ANR to coordinate a new ERA-NET

The kick-off meeting of the ERA-NET FLAG-ERA took place on November 12-14 in Amsterdam. This European initiative, coordinated by ANR, gathers 22 research funding agencies, research performing organisations and ministries in Europe around a common goal: supporting the "FET Flagship" projects of the European Commission, in particular the two large-scale projects on graphene and on the human brain. With FLAG-ERA, ANR is now coordinator of four ERA-NET projects.

As a network of research funding agencies and research performing organisations funded by the European Commission, an ERA-NET is an instrument of the EU policy to develop and strengthen the coordination of national research programmes. Those actions materialize for example through the launching of transnational calls for collaborative proposals on selected topics. ANR takes part in those calls and finances the French teams.

The Agency plays an active role in these European-wide initiatives and thereby reaffirms its role of project-based research funder at the European level.

FLAG-ERA, a large-scale initiative focused on two highly-innovative European research projects: the FET Flagships

The ERA-NET FLAG-ERA gathers many European countries and should contribute to building the two FET-Flagship projects: the “Graphene” project, whose goal is to accelerate the development and commercialization of applications using graphene, a material full of promise and the “Human Brain Project” (HBP), which notably aims at creating a highly detailed simulation of the complete human brain by using a supercomputer.

The Flagship projects were selected by the European Commission following an unprecedented two-year European-wide contest on Future and emerging technologies (FET). Each project should receive €1 billion over ten years, half to be provided by the European Commission and half by national partners (States, universities, private sector).

Gathering a large number of European research teams, including French participants, both FET Flagships will aim at unprecedented discoveries and will put Europe at the forefront of science, technology and innovation.

Beyond these two projects, FLAG-ERA will also support the work carried out by the other four pilot projects that were launched during the selection stage but that were finally not selected by the European Commission.

The FLAG-ERA partners will endeavor to coordinate their funding offers in order to facilitate the collaborations between researchers funded via national and European sources of funding in the context of the Flagship projects.

The kick-off meeting of the ERA-NET FLAG-ERA was held on November 12-14 in Amsterdam in the presence of around sixty representatives from 19 countries and from the European Commission.

In focus: ANR and ERA-NETs

ANR is now coordinator of 4 ERA-NETs: FLAG-ERA on the FET Flagships CHIST-ERA, an ERA-NET gathering, since 2010, around15 partners on long term challenges in information and communication sciences and technologies. In that context, a call for proposals is currently open on adaptive machines in complex environments and heterogeneous distributed computing. EuroNanoMed 2 focused on nanomedicine, which could have a major impact on the development of individual diagnosis, targeted therapies and could lead to improved treatment monitoring. It gathers 20 partners from 17 countries. INFECT-ERA. Launched at the beginning of 2013, this network of 14 partners aims at funding interdisciplinary research projects focused on the fundamental aspects of the biology of human infectious diseases, one of the leading causes of death in the world. Since 2006, ANR has participated in 35 ERA-NETs in a large number of areas: information and communication sciences and technologies, biology and health, environment, ecotechnologies, nanoscience, materials, humanities, etc. 286 research collaborative projects co-funded by ANR in the context of calls launched by the ERA-NET consortia between 2006 and 2012. Total grants allocated to the French teams: €86 M.

For further information:

International ccoperation > European Research Area

Last updated on 21 March 2019