Research and Innovation Programs as a Mechanism to Support Collaborative Efforts

Abstract

This chapter briefly explores the European Union (EU) and United States (US) research and innovation programs as a mechanism to support collaborative efforts. It provides an overview and “snapshot” on the programs’ structures and project setting, explaining how these collaborative mechanisms function. The chapter introduces the EU Framework Programme (FP) for Research and Innovation and its current instantiation, Horizon 2020 (H2020). It describes how H2020 allows for international collaboration and in particular how the US research community has been able to participate. The chapter summarizes the mechanisms through which substantive international research collaborations can occur – some of these are not available or have limited availability for EU–US collaboration. It also focuses on the main financial instruments used within the EU FP for research and innovation: collaborative, interorganizational projects.