The European Commission has adopted measures to make participation in the EU's current Seventh Framework Programme for Research more attractive and more accessible to the best researchers and most innovative companies, especially Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises.

Research, Innovation and Science Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn stated that these measures will allow many thousands of people to benefit from a funding programme to save time and effort on paperwork and to concentrate on what they do best – working to boost growth and jobs and improve the quality of life in Europe through world class research and innovation.

The Commissioner reiterated that the main aim of the changes will be to attract even more and better applicants, including dynamic small businesses which are finding it difficult to cope with reams of red tape.

More improvements are expected to follow and the Commission has already proposed big changes to the overall financial rules governing all EU funding programmes. The Commission is currently awaiting approval from the European Parliament and European Council which will put forward more radical simplification measures for the successor programme to FP7.

The Commission has adopted three concrete measures with immediate effect with respect to the management of EU research grants in the current EU research programme (FP7). Each of these steps is a response to concerns repeatedly expressed by participants and would-be participants in FP7:

- Allowing more flexibility in the method according to which personnel costs are calculated so that EU research grant-holders can apply their usual accounting methods when requesting reimbursement for average personnel costs. They will hitherto no longer need to set up entire parallel accounting systems just for this purpose;

- SME owners whose salaries are not formally registered in their accounts can now be reimbursed, through flat-rate payments, for their contribution to work on research projects.

- A new steering group of senior officials from all the Commission departments and agencies involved has been tasked to remove inconsistencies in the application of the rules on research funding.

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