15.

For the purposes of this framework, the following definitions apply: (a) ‘ ad hoc aid’ means aid not awarded on the basis of an aid scheme; (b) ‘aid’ means any measure fulfilling the criteria laid down in Article 107(1) of the Treaty; (c) ‘aid intensity’ means the gross aid amount expressed as a percentage of the eligible costs, before any deduction of tax or other charge. Where aid is awarded in a form other than a grant, the aid amount is the grant equivalent of the aid. Aid payable in several instalments is discounted to its value at the date of award. The interest rate to be used for this purpose is the discount rate (13) applicable at the date of award. The aid intensity is calculated per beneficiary; (d) ‘aid scheme’ means any act on the basis of which, without further implementing measures being required, individual aid may be awarded to undertakings defined therein in a general and abstract manner and any act on the basis of which aid which is not linked to a specific project may be awarded to one or several undertakings; (e) ‘applied research’ means industrial research, experimental development, or any combination of both; (f) ‘arm’s length’ means that the conditions of the transaction between the contracting parties do not differ from those which would be stipulated between independent enterprises and contain no element of collusion. Any transaction that results from an open, transparent and non-discriminatory procedure is considered as meeting the arm’s length principle; (g) ‘date of award of the aid’ means the date on which the legal right to receive the aid is conferred on the beneficiary under the applicable national legal regime; (h) ‘effective collaboration’ means collaboration between at least two independent parties to exchange knowledge or technology, or to achieve a common objective based on the division of labour where the parties jointly define the scope of the collaborative project, contribute to its implementation and share its risks, as well as its results. One or several parties may bear the full costs of the project and thus relieve other parties of its financial risks. Contract research and provision of research services are not considered forms of collaboration. (i) ‘exclusive development’ means the public procurement of research and development services of which all benefits accrue exclusively to the contracting authority or contracting entity, and which it may use in the conduct of its own affairs on condition that it fully remunerates them; (j) ‘experimental development’ means acquiring, combining, shaping and using existing scientific, technological, business and other relevant knowledge and skills with the aim of developing new or improved products, processes or services. This may also include, for example, activities aiming at the conceptual definition, planning and documentation of new products, processes or services. Experimental development may comprise prototyping, demonstrating, piloting, testing and validation of new or improved products, processes or services in environments representative of real life operating conditions where the primary objective is to make further technical improvements on products, processes or services that are not substantially set. This may include the development of a commercially usable prototype or pilot which is necessarily the final commercial product and which is too expensive to produce for it to be used only for demonstration and validation purposes. Experimental development does not include routine or periodic changes made to existing products, production lines, manufacturing processes, services and other operations in progress, even if those changes may represent improvements; (k) ‘feasibility study’ means the evaluation and analysis of the potential of a project, which aims at supporting the process of decision making by objectively and rationally uncovering its strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats, as well as identifying the resources required to carry it through and ultimately its prospects for success; (l) ‘full allocation’ means that the research organisation, research infrastructure or public purchaser enjoys the full economic benefit of intellectual property rights by retaining the right to make unrestricted use of them, particularly the right of ownership and the right to license. This may also be the case where the research organisation or research infrastructure (respectively, public purchaser) decides to conclude further contracts concerning those rights, including licensing them to a collaboration partner (respectively, undertakings). (m) ‘fundamental research’ means experimental or theoretical work undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge of the underlying foundations of phenomena and observable facts, without any direct commercial application or use in view; (n) ‘gross grant equivalent’ means the amount of the aid if it had been awarded in the form of a grant, before any deduction of tax or other charge; (o) ‘highly qualified personnel’ means staff having a tertiary education degree and at least five years of relevant professional experience which may also include doctoral training; (p) ‘individual aid’ means aid awarded to a specific undertaking and includes ad hoc aid and aid awarded on the basis of an aid scheme; (q) ‘industrial research’ means the planned research or critical investigation aimed at the acquisition of new knowledge and skills for developing new products, processes or services or for bringing about a significant improvement in existing products, processes or services. It comprises the creation of components parts of complex systems, and may include the construction of prototypes in a laboratory environment or in an environment with simulated interfaces to existing systems as well as of pilot lines, when necessary for the industrial research and notably for generic technology validation; (r) ‘innovation advisory services’ means consultancy, assistance and training in the fields of knowledge transfer, acquisition, protection and exploitation of intangible assets, use of standards and regulations embedding them; (s) ‘innovation clusters’ means structures or organised groups of independent parties (such as innovative start-ups, small, medium and large enterprises, as well as research and knowledge dissemination organisations, non-for-profit organisations and other related economic actors) designed to stimulate innovative activity by promoting sharing of facilities and exchange of knowledge and expertise and by contributing effectively to knowledge transfer, networking, information dissemination and collaboration among the undertakings and other organisations in the cluster; (t) ‘innovation support services’ means the provision of office space, data banks, libraries, market