An in-depth survey of the Esprit HPCN programme shows that for each ECU of European Commission funding, the projects supported generated 8.4 times that amount in direct business revenues and 2.8 times that amount in indirect effects, such as technology transfer. The results, which recently became available, are based on a survey conducted for the EC by the French consultancy company Beta in the second half of 1996. Originally there were two further partners, but one has gone bankrupt and the other was the same organisation as one of the other participants. The survey measured direct effects and indirect effects of the projects. Direct effects are revenues directly coming out of the project.
Indirect effects are, for instance, technology transfer and improvement of competence.
The survey was conducted by BETA, from July until December 1996. 8 projects out of 9 were considered a technical success by BETA, they rated the project results really innovative. The direct and indirect effects respectively reached 163 million Ecu and 47.7 million Ecu. The ratios between effects and funds amounted respectively to 8.4 and 2.8. These figures present a nice return on investment.