Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the "Follow-up, evaluation and optimisation of the economic and social impact of RTD: from the Fifth Framework Programme towards the Sixth Framework Programme"

(2000/C 367/15)

On 2 March 2000, the Economic and Social Committee, acting under Rule 23(3) of its Rules of Procedure, decided to draw up an opinion on the: "Follow-up, evaluation and optimisation of the economic and social impact of RTD: from the Fifth Framework Programme towards the Sixth Framework Programme".

The Section for the Single Market, Production and Consumption, which was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 1 September 2000. The rapporteur was Mr Bernabei.

At its 375th plenary session (meeting of 21 September 2000) the Economic and Social Committee adopted the following opinion by 46 votes to one.

1. Recommendations

WHEREAS

1.1. the new strategy and innovative integrated approach of the Fifth Framework Programme, aiming to solve the problems of individuals, companies and society, have gained the confidence of the Community institutions and their national partners;

1.2. there is still a need to raise the profile and boost the impact of Community research, and for it to take account of the new challenges posed by globalisation, an increasingly knowledge-based economy, and enlargement of the European Union in the near future;

1.3. there is a need to carry out a preliminary critical analysis of the inherent management, organisational and architectural shortcomings which keep the Fifth Framework Programme from achieving its ambitious objectives;

1.4. there is an urgent need to switch from a project funding approach to one based on quality and excellence, achievement of results and follow-up, which should underpin the legitimacy, assessment and correction of integrated research efforts;

the Economic and Social Committee

1.5. calls on the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council, during the forthcoming review of the Fifth Framework Programme, and with a view to optimising its social and economic impact, to:

1.5.1. boost and enhance the mechanism for key actions, whose lifecycle must be justified by evaluation, monitoring, assessment and planning mechanisms;

1.5.2. apply an approach that favours a few clusters of projects of sufficient critical mass, involving all players and in particular end-users and SMEs, with targeted action to involve smaller firms and craft industries which have considerable potential for development, innovation and technology transfers;

1.5.3. fine-tune those aspects of the horizontal programmes which prevent them from linking up with vertical actions, thus making the "announced" matrix approach meaningless and ineffective, in terms of coordination, innovation units and mid-term scrutiny of technological implementation plans;

1.5.4. implement internal and external coordination responsibilities for programmes and key actions, and for innovation units which are currently powerless, unfunded and unserviced. The mechanism for technological implementation plans should also be reviewed, with a view to strengthening mid-term controls;

1.5.5. simplify procedures and cut their costs;

1.5.6. clarify and harmonise selection and evaluation criteria, with particular regard to socio-economic factors and European value added, and avoiding over-evaluation.

1.6. Regarding the preparations for the Sixth Framework Programme, the Committee calls on the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council to:

1.6.1. prepare a Community strategy based on a core of shared priorities and focusing on a much more limited number of key actions;

1.6.2. launch - as part of this strategy - a technological offensive capable of harnessing all the strengths of the European system (e.g. business, universities and research centres, Community, national and local authorities) and maintaining a high degree of EU governance;

1.6.3. establish and consolidate an open Distributed Strategic Intelligence system for science and technology policy makers, to spark a continuous cycle of information, monitoring, evaluation, assessment and forecasting. This will require the support of the JRC, in its new inter-institutional role, with particular help from the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS);

1.6.4. extend the subsidiarity principle to Community research, in order to recognise and define areas of competence, skills and responsibilities at the various levels;

1.6.5. establish a Community-wide policy of focusing research on a limited number of priorities, with a few major medium/long-term projects, a high level of critical mass, and under the direct control of the Commission, in order to guarantee excellence, European value added and follow-up;

1.6.6. provide for the decentralised management at national and local level of small-scale projects, with simplified procedures and managed by accredited decentralised bodies, sometimes using global subsidies. Here SMEs and new firms will require financial engineering mechanisms such as the Joint European Venture, fully exploiting the "euro effect" from 2002 on;

1.6.7. also provide for decentralised management of grants, training and mobility, safeguarding the trans-national criterion and that of the link with the Community's strategic priorities;

1.6.8. launch a new Community RTD action at regional level to boost technological innovation and research infrastructure for the needs of industry and academia, with inter-regional networks working closely with EU regional and information society policies;

1.6.9. implement the relevant Treaty instruments, particularly variable geometry, Community co-funding and joint undertakings as specified in the Treaty. In particular, variable geometry must be applied to the centres of excellence and expertise network;

1.6.10. streamline and simplify all management procedures, with differentiated arrangements for the major priority projects and smaller scale projects, which must have user-friendly, simple, rapid decentralised procedures;

1.6.11. entrust the Commission with the task of coordinating and guaranteeing the cost-effective operation of the strategic intelligence cycle, controls on quality, excellence and transparency, launching inter-programme and inter-key action links, and ensuring operational accessibility with other relevant Community policy programmes and initiatives.

