EU research funding + free software

[Nikos Mavrogiannopoulos]

On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 8:47 AM, Karsten Gerloff <gerloff at fsfeurope.org> wrote:

> Right. Getting funding to Free Software projects is important; but
> surprisingly often, EU projects aren't an effective or efficient
> way of doing it.
> That said, it seems that our work with the Commission over the
> past years has borne some fruit. We had been pushing the EC to
> address exactly the problem you're highlighting, and make it
> easier for Free Software developers to participate without a legal
> entity.
> I discussed this again with an EC project officer, and he told me
> that in Horizon 2020, natural persons can participate. I haven't
> had a chance to review the documentation yet -- feel free to beat
> me to it :-)

Well, at least from my experience with FP7 the typical submission was
from a consortium of companies and universities, I wasn't aware of any
single company/university projects. Getting into such a consortium as
an individual may well be allowed by the EC now (I haven't checked,
although I have no reason to doubt you), but it is not practical. Even
if one would use his contacts from the previous projects (e.g. in my
case from my previous job as a researcher) they would sympathize but
would not allow him to join as an individual in such consortium. They
understand as anyone else that it is risky and close to impossible for
an individual to handle all the required paperwork correctly, and if
he does there would probably not be any time for work. Without
contacts already an individual is also doomed, as a big organization
and university will speak collaborate with another big organization or
university, not with Bob and John to make their project submissions. I
understand though that this would require FSFE to become something
that is currently not.

regards,
Nikos