Cooperation

The Specific Programme “Cooperation” within FP7 addresses the need to strengthen competitiveness and to underpin EU policies through the gaining of leadership in key scientific and technological areas. This need will be met by supporting research cooperation of the highest level of excellence between universities, industry, research centres and public authorities across the European Union as well as the rest of the world.

The main activities of this Specific Programme will be to bring together resources, disciplines, scientific excellence, critical mass, knowledge and synergies which could not be attained at national level. The better integration of European R&D will be achieved through, improved coordination of national policies, EU wide dissemination of results, creation of pan-European research teams and networks , and addressing pan-European policy challenges.

Thus the overarching aim of the “Cooperation” Specific Programme is to contribute to sustainable development within the context of promoting research at the highest level of excellence. The objective is to support transnational co-operation in a number of thematic areas corresponding to major fields of the progress of knowledge and technology, where research must be supported and strengthened to address European social, economic, environmental and industrial challenges.

The ten themes determined for EU action are the following:

• Health;
• Food, Agriculture and Biotechnology;
• Information and Communication Technologies;
• Nanosciences, Nanotechnologies, Materials and new Production Technologies;
• Energy;
• Environment (including Climate Change);
• Transport (including Aeronautics);
• Socio-economic Sciences and the Humanities;
• Security;
• Space

All these thematic areas have specific objectives which outline the activities that can be supported and these can be found in their respective Work Programmes.

The budget for the Specific Programme “Cooperation” is of €32,292 million over the whole duration of FP7. This budget is split between the different thematic areas and the budget allocated to the specific objectives within the thematic areas can be found in the Work Programmes.

Indicative budget for Thematic areas in Specific Programme “Cooperation”