Spain is the leading country in collaborative R&D projects in the EU's Horizon 2020 programme

According to this data, Spanish entities coordinate 17% of the collaborative R&D projects financed by this European programme, which places Spain as the leader of these projects. Spain is also the fourth country that obtains the most funds from H2020, behind only Germany, the United Kingdom and France.

Specifically, the total grant obtained by Spanish entities to carry out research and innovation activities amounts to 6.114 billion euros, which represents an increase of 80% compared to the seventh Framework Programme. The return obtained by Spain is 10.4%, compared to 8.3% obtained in the seventh Framework Programme. The return obtained in the Horizon Europe programme also far exceeds Spain's initial target of 9.5%.

With these figures, obtained in a highly competitive environment and based on criteria of excellence, the Framework Programme is one of the main sources of funding for competitive R&D in our country. Spanish entities have also played a major role in H2020. Nearly 12,500 entities have applied for the funding made available by participating in 63,730 proposals. Of these, 3,759 Spanish entities obtained financing, of which 2,737 are companies.

Among Spanish beneficiaries, companies obtain the largest subsidies, with 35.2% of the funding, followed by universities, with 20.8%. The rest of the grant is distributed among research associations (12.3%), technology centres (11.3%), public research centres (11.3%), public administrations (5.5%), associations (3.4%) and European organisations (0.2%).

According to the data on Spanish participation in H2020, all regional governments improve their return compared to seventh Framework Programme and several of them double (the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Castilla y León, and the regions of Valencia, Galicia and Murcia) and even triple (Aragon) their return compared to the seventh Framework Programme.

Globally, 8,457 proposals that obtained H2020 funding have Spanish partners. Specifically, Spain had 15,891 participations, making it the second country in terms of number of participations in H2020.

H2020

Horizon 2020 (H2020) is the European Union's Framework Programme for Research and Innovation for 2014-2020. It has a budget of around 75 billion euros to fund research, technological development and innovation activities.

The Ministry of Science and Innovation manages the participation of Spanish entities in the Framework Programme through the CDTI for technology and innovation (Industrial Leadership and Social Challenges) and the FECYT for science and basic research (Excellent Science), providing information, advice, training, accompaniment and support through expert technical teams and other services such as the Spanish Science and Technology Office (SOST) in Brussels, with the aim of maximising Spanish participation in European programmes and the success rate in their competitive calls.

Non official translation