Horizon 2020 and the need to reinvent health technology development.

Pascale Lehoux a , Fiona A Miller b, Genevieve Daudelin a Commenting on the €80 billion Horizon 2020 research programme, Kieran Walshe and colleagues (Aug 24, p 668)1 urge European Parliamentarians to reconsider the role health services and policy research can have in times of financial hardship. Like Walshe and colleagues,1 we doubt the value of a narrow interpretation of the health and wealth agenda that fosters patentable and marketable technological advances. The irony of continued reliance on an economic development model that is so dependent on speculative markets and the deep pockets of public purchasers has to be highlighted.2 Further, because health services and policy research can help us rethink health technology development,3 Parliamentarians would be wise to support raising its share of the health research budget from 4% to 25%.1