The European Commission on Tuesday announced the launch of eight public-private partnerships (PPPs) in a bid to boost its industry leadership.

The contracts were signed Tuesday by the Commission and chairpersons of specially-created industrial research and innovation associations, representing more than 1,000 large and small enterprises across Europe.

In a statement, the Commission said the partnerships would leverage more than 6 billion euros (8.26 billion U.S. dollars) of investment to be allocated through calls for proposals under Horizon 2020, the new EU program for research and innovation.

Each euro of public funding is expected to trigger additional investments of between three and 10 euros to develop new technologies, products and services which will give European industry a leading position on world markets, it said.

"We want these contractual PPPs to have a substantial impact on the competitiveness of the EU industry, on sustainable economic growth and the creation of new high-skilled jobs in Europe," said Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, EU Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science.

The PPP areas represent a large part of the European economy. European manufacturing industry, for instance, generated an added value of 1.4 trillion euros in 2010 and accounted for more than one in five European jobs.

Three of the PPPs - factories of the future, buildings and green cars - were first established in 2009 in response to the economic crisis and have shown their success in strengthening European supply chains and innovating key industrial sectors.

The first Horizon 2020 Work Program for 2014-15 foresees around 1.45 billion euros for the eight contractual PPPs.