Portugal's participation in Horizon 2020 with unprecedented results

Almost two years into Horizon 2020 - the Community Framework Program for Research & Innovation, scientists, research units and companies in Portugal have raised 204 million euros in funding, which corresponds to 1.8% of the total funding for the Call. These results represent a significant improvement compared to the 1.15% of funds raised in the previous framework program, FP7, and suggest that the national R&D community is well on its way to achieving the 1.5% target set for the overall 2014-2020 period.

In 2014 Portugal managed to raise a total of around 146 million euros out of the approximately 8.5 billion euros allocated by Horizon 2020 (success rate of 1.75%). With Portugal contributing around 120 million euros in 2014, the country ceased to be a net contributor to this type of funding and managed, for the first time in the history of European competitive funding for science, to obtain more funding than the country invested in the program.

This positive trend continued in 2015: with around a third of the Calls having been completed, the results so far indicate that the country has already captured 2% of the total budget available - again well above the target of 1.5% for the seven-year Horizon 2020 period.

Of the 413 proposals with Portuguese participation that have been approved, 97 have so far been coordinated by Portuguese entities, including 11 from the Twinning program. Twinning makes it possible to establish partnerships between entities from countries considered to have low scientific performance with world-leading European institutions, encouraging the strengthening of scientific capacity and the internationalization of institutions in the eligible countries.

The 11 Portuguese Twinning proposals selected for funding (out of 65 funded at European level), represent around 11.2 million euros, of which 6.17 are earmarked for national institutions, and the rest for international partners who will collaborate with them. The national institutions are the Institute of Molecular Medicine of the University of Lisbon (3 contracts), the 3B's Institute of the University of Minho (2 contracts), INESC-Porto, the Higher Institute of Agronomy of the University of Lisbon, UNINOVA, the University of Coimbra, the University of Lisbon and CIIMAR - Interdisciplinary Center for Marine and Environmental Research.

The overall results of Portugal's participation in H2020 can be consulted here (updated periodically).