2. Objectives, aims and limitations of this opinion

2.1. While welcoming the new multi-annual planning approach to research, technological development and demonstration introduced by the Fifth Framework Programme, the Committee listed a number of areas that would demand attention if the programme was to be assured of success.

2.2. The aim of the present own-initiative opinion is chiefly to examine whether and to what extent the new approach has responded or is responding to its declared objectives and to the expectations of research operators and users, policy makers and, more generally, Europe's society and public.

2.3. This is not an end in itself, designed only to help justify past actions, but it is intended:

- to improve understanding of current performance,

- to pinpoint necessary adjustments to Community policy in terms of flexibility, efficiency and transparency,

- and to map a future joint strategy, as required for the gradual preparation of the Sixth Framework Programme 2002-2006, together with the other instruments provided for under Title XVIII of the EC Treaty, in particular Articles 165, 168, 169 and 171.

2.4. The Committee is aware of the shortcomings inherent in this exercise, owing to the limited time available between the actual launch of the Fifth Framework Programme and the specific programmes and the implementation to date of the associated work programmes, calls for tender, selection and conclusion of contracts, and the inadequacy of existing structures for information, monitoring, evaluation, assessment and forecasting.

2.5. To these should be added technical difficulties and epistemological shortcomings in the current systems for assessing social and economic impact, and the need to strike a proper balance between short-term needs and medium/long-term research, and to avoid convoluted and unmanageable assessment systems.

2.6. The Committee believes that the new integrated approach to research and technological innovation, which the Union intended to be more flexible and more focused on solving problems for the public, business and society, is a step in the right direction, as long as implementation is simple, efficient, transparent and user-friendly and that it complies with the stated objectives. The Committee believes there is a need for an on-going, systematic evaluation process which must be interactive with the various operators and the various stages of activity and must form an integral part of the social process of research and innovation. It must spawn a common language to stimulate a universally accepted dynamic of knowledge production, circulation and dissemination and encourage acceptance of science, inter alia through the use of satisfactory wide-ranging risk assessment.

3. The current background to Community RTD

3.1. The Community's Fifth RTDD Multiannual Programme came into force in March 1999 and will expire in 2002; this programme applies in full the Decisions of the Council and the European Parliament of 22 December 1998(1) on the Community and Euratom Framework Programmes and the Council Decisions of 25 January 1999 on the Specific Programmes(2), thereby concluding the adoption procedure provided for in Articles 166 et seq. of the EU Treaty and in Articles 7 et seq. of the Euratom Treaty, further to which the Economic and Social Committee has delivered opinions both on referral and on its own initiative(3), at the various stages of the Programme's implementation.

3.2. The new strategy and integrated innovation approach focusing on solutions to the problems of individuals, companies and society, have secured the consensus of the institutions and their European and national partners and triggered a radical revolution in Community RTDD activities. This has led to the incorporation of new factors of socio-economic relevance into research action, greater consistency of outlook with other Community policies and an increasingly widespread commitment to rectify the European innovation paradox.

3.3. This strategy, which has placed problem-solving at the centre of research activities by enlisting the cooperation of the various research players and users, has produced a number of consequences, some of which are difficult and complex:

3.3.1. the need for "simultaneous engineering" was to bring several different disciplines and categories of research, ranging from basic core research to applied research and technological innovation and demonstration projects, together with a variety of players (academics, SMEs, public and private research centres, industrial firms, end users) in a forward-looking development drive mobilising from the very start the ingredients for a dynamic transformation of results into industrial and commercial success;

3.3.2. research efforts were to be inserted within a global strategic framework for a competitive Community RTD policy; this was to provide a common point of reference at European, Community, national and regional level so as to promote consistency and enhance the competitiveness of the European system;

3.3.3. the creation of new procedural, management and consultative frameworks tailored to the framework programme's new integrated approach was to be reflected in information packages and annual work programmes as well as in procurement tenders focusing more closely on the problems involved. This was intended to encourage the spontaneous building of ex-ante clusters, with corresponding administrative structures and managers' professional profiles, defining precise criteria and arrangements for selection and feedback to the initiators;

3.3.4. setting in motion arrangements for the technological and industrial monitoring, evaluation and assessment of RTDD projects was meant to ascertain their efficiency and effectiveness in attaining the set objectives while at the same time guaranteeing that they were flexible and suited to meet the dictates of the new challenges. In this way the foundations were to be laid for preparing the scenarios required by the political decision-makers if the new strategic options were to work properly within a flexible framework;

3.3.5. the need to mobilise a critical mass of resources on a scale sufficient to catalyse efforts on a limited number of key actions required an innovatory instrument comprising clusters of large and small research (applied, general, basic and demonstration) projects, focusing on a common European challenge or problem with quantifiable objectives, at the right juncture and determined by the results actually achieved;

3.3.6. the establishment of internal and external coordination procedures for each programme and key action was intended to define specific functions and launch ad hoc innovation units, within the key actions and the programmes;

3.3.7. the creation of permanent platforms for dialogue and exchanges of ideas between experts, industrial firms, decision-makers and users, and economic and social players, was considered essential to make sure that the new technological challenges and the new RTD findings and their applications were fully understood, tried and tested and accepted. In this way scientific development was to be harnessed to boost prosperity and improve quality of life in a positive climate of competitive growth.

