project proposals for Horizon 2020.
There will also be ample room for networking at and conferences such as CESS 2016 and NTTS2017.
3.3Submit proposals
Is should be noted that Eurostat is not involved at all in the submission procedure; any submission takes place via the Participant portal, and it is the Participant portalthat is the authoritative source of information regarding submission of research proposals.
3.4Envisage potential cContributionse to the upcoming work programme (2018-2020)
NSIs are also invited to already start monitoring the steps for the next Work Programme (2018-2020).
Stakeholder consultations for the work programme 2018-2020 will take place primarily in the first half of 2016. Each thematic section will organise consultations in the way that is best suited to the respective subject and the respective target groups.
Open consultations are already open for:
Future and Emerging Technologies: two dedicated consultations, about FET Proactive and FET Flagships respectively (until 30 April 2016)
Mathematics for Excellence in Science in Horizon 2020(until 30 April 2016).
Open consultations are planned for:
- Food Security, Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry, Marine, Maritime and Inland Water Research and the Bioeconomy – Early 2016
More section-oriented information on the consultations and the preparation of the current and the next work programmes can be found for the following topics:
Future and Emerging Technologies
Information and Communication Technologies
Societal Challenge 1(Health, demographic change and wellbeing)
Societal Challenge 2 (Food Security, Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry, Marine, Maritime and Inland Water Research and the Bioeconomy)
Societal Challenge 4 (Smart, Green and Integrated Transport)
Societal Challenge 5 (Climate Action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials)
Innovation in SMEs
Access to Risk Finance
Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation
Eurostat1WGM April 2016/EN
[1]
[2]Proposal for a Council Decision establishing the Specific Programme Implementing Horizon 2020 - The FrameworkProgramme for Research and Innovation (2014-2020); COM(2011) 811 final.
[3]COM(2011) 500 final
[hahnmar1]What else are we going to do? Can you provide examples/be more concrete?