EU allocates 54.4B euros for FP7

At its end-May meeting, the Council of the European Union reached agreement on a general approach on the Seventh Framework Program (FP7) for research and technological development (Marketletters passim), pending the European Parliament's opinion.

Following the inter-institutional agreement on the EU's budget for 2007-13, a total of 54.5 billion euros ($69.5 billion) will be allocated for the FP7. This is organized in four specific programs, corresponding to four major objectives of European research policy, as follows:

- cooperation: on collaborative research, with more than 32.0 billion euros allocated; - ideas: which includes the establishment of a European Research Council that would receive s total of 7.5 billion euros' - capacities: dealing with potential research capacities of the EU's small and medium-sized enterprises, with approximately 4.2 billion euros; and - people: for human resources, receiving around 5.0 billion euros.