Horizon 2020 (2014-2020)
Final evaluation of Horizon 2020
Horizon 2020, the EU's research and innovation programme running from 2014 to 2020 with a budget of nearly €80 billion, made a major contribution to building an EU society and economy rooted in knowledge and innovation and benefitted Europeans far beyond what could have been achieved at national or regional level.
The final evaluation of Horizon 2020 was published on 29 January 2024. The programme funded more than 35 000 projects over seven years, calls attracted over a million individual applications from 177 countries.
Enabling rapid response to the COVID-19, Ebola and Zika outbreaks and making a decisive contribution to climate science are just some examples of the tangible impact of Horizon 2020.
Each euro in costs linked to the programme will ultimately bring five euros in benefits to EU citizens by 2040, proving the high value for money of investment in research and innovation for the European society.
Interim evaluation of Horizon 2020
The interim evaluation, published in May 2017, covers the first two years of Horizon 2020’s implementation (2014-2016) and
- assesses the progress of Horizon 2020 towards its objectives
- aims to improve the implementation of Horizon 2020 in its final work programme running from 2018 to 2020.
- reports on the wider long-term impact of previous EU framework programmes
- advises on the design of future EU research programmes, in particular the next programme Horizon Europe which will run from 2021 to 2027
- provided the evidence-base for the Lab-Fab-App report (informally the Lamy report), a report of the high level group on maximizing the impact of EU research and innovation programmes which draws up a vision and strategic recommendations to maximise the impact of future EU research and innovation programmes.
Following the better regulation guidelines, the interim evaluation looked at Horizon 2020 from 5 different angles
- relevance - whether the original objectives of Horizon 2020 are still relevant and how well they still match the current needs and problems
- efficiency - the relationship between the resources used by Horizon 2020 and the changes it is generating
- effectiveness - how successful Horizon 2020 has been in achieving or progressing towards its objectives
- coherence - how well or not the different activities work together, internally and with other EU programmes and policies
- EU added value - assessing the value resulting from Horizon 2020 that is additional to what could be generated by activities at regional or national levels
The evaluation was based on a wide range of sources including:
- internal assessments by Commission services
- external expert group reports
- horizontal and thematic evaluation studies
- the results of the ex-post evaluation of the 7th Framework Programme
- the review of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology
A public stakeholder consultation on the interim evaluation of Horizon 2020 ran from October 2016 until January 2017.
The Commission received nearly 3 500 responses to an online survey, with 78% of respondents stating that they are satisfied or very satisfied with Horizon 2020.
Over 300 position papers were submitted by respondents from nearly 70 countries.
Final evaluation of Horizon 2020
Interim evaluation of Horizon 2020 (key documents)
Interim evaluation of the Euratom research and training programme 2014-2018
Staff Working Document on the European institute of innovation and technology (EIT)
Staff Working Document on Article 187 initiatives
Staff Working Document on Article 185 initiatives
Results of Horizon 2020 stakeholder consultation
Assessment of the Union added value and economic impact of the EU Framework Programmes
7th framework programme (FP7) 2007-2013
The ex-post evaluation of FP7 consists of
- a document in which the Commission responds to the recommendations made by an external high-level expert group and
- a document in which the Commission evaluated the programme on the basis of the five evaluation criteria of the better regulation package (efficiency, effectiveness, coherence, relevance and EU added value)
- FP7 Ex-Post Evaluation High Level Expert Group Report
- Commission response to the report of the High level expert group on the Ex post evaluation of the FP7
- Staff working document on the Ex post evaluation of FP7
- Staff working document on the Ex post evaluation of FP7 (Executive Summary)
- Evaluation of the Euratom indirect actions under FP7