IntroductionThe birth of the laser 50 years ago unleashed a revolution in the world of photonics. Today photonics technologies are everywhere around us: from communications and health, to materials processing in production, to lighting and photovoltaics and to everyday products like DVD players and mobile phones.     Europe has a long tradition in optics research and has now developed a high level of expertise in photonic technologies with many high-quality research groups in universities and public research centres and many strong industries. Overall, there are more than 5000 companies, mostly SMEs, employing almost 300,000 people. The European photonics industry is market leader in several key photonics sectors, such as communications, biophotonics, lighting, photovoltaics, industrial laser technologies, and safety and security, with market shares ranging from 20% to 45% (according to [1], the global production volume in photonics was €270 billion in 2008).     Many European photonics players are clustered around so-called photonics regional innovation clusters and national technology platforms. These clusters are usually industry-academia partnerships which aim to tackle market fragmentation by combining and focusing R&D, education and training resources at regional or at national level. They have the necessary critical mass in terms of size and range of activities and a sort of political recognition to act on behalf of their members. Today, there are more than 30 photonic clusters developed in many countries of the European Union (EU), in particular Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. For an overview, see [2].     In order to overcome the regional and national barriers and to establish Europe as a leader in photonic technologies, in 2006, the majority of the leading industries, universities and research centres founded Photonics21, the European Technology Platform (ETP) in photonics [1]. The mission of Photonics21 is to establish strategic links, co-ordinate common efforts in photonics R&D in Europe, and transform knowledge into leading-edge technologies and products which are competitive on a global scale. Photonics21 plays a key role in the definition of national priorities in photonics and optics related research programmes in several EU countries. The platform has defined medium to long-term R&D objectives and recommendations for photonics in Europe in its strategic research agenda [3]. This agenda is valuable input for defining the photonics key research priorities that the EU funds under its research framework programmes.      The EU supports photonics research for several years now. For example, in the period 2002–2006, around 50 photonics research projects were funded under the EU’s 6th research framework programme (FP6) for approximately €130 million. Under the 7th research framework programme (FP7, 2007–2013), the EU has further increased its financial support to photonics research and, since early 2007 it has created a dedicated Photonics Unit.      The remainder of this paper is organised as follows: Section 1 briefly presents the EU’s research framework programmes and the mission and objectives of the Photonics Unit. It then describes the main challenges and R&D priorities which the unit is supporting under FP7 and provides representative examples of EU-funded photonics research projects. Finally, section 2 presents the way forward for EU photonics research.

Figure 1. Geographical distribution of recognized photonic innovation clusters (open stars) and national technology platforms (blue stars) in Europe.