Máire GEOGHEGAN-QUINN European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science “The future of Social Sciences and Humanities in Horizon 2020″ Speech at the British Academy London

"When the EU’s heads of state and government discussed the Innovation Union initiative at their meeting on 4 February, they called upon the Commission to bring together all EU research and innovation funding under a common strategic framework to make it both more effective and impactful and easier to access for participants. This common framework has been named Horizon 2020, and it will begin in 2014....Given the importance of developing and providing better access to social sciences data to increase knowledge, innovation and evidence-based policy making, we are planning to launch by 2015 a number of European Research Infrastructure Consortia – commonly called “ERICs” – in the social sciences and humanities. They will play a significant role in reinforcing cooperation between national and EU-level research and innovation policies....While one normally thinks of such infrastructures in terms of particle accelerators or large-scale laser systems, SSH infrastructures are also very important, and these range from the digitalisation of data archives in the fields of history or arts, to open access datasets in areas ranging from ageing to voting behaviours...."