3.4. Over a period of less than four years, the Community's Fifth RTDD Framework Programme directly manages the equivalent of EUR 15 billion in Community funding and activates roughly double that amount. The programme involves 30 countries(4), with 11 official languages, and was and is thus intended to generate a European added value which meets expectations in terms of socio-economic and competition objectives on the global market, to provide concentration and critical mass, to boost cooperation in and outside Europe, including via a wider research community which is attractive in terms of scientific and technological excellence and harmonious and coordinated EU-wide development.

3.5. The Committee believes that the development of targeted integrated actions has made the implementation and monitoring of the framework programme even more complicated, increasing the need for synergies between specific projects within the clusters and obviously necessitating precise and clear-cut objectives. It has emphasised the need for viable research results and their assessment, exploitation and practical application (including the checking and testing of intermediate results).

3.6. The Committee therefore feels there is a need to boost the impact of Community research. Mechanisms must be launched for coordination with all players and - looking ahead to enlargement of the EU to include the applicant countries - harnessing all Treaty instruments relating to research, development and technological innovation policy, with particular reference to Article 165 as regards the coordination of Community and national activities, Article 168 on the supplementary programmes, Article 169 on Community participation in programmes undertaken by several Member States, Article 171 on the "joint undertaking" instrument and Article 170 providing for cooperation with other European and international research bodies.

3.7. It is also obvious, as stressed in the Commission's Communication "Towards a European Research Area", on which the Committee issued a detailed opinion(5), that the development of Community research depends on a more favourable research climate in Europe, and on a common effort to create synergies between European, national, regional and Community programmes and enhance scientific and technological excellence throughout the EU, thus making it an attractive area for the European and international scientific community.

3.8. The Presidency conclusions of the extraordinary Summit held in Lisbon on 23 and 24 March 2000 stressed that "Research activities at national and Union level must be better integrated and coordinated to make them as efficient as possible, and to ensure that Europe offers attractive prospects to its best brains. The instruments under the Treaty and all other means, including voluntary arrangements, must be fully exploited to achieve this objective in a flexible, decentralised and non-bureaucratic manner".

3.9. The Feira European Council of 19-20 June 2000 welcomed the commitment to: develop mechanisms for networking national and joint research programmes; map, by 2001, research and development centres of excellence in all Member States; encourage the development of an open method of coordination for benchmarking national R& D policies; identify, by June 2000, appropriate indicators; facilitate the creation by the end of 2001 of a very high-speed transeuropean network for electronic scientific communications to link research institutions, universities and schools; remove obstacles to the mobility of researchers by 2002 and create a more attractive European environment; make a simple and inexpensive Community patent and utility model available by the end of 2001; set in motion a specific action to promote key interfaces in innovation networks, i.e. interfaces between companies and financial markets, R& D and training institutions, advisory services and technological markets; improve synergies with Cost and Eureka; encourage science as a career, flows and exchanges of researchers with third countries, and greater involvement of women in science.

3.9.1. Moreover, the Feira European Council welcomed the adoption of the European Charter for small enterprises whose eighth action line calls for the technological capacity of small firms to be strengthened, in particular by strengthening existing programmes to promote innovation, dissemination of technology, and the capacity of small firms to adapt new technologies.

3.10. It is also clear that the rapidly growing potential of the knowledge-based society and a dynamic climate where full use is being made of the new electronic technologies are factors which, as such, exercise a decisive influence on the impact of the Community's RTDD multiannual action programme, and on its specific implementing arrangements and the future action strategies.

4. Impact assessment instruments: towards a continuous systematic cycle

4.1. The Committee would like to see better coordination between information, data collection and the establishment of indicators on the one hand and monitoring, evaluation, assessment, and forecasting on the other. There should also be regular and systematic supply of user-friendly and accessible synoptic tables (or trend charts) on the measures being conducted in each Member State and at European level.

4.2. With regard to information, Article 173 of the Treaty lays down a direct legal obligation to present an Annual Report to the European Parliament and the Council on RTD activities, the dissemination of results and the current year's work programme. In addition, Eurostat is required to publish annual R& D statistics and a European Report on science and technology indicators. Lastly, an important role is played by the Cordis database.

