The European Commission has announced a £695m investment programme in information and communication technology research.

Nano-electronics, mobile communications and broadband technology are among the 276 new research projects the European Union funding will launch.

The projects are the result of the fourth Information Society Technology Call for Proposals under the EU’s sixth Research Framework Programme.

“Investment into research in information and communication technologies is our best-bet contribution to growth and jobs", said information society and media commissioner Viviane Reding.

“However, Europe continues to under-invest considerably in ICT research for lack of sufficient resources both at EU and national level. Today, half the ICT research projects proposed for EU funding have had to be turned down, despite meeting all the requisite quality criteria. If Europe wants to be part of the game of global competition for better ICT services, we need to step up our resources considerably.”

More than 1,300 proposals were submitted to the Information Society Technology Call for Proposals. Of these, 462 met the quality criteria.