The Commission plans a next major step towards a fully electronic administration of EU research and innovation grants. In 2012 the paper-signed financial statements (the so-called “forms C”) for grants in the 7th Framework Programme (FP7) should be replaced by electronic-only forms submitted via a secured IT system in the Participant Portal. For preparing its introduction, the Commission services want to discuss the main features of the planned new approach and the potential impacts on internal processes of beneficiaries. A meeting with a representative group of future users will take place in Brussels on Thursday, 15 December 2011 from 14:00 to 17:00.

To gather feedback from a broadest possible number of interested parties, the event will be webcast. The video will be available during and after the meeting (for a duration of  two months) at the following location:

http://scic.ec.europa.eu/str/index.php?sessionno=ade55409d1224074754035a5a937d2e0

Anybody can contribute to the discussion during the meeting, by sending e-mails to the address indicated next to the video stream. There will be a questions& answers session towards the end of the meeting where we will react to the contributions.

It will also be possible to give feedback after the meeting; a Web forum specifically dedicated to the follow-up of this event will be available at the following location:

https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/forums/research/participants/portal/viewforum.php?f=22

Please note that this forum will be locked at the end of February 2012.

Please distribute this information as widely as possible to FP7 beneficiaries in your constituency. We are looking forward to receive the broadest possible feedback so that the future processes and IT systems for electronic-only submission of FP7 financial statements ("forms C") can be prepared according to the needs of the users.

Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, gave a keynote speech on "The future of Social Sciences and Humanities in Horizon 2020" at the meeting organised at British Academy.

More information available at: http://www.allea.org/Pages/ALL/32/068.bGFuZz1FTkc.html

Video available in the following link:http://ec.europa.eu/research/horizon2020/index_en.cfm?pg=press

A time line for Horizon 2020

From 30/11: Parliament and Council negotiations on the basis of the Commission proposals

Ongoing: Parliament and Council negotiations on EU budget 2014-20 (including overall budget for Horizon 2020)

Mid 2012: Final calls under 7th Framework Programme for Research to bridge gap towards Horizon 2020

By end 2013: Adoption of legislative acts by Parliament and Council on Horizon 2020

1/1/2014: Horizon 2020 starts; launch of first calls

Next steps

From 30/11: Parliament and Council negotiations on the basis of the Commission proposals

5-6 December 2011: Competitiveness Council

5-6 December 2011: Innovation Convention

Ongoing: Parliament and Council negotiations on EU budget 2014-20 (including overall budget for Horizon 2020)

Mid 2012: Final calls under 7th Framework Programme for Research to bridge gap towards Horizon 2020

By end 2013: Adoption of legislative acts by Parliament and Council on Horizon 2020

1/1/2014: Horizon 2020 starts; launch of first calls

More information: http://ec.europa.eu/research/horizon2020/index_en.cfm?pg=home 

Within the context of the EU-funded project NET4SOCIETY a survey-based report entitled: "SSH Experiences with FP7 – a Commentary" was launched in Summer 2010. The overall learning objective of the SSH commentary is to capture a vivid picture of SSH researchers’ opinions and – if possible – experiences on the general structure of Theme 8 “SSH” and on the integration of SSH aspects in the other nine research Themes of the Cooperation programme.

More information on the Net4Society project: www.net4society.eu , the CORDIS website: ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp7/ssh/docs/net4society-fp7-commentary_en.pdf and the Europa website: http://ec.europa.eu/research/social-sciences/books47_en.html