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The Research Executive Agency (REA) manages large parts of the Seventh Framework Programme for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration Activities (FP7) and provides evaluation services for FP7. The Agency was set up in 2008 in Brussels for the lifetime of FP7. As an executive agency, it focuses on management tasks outsourced by the European Commission and fosters efficiency when addressing the research community's needs. Although FP7 runs until 2013, the REA is expected to remain in place until 2017 in order to finish managing the projects. The life of the REA may, or may not, then be extended depending on the Communities’ decisions on research funding subsequent to FP7.

The REA has its own legal personality, but is supervised and controlled by the European Commission, in particular by the directorates general with research portfolios: DG Research, DG Enterprise, DG Information Society and Media , and the transport section of DG Transport and Energy. The REA's Steering Committee is composed of representations from its parent DGs (DG Research and DG Enterprise) and the Commission's DG for Personnel and Administration. The Information Society and Media DG and the Transport and Energy DG have observer status. The REA has no responsibility for research policy – all research-related policy remains within the relevant directorates general of the European Commission.

The parts of FP7 that the REA manages are:

• The Marie-Curie Actions of the People Programme
• The SME-specific activities of the Capacities Programme
• A large part of the Space and the Security themes from the Cooperation Programme
• In addition, a major role of the REA is to provide and manage the evaluation facilities across the entire framework programme (except evaluation facilities for the Ideas Programme, which is entirely managed by the European Research Council).