EUROPE: New name for EU 'FP8'

After seven Framework Programmes with a purpose that is hard to understand without the usually omitted additional phrase "for research, technological development", the European Commission has sought to clarify the name of its support programme for European research and technology.

The new name, Horizon 2020, is hardly more informative, but at least it was chosen by popular vote. Two EU citizens - Marcela Endlova, a teacher from the Czech Republic, and Beata Zyngier, also a teacher, from Poland - independently responded to a public call for a new name for the programme with the same idea. Imagine 2020 and Discover 2020 followed closely in an internet vote that attracted 8,318 clicks.

There were only three choices. R&D Europe 2020 was not one of them. A jury had eliminated more than 1,600 alternative suggestions beforehand.

"I was already very clear publicly in my first few weeks in this job that I was interested in having a new name for the Framework Programme," wrote Research, Innovation and Science Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn in a statement announcing the name on 21 June.

"I wanted the decision to be made in a democratic rather than a technocratic way.

"The new name marks another step in our endeavour to establish research and innovation where it belongs, at the centre of EU policy-making. To achieve that in a lasting way, we need to connect with a wider public and give our work a higher profile. So the new name is an important symbol of a new departure and a new adventure."

Horizon 2020 is more than a new name for an eighth Framework Programme.

Horizon 2020 is a redesigned, integrated funding system that will cover all research and innovation funding currently provided through the Framework Programme, the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). As its new name implies, the programme will run until 2020.