4.3. In the area of control and monitoring, Article 5 of the European Parliament and Council decisions on the Fifth Framework Programme provides for compulsory, continual and systematic monitoring of the framework programme and the specific programmes on an annual basis. In addition, effective financial and spending control is assured by the Court of Auditors in its reports on internal Community policies.

4.4. With regard to assessment mechanisms, independent five-year retrospective evaluation reports will be published on the framework programme and the specific programmes before proposals are submitted for the sixth programme. The conclusions of these reports, along with comments from the Commission, will be passed on to the European Parliament, the Council, the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee. At the same time, the Commission is to present a mid-term Review of the ongoing framework programme, to analyse and assess the case for new flexible guidelines and direction.

4.5. Lastly, the consultation system implemented under the framework programme with the creation of the permanent external advisory groups (EAGs) accompanying the specific programmes and key actions, and the panel system set up by the Commission to guide research activities, provide a monitoring, evaluation and assessment structure that is undeniably complicated. In the Committee's view, this requires not only large-scale coordination, but also work to achieve internal compatibility and to streamline surveying mechanisms that otherwise are in danger of "suffocating" the actual RTDD projects and activities with red tape.

4.6. The picture is completed by assessments conducted under certain of the specific programmes and in particular the "human resource" programme of the "socio-economic knowledge base" key action. The Joint Research Centre (JRC) has a brief to produce technical and economic analyses to support European decision-makers by monitoring and analysing developments linked to science and technology, their horizontal impact on industries, their socio-economic ramifications and future political implications. The IPTS can play a key role here.

4.7. Furthermore, the system for evaluating proposals must meet common criteria. This is particularly important for the consistent operation of the general monitoring-evaluation-assessment mechanism.

4.8. The criteria for scientific excellence and the socio-economic criteria must be clear and precise. The intersectoral and interdisciplinary nature of the framework programme's new problem-solving approach is also crucial.

4.9. In short, to evaluate the socio-economic impact of the Community's prime instrument for multiannual research planning, the monitoring-evaluation-assessment cycle must be continual and systematic, as well as streamlined and unbureaucratic. Rather than a self-referential system which simply rubber stamps internal procedures, it must provide flexible, efficient and effective responses to the challenges of industrial competition in Europe, as part of a pro-active, flexible and shared medium-to-long-term strategic vision.

4.10. This strategic reference framework must also set out evaluations and prospects for research conducted under other European initiatives, such as Eureka, Cost, Embo or ESA, as well as those of national and regional RTD policies, by providing comparative analyses and trend charts.

5. Towards a Community strategy based on a core of shared priorities

5.1. As political decision-making is based on such a large number of players and variety of levels (European, Community, national and regional) where choices can be made and action taken, the Committee believes it is essential to provide a joint strategic framework to choose the priorities for technological and scientific objectives centred on society's economic, social and industrial problems. The Committee feels such a strategy is vital in order to focus research efforts on the various levels, and answer - from a European research area viewpoint - the question "who does what?" in a coherent, complementary framework.

5.2. Here, the Committee would stress the importance of:

5.2.1. establishing and consolidating an open distributed strategic intelligence system(6) for science and technology policy makers, by setting up an infrastructure network combining experience, skill, institutions and a foundation of technology and knowledge at the various levels (regional, national, sectoral, European), enabling direct links between the actors concerned and spurring cooperation;

5.2.2. ensuring that this strategic intelligence framework sparks a continuous cycle of information, monitoring, evaluation, assessment and forecasting, designed to accompany the development of research and technological innovation. Interfaces must be developed between the operators and the general public, for instance by greater exploitation of the media, to help make the selection of future technologies more widely accepted and democratic;

5.2.3. harmonising methods and techniques for collecting data at the various levels (European, Community, national, regional) with a view to making the networks and databases fully compatible and interconnectable and ensuring that the operators at the various levels are speaking the same language;

5.2.4. fully integrating strategic intelligence system programmes into existing Community RTD instruments and into those that may be set up under Treaty Title XVII;

5.2.5. fully involving research and innovation operators and users, political decision-makers and economic and social players in the development of these programmes, not least through the Economic and Social Committee, establishing platforms to discuss and compare data and scenarios, using an accessible and direct language to engender a community learning process and the bottom-up identification of political priorities while assessing public perception of scientific choices and their associated risks;

5.2.6. limiting the costs and the direct and indirect administrative impact of surveying activities, by applying the principle that data can and must be entered into the "system" only once, although they may subsequently be used many times by a variety of operators;

5.2.7. making full use of the new electronic network systems, especially the Internet and Intranet and any development thereof, such as the computing grid tried out by CERN, as a means of applying the integrated strategic intelligence system to ever more complex, interdependent and multidisciplinary problems, in a flexible and cost-effective way.

