Funding opportunities under Horizon 2020 are set out in multiannual work programmes, released by the European Commission. The current main work programme comprises an introduction, 18 thematic sections and the general annexes, describing general rules such as standard admissibility conditions and eligibility criteria, types of action, selection and award criteria, etc. Each thematic section is self-contained, and describes the overall objectives, the respective calls for proposals, and the topics within each call.
Three are the priorities recognized:
• Excellent Science: the activities included in this section aim to reinforce and extend the excellence of the Union’s science base and to consolidate the European Research Area in order to make the Union’s research and innovation system more competitive on a global scale.
• Industrial Leadership: it aims to speed up development of the technologies and innovations that will underpin tomorrow’s businesses and help innovative European SMEs to grow into world-leading companies.
• Societal Challenges: Horizon 2020 reflects the policy priorities of the Europe 2020 strategy and addresses major concerns shared by citizens in Europe and elsewhere.
Other important sections are:
• Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation: maximising investment in research and innovation will enable the European Research Area to function in a more streamlined and homogeneous way, allowling the individual strengths of each Member State to be optimised.
• Science with and for Society: the aim of this programme is to build effective cooperation between science and society, to recruit new talent for science and to pair scientific excellence with social awareness and responsibility.
• Fast Track to Innovation Pilot: it is a fully-bottom-up measure in Horizon 2020 to promote close-to-the-market innovation activities, and open to all types of participants.
• Cross-cutting activities (focus areas): focus areas address key areas of political relevance and societal concern to provide better solutions and enhance impacts through stronger integration across different Work Programme parts, in particular between the LEITs and the societal challenges.