To pursue common research objectives, the European Commission has set up different types of partnerships: Joint Technology Initiatives and Public-Private Partnerships in research. In May 2007, JTIs were established for a limited number of partnerships with ambitious research agendas requiring huge resources to support multinational research activities in areas of major interest to European industrial competitiveness and on issues of high societal relevance: Clean Sky, Fuel Cells and Hydrogen, and Innovative Medicines. In addition, 3 PPPs in research were set up in 2009 in order to boost research efforts in three large industrial sectors strongly affected by the economic crisis: the automotive sector, construction and manufacturing. Thus, these PPPs concern "Green Cars", "Energy-efficient Buildings" and "Factories of the Future".

Questionnaires on the future of JTIs and PPPs

On 17 July the European Commission launched four public consultations on the future of JTIs and PPPs under Horizon 2020: the continuation until 2020 of the JTIs Clean Sky, Fuel Cells and Hydrogen (FCH) and Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI, which will become Life Sciences PPP) and the future PPP on Bio-based Industries. The Commission proposes the continuation of the three existing JTIs and asks respondents for their opinion on their performance and achievements. It also wishes to collect opinions on how to implement future PPPs, and in particular on whether to keep the current JTI model, use a lighter version of the JTIs or contractual PPPs.

Responses to the consultations can be submitted through the four following questionnaires:

• Clean Sky JTI
• Fuel Cells and Hydrogen (FCH) JTI
• Life Sciences PPP (formerly Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI)
• Bio-based Industries PPP

Luxinnovation (as the National Contact Point for FP7) kindly invites all citizens and public or private organisations to fill in the online questionnaires on topics they are interested in to collect the highest number of opinions to achieve their implementation. The deadline for submitting contributions is 4 October 2012 (6 October 2012 for Bio-based Industries PPP).

Consultations on industrial research priority areas

Furthermore, the Factories of the Future (FoF) and the Energy Efficient Buildings (EeB) PPPs have launched a consultation on their Roadmaps for 2020:

• Factories of the Future
• Energy-efficient Buildings

The aim is to identify industrial research priority areas. Both would continue under Horizon 2020 in the form of contractual PPPs.