5.3. Lastly, the Committee thinks that the joint strategic framework should provide a nucleus of shared priorities, in order to:

- ensure that the various levels and operators are interconnectable and coherent, and

- recognise the manifold objectives of RTD at company, regional, national, Community and European levels, the need for mutual respect of their areas of action, and the importance of synergy and complementarity.

5.4. The European joint strategic framework should highlight:

- the optimum level of overall financial resources to strengthen EU competitiveness and cooperation mechanisms with regard to its main partners, taking account of the cumulative effect of investment in R& D and intelligence;

- a small number of priority areas on which to focus those resources at European, Community and national level and rules to ensure that they dovetail neatly, with no overlaps;

- priorities at the various levels, giving more room at national level for basic academic research, also providing for networks of centres of excellence and expertise which could be financed on a "variable geometry" basis; at regional level, focusing more on promoting the development of RTD and innovation in companies, SMEs in particular, and on enhancing the mobility of human resources between the academic world and industry, while providing Community support for interregional and transnational networks; at Community level, focusing on large-scale technological, scientific and industrial aggregation projects that are possible only by pooling a critical mass of financial and human resources, targeted at a limited number of goals that respond to the major global challenges.

6. The new framework for Community RTD five-year planning

6.1. The new economy has given a big boost to industrial, scientific and technological cooperation and given a whole new lease of life to operational instruments for making cooperation effective.

6.2. Globalisation has raised the competition stakes regarding technological innovation. As a result, translating research results into successful commercial and industrial technological products is now a key element for competitiveness. The speed at which knowledge is incorporated into products to serve society has made the time-to-market factor crucial.

6.3. The advent of the knowledge-based economy has highlighted a number of specifically European shortcomings compared to the rest of the world when it comes to combining scientific knowledge and enterprise culture in an interactive process of innovation backed by an economic and regulatory climate which encourages intangible investment - particularly in the private sector - and networking between the academic world, industry and research centres.

6.4. With EU enlargement on the horizon, the technological cohesion of the enlarged Union poses problems of worsening marginalisation caused by the structural and infrastructural shortcomings and holes in the economic and industrial fabric of the economies in transition, supplementing the existing social and economic disparities with even wider technological divergences. The EU must be able to maintain and enhance the considerable scientific potential of these countries, helping to incorporate it in the Community research system and focusing it on solving the economic, social and industrial problems of their economies.

6.5. In this context, reducing the Union's RTD activity to merely a back-up service providing resources as an alternative to or replacement for those of 15, 21 or 30 Member States would mean weakening the potential value added of Community research, and robbing it of its validity.

6.6. The volatility and level of obsolescence of current technological processes in the world context demand considerable ability to anticipate as well as flexible and fast decision-making, so as to ensure that scientific, technological and industrial management can face up to the new challenges and the new risks they bring.

6.7. The cost of research has rocketed, requiring a major concentration of efforts to achieve significant and profitable results, multiplying strategic RTD alliances, and underlining the need for interaction with the academic world and basic research.

6.8. The scientific dynamism which relies essentially on the universities and public and private laboratories, must find an open, favourable climate which encourages research worker careers and mobility and provides a satisfactory interface between science and industry.

7. General framework of the socio-economic impact of the Fifth Framework Programme

7.1. Despite the absence of an agreed strategic framework and the presence of complementary and parallel procedures, and although none of the other envisaged RTD instruments have been put into action, the European cooperation framework has begun to move towards the new approach, favouring key actions, strategic cooperation, the design-stage incorporation of mechanisms to facilitate the implementation of results and their transfer into marketable innovations, and a focus on larger-scale projects than in the past.

7.2. It is not easy for monitoring and evaluation to pinpoint new factors, whether good or bad, since the current situation is determined by the impact of the Third Framework Programme projects and ongoing Fourth Framework Programme projects. The negotiation of implementing contracts for the new Fifth Framework Programme projects, which will normally run for three-year periods, was only completed a few months ago.

7.3. Nevertheless, general observations have emerged that can - given due caution - be useful for honing and repositioning current Fifth Framework Programme activities, and for targeting the Sixth Framework Programme more effectively, with a view to the European research area, the implementation of all the Treaty provisions for RTD policies and, above all, rationalising, streamlining and fine-tuning Community action from a competition perspective, in the run-up to EU enlargement.

7.4. A number of problems have already been highlighted in the area of procedures, evaluation systems, criteria, and follow-up for the various proposals, for which rates of failure and fragmentation sometimes seem excessive. There is a growing tendency to systematically reduce the budget for proposed projects, so resources are scattered over too high a number of microprojects.

