In the German science community, the universities of applied sciences (UAS) with their application-oriented research and development make a major contribution to securing the prosperity and innovative capacity of our society. At the national level, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research supports application-oriented research at UAS through the Research at Universities of Applied Sciences programme. However, UAS are still underutilising their research potential within the European Research Area.

The Horizon 2020 European Framework Programme for Research and Innovation focuses on innovation-oriented projects aimed at taking on social challenges. It thus offers universities of applied sciences, with their strongly application-oriented research priorities, greater opportunities for funding in the future. Therefore, EU-Antrag-FH funding gives professors at UAS the opportunity to prepare themselves thematically to submit an EU proposal.

In combination with EU-Strategie-FH, EU-Antrag-FH is intended to prepare UAS  both strategically and thematically for the challenge of the new Horizon 2020 European Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, with the aim of better exploiting the existing research potential of the universities of applied sciences.

With this EU-Antrag-FH, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research aims to increase the participation of UAS in Horizon 2020 as partners – or even as coordinators – of EU research proposals. Specific support is to be provided for the preparation and submission of concrete project applications to the EU. Funding is based on the current calls for proposals for Horizon 2020, which were published by the European Commission and whose latest submission deadline is the end of 2020.

In particular, the funding is intended to give universities of applied sciences the opportunity to pursue and expand research projects on an international scale that are currently being conducted within the framework of the BMBF’s Research at Universities of Applied Sciences programme or within the framework of other state or federal funding.