Answer given by Mr Moedas on behalf of the Commission
27.2.2017
The Commission is aware of the claimed successes in the field of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR).
As mentioned by the Honourable Member, this domain includes a vast array of apparently unrelated phenomena that seem to point to the possibility of nuclear events at relatively low levels of energy, but this is still debated by the scientific community and there is no unanimous agreement on the mechanisms behind the experimental findings.
However, apparently some of these results have been replicated lately, in a few cases by reputed scientists or laboratories.
Such research could in principle be supported by the bottom-up parts of Horizon 2020[1], such as the European Research Council[2] and Future and Emerging Technologies[3], but the mounting body of evidence and the growing investment by companies and governments outside Europe might indeed require an in-depth review and assessment of results to date in view of deciding whether research funding should be granted in this domain. .