7.5. Of the 16000 proposals presented in 1999, 3500 were selected. The failure rate is thus a decidedly unencouraging one in six/seven, although participation rates for SMEs, industry and the academic world were positive: between 20 % and 30 % for SMEs, with the rest equally divided between industry and the academic world. The number of participants per project rose to an average eight partners, and the average global figure for the projects rose to EUR 3,5 million, with a peak of some EUR 4,5 million for the sustainable growth programme, which, moreover, achieved a success rate fully in line with the expected one in three. This contrasts with the quality of life programme, where the success rate was less than one in ten.

7.6. A first positive note, in the Committee's view, is the increase in the scale of the projects. This is more than double the figure for the Fourth Framework Programme, with SME participation maintained or even increased.

7.7. The integrated cluster approach implied a proactive matrix-based stance, combining thematic elements with horizontal factors such as innovation, technological implementation, training and human resources and international cooperation. It is here that downstream clusters have proved to be too complex, with over-lengthy and complex negotiations, whilst neither the innovation units, the technological implementation plans nor the matrix coordination seem to have the intrinsic accountability needed to trigger a virtuous circle.

7.8. Assessors, managers and project leaders should have been given common training to familiarise them with the Fifth Framework Programme's new technical and "cultural" approach.

7.9. Criticisms have included:

- the absence of a generally accepted working definition of European value added;

- the differing weight given to economic and social criteria, and the way they are applied among research operators;

- ongoing uncertainty regarding intellectual property rules for the participants;

- excessive red tape surrounding the preparation of proposals, and, at times, cost disincentives, and the excessive amount of information and statistics which RTDD project participants are asked to provide;

- complexity and confusion regarding work programmes and calls for tender, which have not all focused sufficiently on clear, comprehensible thematic priorities, thus impacting visibly on success/failure rates;

- occasional under-representation of industry as opposed to the academic and research worlds, although this is not true of all programmes;

- inappropriately qualified assessors, particularly given the multidisciplinary and intersectoral nature of projects, and their excessive number in relation to the projects selected.

7.10. In the light of the declared objectives, the Committee nevertheless believes that the new approach is a step in the right direction. Further strenuous efforts will, however, be required regarding points already mentioned by the Committee such as training and information, transparency, simplification of procedures, cost containment and effective management, clear and uniform criteria and guidelines, and the implementation of matrix-based mechanisms to help speed up the transformation of results into marketable innovations.

7.11. The Committee would nonetheless stress that to reap the benefits of the new approach, practical steps towards fuller implementation are needed immediately, providing for greater concentration, flexibility, transparency, clarity and uniformity.

7.12. To that end, work should now begin on:

- boosting and enhancing the key action mechanism, whose various stages must be justified by evaluation, monitoring, assessment and planning mechanisms,

- applying an approach that favours a few clusters of projects of a critical mass, involving all players and in particular end-users and SMEs,

- fine-tuning those aspects of the horizontal programmes which prevent them from linking up with vertical actions, thus making the "theoretic" matrix approach meaningless and ineffective, in terms of coordination, innovation units and mid-term scrutiny of technological implementation plans,

- activating internal and external coordination responsibilities for programmes and key actions, and for innovation units which are currently powerless, unfunded and unserviced. The mechanism for technological implementation plans should also be reviewed, with a view to strengthening mid-term controls,

- simplifying procedures and cutting their costs,

- clarifying and harmonising selection and evaluation criteria, with particular regard to socio-economic factors and European value added,

- creating a Community patent, as part of an industrial and intellectual property policy which better reflects the need to enhance Community research.

8. The Fifth Framework Programme's specific programmes and key actions

8.1. The Committee has always supported the framework programme's bid to restructure by concentrating on fewer thematic programmes and horizontal programmes, along with JRC and Euratom programmes. However, a similar effort should have been made to restrict the choice of scientific and technological priorities (of which there are hundreds), and the distinction between key actions, generic technologies and accompanying measures should be made clearer and more precise, by improving information packages, work programmes and calls for tender.

8.2. The Committee believes that that the reduction and streamlining of the programme committees was a positive move, as was the establishment of directors' groups to play a more active role in the integration of the thematic vertical programmes and the horizontal programmes, the establishment - still at the drawing-board stage - of innovation units in each thematic programme, and the creation of external advisory groups (EAG) to accompany the key actions, steering them towards problem solving, the use of technical inventions and potential commercial investments.

8.3. The key actions are designed to support EU convergence of Member States' research policies. The Committee feels that they are being implemented too slowly and are too low-profile. This is true both within the specific programmes and the other Community programmes and policies, and with regard to national programmes and policies. To allow for comparison and with a view to future developments, the Committee believes that it is essential to benchmark Community developments and national situations with regard to the issues and difficulties raised by the key actions.

