The Irish Presidency secured a political agreement with European Parliament on 25 June on the EU’s €70 billion research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020, is expected to boost jobs and growth across the European Union.

The programme is made up of three pillars:

• Excellent Science, which will include funding for the European Research Council, research infrastructures and future and emerging technologies.

• Industrial Leadership, the truly innovative element of the programme as it contains specific supports for SMEs and for enabling industrial technologies such as nanotechnologies, bio-technologies and ICT.

• Societal Challenges, which will help ensure that research is directed at areas of most concern to citizens and business-such as health, climate, food, security, energy and transport.

Read the speech from JJosé Manuel Durão Barroso, President of the European Commission, marking the occasion of this agreement: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-13-583_en.htm