The 79 billion euro Horizon 2020 programme (2014-2020) has three priorities: excellent science, industrial leadership and societal challenges.

The European Commission’s published the 2019 European Innovation Scoreboard and Regional Innovation Scoreboard. The data shows that the EU’s innovation performance has been improving for four years in a row. On average, the innovation performance of the EU has increased by 8.8% since 2011. Sweden is the 2019 EU innovation leader, followed by Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands. 

For the 2021-2027 programming period, the Horizon 2020 programme will be replaced by the Horizon Europe programme with 21 billion euros more than its predecessor. The budget will therefore increase to €100 billion.