8.4. Measures to speed up the impact of Community research, within programmes, key actions and individual projects have still to be implemented in many cases. The Committee is extremely concerned about difficulties in implementing the planned mechanisms for interaction, dissemination and promotion, such as the innovation units, the coordination role of project leaders, and the instruments planned under the Innovation and SMEs programme. A review of the mechanisms which prevent the thematic programmes from activating the Inco, Inno-SME and Human Capital horizontal strands is essential.

8.5. The use of TIPs (technology implementation plans) should be better defined, organised and promoted for participants, assessors and Commission managers. A close synergy should be developed between SME innovation activity and the thematic programmes, the key actions and the new 2000-2006 programming period for the Structural and Cohesion Funds, in order to give a stronger regional dimension to RTD and innovation activities.

8.6. Greater emphasis should be placed on clustering by examining the relationship between clustering itself, the need to increase the profile of European value added and the trend towards larger-scale projects, with project leaders who manage, select and evaluate the contributions of the various participants to the projects concerned.

8.7. Not enough attention has been given to coordinating the projects, specific programmes and key actions with other European and international RTD activities, such as Eureka, Embo, ESA or CERN. In the Committee's view, this is an especially important aspect of Community action under the framework programme, not least with a view to the European research area.

8.8. The international role of Community research seems to respond more to formal than substantive requirements which are completely independent of the thematic actions, whilst its content is seemingly in danger of being crushed by red tape. In the Committee's opinion, the RTD component of the Union's external dimension is vital, particularly when usefully combined with the work of the pre-accession fund, the Phare, Tacis and MEDA programmes and cooperation programmes involving the countries of Latin America and Asia.

8.8.1. The international dimension of Community research must reach, in priority sectors, a level of excellence second to no other region or country. The final evaluation of the results of the strategic framework for Community research will thus have to take stock of the level of excellence reached, measured in a global context.

8.8.2. Another important international function is to support cooperation arrangements with other countries, both those close to the Community and other countries and regions as well as to create a climate and an environment attractive to researchers and industries in other regions and countries.

8.9. The Committee believes that maximum priority must be given to improving human research potential in order to equip the European research area adequately. The specific programme is vital to the establishment of a strong pan-European scientific community, with a strong European identity to attract the best researchers from the rest of the world. However, there should be a stronger link with the strategic priorities of Community RTD and the future needs of society, industry and the centres of excellence and expertise, to secure greater visibility for newly-acquired European value added.

9. The Sixth Framework Programme and the implementation of Articles 168 to 171 of the EU Treaty: an active European common research and innovation policy

9.1. The Committee believes that the momentum resulting from globalisation, the knowledge-based economy, and the widening gap between European technological progress and innovation and that of our global partners, calls for a technological offensive capable of mustering all the European system's existing strengths. Pressure must be brought to bear on: a) business, to persuade it to get involved in RTD, with particular emphasis on small firms and craft businesses, in accordance with the priorities of the European Charter for small enterprises, in order to develop their innovation potential and encourage the spread of new technologies; b) universities and research centres, to put their creativity and applied science at the service of scientific and technological excellence; c) the world of finance, to provide venture capital for project follow-up both in the short and medium/long term, and exploiting the "euro effect" from 2002; d) Community, national and regional authorities, to provide an encouraging climate in which the various research players can network. But what is needed most is for all these public and private players to fully understand the need for a common action area, and to learn to work together on shared strategic priorities.

9.2. The Committee believes that the current Community RTDD system should avoid dispersion, malfunction, waste, perfunctory funding mechanisms, top-heavy management, and a proliferation of excessive objectives which are often totally unrealistic in view of the financial and human resources involved.

9.3. Subsidiarity has become a cornerstone of the system designed to recognise various levels of expertise, responsibilities and abilities. It is no longer conceivable that Brussels should continue to be responsible for assessing tens of thousands of project proposals, selecting little more than some 5000 truly RTD projects, with more than 40 projects per scientific administrator, thus hindering careful, accurate follow-up in terms of impact assessment.

9.4. The current procedure for assessing all project types means initiators and assessors have to make an effort which is out of all proportion to the framework programme's objectives of scientific excellence and technological competitiveness.

9.5. The risk is that the strategic approach of excellence, competitiveness and problem-solving - i.e. the raison d'être of Community-level RTD action - will get bogged down in technical procedures, red tape and formalities. This does not mean the European research system must close its door on as many major, minor, public and private players as possible.

9.6. On the contrary, it means that project participation machinery must closely reflect the needs of the various participants, and optimum synergies must be triggered to deal with the major global problems and challenges in terms of technology and innovation, and dovetailing national research and innovation systems. All local potential must be harnessed, and the public persuaded that science, technology and innovation have a local contribution to make in terms of solving the problems facing them and society. The public must take scientific and technological progress on board.

