Morten Østergaard offers a welcome to the Danish EU Presidency 2012

Climate change, energy crises, an ageing population, increased global competition, recession and debt crisis. Europe's challenges are great.

Future growth and prosperity in Denmark and the rest of Europe depends on European cooperation in research, innovation and education, in close collaboration with the business community.

This focus will mark the Danish Presidency, where Denmark in the first six months of 2012 will plan and lead the work of the Council of the European Union.

World's largest research programme

Horizon 2020 is a new research framework programme that will prepare Europe to tackle the great societal challenges. The programme’s negotiations will begin during the Danish Presidency.

Horizon 2020 will ensure a closer connection between research and innovation, as well as helping more new research results transform to marketable solutions. Therefore, the participation of small and medium businesses will be strengthened in the new programme.

The European Commission is paving the way for Horizon 2020 to encompass all existing EU programmes pertaining to research and innovation. Our aim is to achieve agreement between Member States on the overall objectives and structure of Horizon 2020 during the Danish Presidency.

Unfortunately, EU programmes are often associated with bureaucracy. Denmark will work to ensure Horizon 2020 is a flexible programme without undue paperwork and lengthy application procedures.

Other important initiatives of the Danish Presidency's research and innovation agenda include the European Earth monitoring programme (GMES), the European Atomic Energy Community's (Euratom) 8th framework programme, as well as a strategic innovation agenda for the European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT).

25 years on and still popular

It is not just researchers who become smarter through sharing their knowledge across Europe. The same is also true of students. 2012 marks the 25th year since the first students could study abroad with a grant from the EU's Erasmus programme.

Since 1987, more than 2.5 million students have studied abroad with help from an Erasmus grant. Of those students, 35,000 have been from Denmark. They have all had the unique opportunity to improve their general and academic skills and have had the experience of a lifetime.

The Danish Presidency and the European Commission will be celebrating Erasmus with a conference in May 2012. The conference will focus on the programme's significant impact on European higher education and participants will look at perspectives for the future of the Erasmus programme.

The European Commission has presented a proposal for a new all-inclusive European education and youth programme that will support mobility and international education cooperation. The Danish Presidency will begin negotiations on the new programme during early 2012.

I am very much looking forward to the many great and important tasks faced by the Danish EU Presidency in 2012.