The EU Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas, met last week in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Economy and Industry Eli Cohen, to discuss Israel’s successful participation in Horizon 2020, the EU’s research and innovation funding programme.

The Commissioner also had a working breakfast with Israeli women innovators, which included finalists of the EU Prize for Women Innovators. He also visited Be’er Sheva’s Advanced Technologies Park and met with students and industry figures to discuss the growing tech community in Be’er Sheva. Together with leading Israeli researchers, he celebrated the 10th anniversary of the European Research Council (ERC).

“Horizon 2020 is open to the world, and Israel’s participation is a clear testament to the mutual benefits of this openness. It has enabled excellent cooperation with European researchers in a wide variety of fields, but also support for individual Israeli researchers doing ground-breaking research,” said Commissioner Moedas.

Head of EU Delegation in Israel, Ambassador Lars Faaborg-Andersen said: “EU-Israel cooperation in technology and innovation has never been stronger. Israel benefits greatly from the Horizon 2020 programme, not only the researchers, companies and universities which participate, but also Israeli people from the products and services which they develop and design using this funding. This is the real back-bone of the Start-Up Nation”.

Israel was the first non-European country to be associated to the EU’s research and innovation programmes which are among the largest publicly funded R&D schemes in the world. The current programme, Horizon 2020 has a budget of nearly €77 billion for 2014-2020, and is the leading source of competitive public funding for research in Israel. The participation of Israel in the EU Framework Programmes is managed by ISERD, the Israel Europe Research and Innovation Directorate, who has been responsible for the last 20 years to advance Israel’s successful participation in the Framework programs

The association to Horizon 2020 provides Israeli researchers, universities and companies with full access to the programme. Over the last 20 years, Israeli participants in over more than 3250 projects have received over €1.7 billion in EU funding. Israel’s association to Horizon 2020 also makes it one of few non-EU countries eligible for the “European Capital of Innovation“, a contest currently under way where the winning city will receive a million euro prize.

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Press release

EU Neighbours – Israel

EU Delegation to Israel – website