9.7. The Committee believes that the preparatory discussions leading up to the Sixth Framework Programme must focus on harnessing successful instruments at the most appropriate level to cut costs, lengthy procedures, red tape, rigidity and compartmentalisation.

9.8. With this in mind, the Committee believes a consensus must first be reached on a common top-priority strategy for the various levels, and for the instruments which can be applied at each level. This strategy must be given the key support of the assessment-evaluation-monitoring-forecasting excellence cycle to guarantee quality and flexibility. Here, the JRC and the IPTS in Seville must play an important inter-institutional role.

9.9. In particular, there is a need:

9.9.1. at Community level, to focus research efforts on a limited number of priorities for a few major medium/long-term projects targeting the problems and their solution, with high critical mass, an enhanced internal management role for the project leader, but with the Commission retaining responsibility for the monitoring of excellence;

9.9.2. on a decentralised level, for small-scale projects, with simplified procedures and managed by accredited financial intermediaries (sometimes using global subsidies) but with a trans-national slant, and simplified and connected both to local mechanisms and to major Community networks, in order to create a "system". This level should also be responsible for managing grants, training and mobility, safeguarding the trans-national criterion and that of the link with the Community's strategic priorities;

9.9.3. on a national level, for Community participation in national projects which are open to other Member States via harmonised procedures, triggering Community intervention at 5/10 % of overall cost, providing the projects tie in with the Community's major priorities; at this level, basic and applied research should continue to play an important role, both in the short and medium/long term;

9.9.4. on a regional level, for a new independent initiative to be developed in connection with the Community Structural Funds Initiative, to boost technological innovation and SME back-up research infrastructure, with networks between the Community's regions and appropriate measures to provide an operative interface of assistance and advice for business, and to provide "distributed excellence" to firms, research centres and universities, working either singly or together;

9.9.5. on an instrumental level, for full use to be made of the relevant Treaty instruments, particularly "variable geometry", Community co-funding and joint undertakings, which, however, must come under the framework programme, as specified in the Treaty. In particular, variable geometry must be applied to the centres of excellence and expertise network;

9.9.6. on a procedural level, for procedures to be streamlined and simplified, but also differentiated for the major priority projects, where the project leader will in any case take over many of the responsibilities currently performed in Brussels, whereas small-scale projects below a certain ceiling must have user-friendly, simple, rapid decentralised procedures;

9.9.7. on a coordination level, for the Commission to guarantee the cost-effective operation of the strategic intelligence cycle, and controls on quality, excellence and transparency. The Commission should also launch inter-programme and inter-key action links, and ensure operational accessibility with other relevant Community policy programmes and initiatives. These synergies are particularly necessary for regional, industrial and information society policy instruments, and also for external policies regarding the Mediterranean, central and eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia, and industrialised and emerging countries;

9.9.8. on a European and non-Community level, for the European Commission to step up cooperation with Cost, Eureka, ESA, EMBO, etc. (13 % of all European research efforts), and look into the options for specific joint actions on strategic problems.

9.9.9. The Committee believes that while the new framework programme approach should provide fine-tuning, simplification and transparency, and implement the new instruments provided for in the Treaty, it should also provide sufficient continuity with the positive results of previous framework programmes, particularly the current one.

Brussels, 21 September 2000.

The President

of the Economic and Social Committee

Beatrice Rangoni Machiavelli

(1) OJ L 26, 1.2.1999.

(2) OJ L 64, 12.3.1999.

(3) OJ C 407, 28.12.1998, ESC opinion on The Fifth RTDD Framework Programme - Specific programmes. OJ C 284, 14.9.1998, ESC own-initiative opinion on Ways and means of strengthening the networks for the provision of information on and exploitation of applied RTD programmes in Europe. OJ C 235, 27.7.1998, ESC opinion on Implementation of the first action plan for innovation in Europe. OJ C 214, 10.7.1998, ESC opinion on The rules for the participation of undertakings, research centres and universities and for the dissemination of research results for the implementation of the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Community (1998-2002). OJ C 73, 9.3.1998, ESC opinion on the Amended proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision concerning the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Community for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration Activities (1998-2002), and the Amended proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) for Research and Training Activities (1998-2002). OJ C 355, 21.11.1997, ESC opinion on Towards the Fifth Framework Programme: Scientific and technological objectives. OJ C 355, 21.11.1997, ESC opinion on Impact on SMEs of the steady, widespread reduction in funds allocated to research and technological development in the EU. OJ C 133, 28.4.1997, ESC opinion on Inventing tomorrow - Europe's research at the service of its people.

(4) 31, once the Association Agreement with Switzerland comes into force.

(5) OJ C 204, 18.7.2000, p. 70.

(6) See "Improving Distributed Intelligence in Complex Innovation Systems", various authors, Karlsruhe, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI), 1999.