Excellent Science

H2020’ first Pillar aims to reinforce and extend the excellence of the Union’s science base and to consolidate the European Research Area, improving competitiveness of the Union’s research and innovation system on a global scale.

Excellent Science is developed in direct connection to 4 specific objectives:

1.  
2. The European Research Council (ERC) to enable talented and creative individual researchers and their teams to pursue the most promising avenues at the frontier of science.
3.  
4. Future and emerging technologies (FET) to extend Europe’s capacity for advanced and paradigm-changing innovation: it foster scientific collaboration across disciplines on radically new, high-risk ideas and accelerate development of the most promising emerging areas of science and technology.
5.  
6. Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) to equip researchers with the necessary skills and international experience for a successful career, either in the public or the private sector, and to foster knowledge-exchange opportunities through cross-border and cross-sector mobility of researcher.
7.  
8. Research infrastructure (ESFRI) (including e-infrastructures) to develop European research infrastructure for 2020 and beyond.
9.  

The activities are inherently forward-looking, building skills in the long term, focusing on the next generation of science, technology, researchers and innovations and providing support for emerging talent from across the whole of the Union and associated countries, as well as worldwide.

In this framework, funding arrangements for this pillar are in most cases provided without thematic priorities following a bottom-up approach.