research, laboratories, quality labelling, testing and certification for the purpose of developing more effective products, processes or services; (u) ‘intangible assets’ means assets that do not have a physical or financial embodiment such as patents, licences, know-how or other intellectual property; (v) ‘knowledge transfer’ means any process which has the aim of acquiring, collecting and sharing explicit and tacit knowledge, including skills and competence in both economic and non-economic activities such as research collaborations, consultancy, licensing, spin-off creation, publication and mobility of researchers and other personnel involved in those activities. Besides scientific and technological knowledge, it includes other kinds of knowledge such as knowledge on the use of standards and regulations embedding them and on conditions of real life operating environments and methods for organisational innovation, as well as management of knowledge related to identifying, acquiring, protecting, defending and exploiting intangible assets; (w) ‘large enterprises’ means undertakings which do not fall within the definition of small and medium-sized enterprises; (x) ‘net extra costs’ means the difference between the expected net present values of the aided project or activity and a viable counterfactual investment that the beneficiary would have carried out in the absence of aid; (y) ‘organisational innovation’ means the implementation of a new organisational method in an undertaking’s business practices, workplace organisation or external relations, excluding changes that are based on organisational methods already in use in the undertaking, changes in management strategy, mergers and acquisitions, ceasing to use a process, simple capital replacement or extension, changes resulting purely from changes in factor prices, customisation, localisation, regular, seasonal and other cyclical changes and trading of new or significantly improved products; (z) ‘personnel costs’ means the cost of researchers, technicians and other supporting staff to the extent employed on the relevant project or activity; (aa) ‘pre-commercial procurement’ means the public procurement of research and development services where the contracting authority or contracting entity does not reserve all the results and benefits of the contract exclusively for itself for use in the conduct of its own affairs, but shares them with the providers under market conditions. The contract, the object of which falls within one or several categories of research and development defined in this framework, must be of limited duration and may include the development of prototypes or limited volumes of first products or services in the form of a test series. The purchase of commercial volumes of products or services must not be an object of the same contract; (bb) ‘process innovation’ means the implementation of a new or significantly improved production or delivery method (including significant changes in techniques, equipment or software), excluding minor changes or improvements, increases in production or service capabilities through the addition of manufacturing or logistical systems which are very similar to those already in use, ceasing to use a process, simple capital replacement or extension, changes resulting purely from changes in factor prices, customisation, localisation, regular, seasonal and other cyclical changes and trading of new or significantly improved products; (cc) ‘R&D project’ means an operation that includes activities spanning over one or several categories of research and development defined in this framework, and that is intended to accomplish an indivisible task of a precise economic, scientific or technical nature with clearly pre-defined goals. A R&D project may consist of several work packages, activities or services, and includes clear objectives, activities to be carried out to achieve those objectives (including their expected costs), and concrete deliverables to identify the outcomes of those activities and compare them with the relevant objectives. When two or more R&D projects are not clearly separable from each other and in particular when they do not have independent probabilities of technological success, they are considered as a single project. (dd) ‘repayable advance’ means a loan for a project which is paid in one or more instalments and the conditions for the reimbursement of which depend on the outcome of the project; (ee) ‘research and knowledge dissemination organisation’ or ‘research organisation’ means an entity (such as universities or research institutes, technology transfer agencies, innovation intermediaries, research-oriented physical or virtual collaborative entities), irrespective of its legal status (organised under public or private law) or way of financing, whose primary goal is to independently conduct fundamental research, industrial research or experimental development or to widely disseminate the results of such activities by way of teaching, publication or knowledge transfer. Where such entity also pursues economic activities, the financing, the costs and the revenues of those economic activities must be accounted for separately. Undertakings that can exert a decisive influence upon such an entity, for example in the quality of shareholders or members, may not enjoy a preferential access to the results generated by it. (ff) ‘research infrastructure’ means facilities, resources and related services that are used by the scientific community to conduct research in their respective fields and covers scientific equipment or set of instruments, knowledge-based resources such as collections, archives or structured scientific information, enabling information and communication technology-based infrastructures such as grid, computing, software and communication, or any other entity of a unique nature essential to conduct research. Such infrastructures may be ‘single-sited’ or ‘distributed’ (an organised network of resources) (14); (gg) ‘secondment’ means temporary employment of staff by a beneficiary with the right for the staff to return to the previous employer; (hh) ‘small and medium-sized enterprises’ or ‘SMEs’, ‘small enterprises’ and ‘medium-sized enterprises’ means undertakings fulfilling the criteria laid down in the Commission recommendation on the definition of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (15); (ii) ‘start of works’ or ‘start of the project’ means either the start of R&D&I activities, or the first agreement between the beneficiary and the contractors to conduct the project, whichever comes first. Preparatory works such as obtaining permits and conducting feasibility studies are not considered as start of works; (jj) ‘tangible assets’ means assets consisting of land, buildings and plants, machinery and equipment.