Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the 'Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions "Reinforcing cohesion and competitiveness through research, technological development and innovation"'
Date: 1998-12-02
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: ESC opinion, competitiveness, economic and social cohesion, innovation, research policy, technological change

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Official Journal of the European Communities

15.2.1999

Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the ‘Communication from the Commission
to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the
Committee of the Regions “Reinforcing cohesion and competitiveness through research,
technological development and innovation”’

(1999/C 40/06)

On 8 June 1998 the Commission decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee,
under Article 198 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the above-mentioned
communication.

The Section for Economic and Monetary Union and Economic and Social Cohesion, which
was responsible for preparing the Committee’s work on the subject, adopted its opinion on
20 October 1998. The rapporteur was Mr Bernabei.

At its 359th plenary session (meeting of 2 December 1998), the Economic and Social Committee
adopted the following opinion unanimously.

1.

Introduction

based on the interactive evolution of economic, scientific,
technological and innovative variables (2):

1.1.
As emphasized in the 1997 Second European
Report on Science and Technology Indicators, statistics
bear out the existence of a technological gap between
the 15 Member States more than twice as large as the
economic, or ‘cohesion gap’. While the technological
gap measured in terms of the GDP/RTD spending ratio
between the richest and poorest Member States stands
at about 5:1, the ‘cohesion gap’ is less than 2:1.

— firstly, the ‘sleeping birds’, which are primarily
agricultural, with high unemployment and little
technological activity, encompassing almost all of
Greece except for Attica, three Portuguese regions
(Centro, Alentejo, Algarve) and one Italian region,
Calabria; these are all Objective 1 regions. Their
involvement in the Community’s Third Framework
RTDD Programme has been under 2,2 %;

The ‘technology scorecards’ can be used to assess
1.2.
the various technology systems of the Member States:
some have high levels of spending such as France and
Germany, whose RTD spending accounts for some
2,3 % of GDP. This compares with approximately 1 %
for Italy, while the four cohesion countries generally
have less structured RTD systems, with the exception
of Ireland — on account of the presence of large
multinationals — and lastly, the smaller countries which
display a sustained level of expenditure, particularly on
the part of the private sector, resulting from the presence
of a small number of large multinational companies.

The numbers employed in the high-tech sectors
1.3.
has been estimated to stand at more than 10,6 million
for the EU as a whole, representing 7,2 % of the working
population. The highest percentage is in Germany (more
than 10 %), the lowest in Greece (less than 2 %). Of the
ten leading regions in terms of high-tech employment,
six are German, two Italian, one French and one
British (1).

1.4.
Four ‘clusters’ of regions have been identified by
applying a systems-oriented approach to innovation

(1) Cf. Eurostat Memo 5/98 of 24 April 1998.

— secondly, the ‘question mark’ or ‘wildcat’ regions,
with rural economies, a good level of economic
growth and some technological activity but very
high unemployment, including eight Spanish regions,
eight French regions, Ireland, ten Italian regions and
2 Portuguese regions; half of these regions come
under Objective 1. Their involvement is less than
12 %;

— thirdly, the ‘cash cows of Europe’, with medium to
high levels of technological activity and average
unemployment rates, comprising most of the remain-
ing European regions with the exception of five
German regions, the Ile de France and Rhône-Alpes,
and the Dutch Noord-Brabant; about 40 % of these
regions are leaders in terms of technological intensity.
This group of regions constitutes Europe’s industrial
heartland, and participation in the Third Framework
Programme has exceeded 50 %;

— the fourth cluster comprises a small group leading
the field in terms of rapid-growth technological
intensity and low unemployment: these are the ‘stars
of Europe’, represented by Baden-Württemberg,
Bavaria, Hesse, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Rheinland-
the Ile de France, Rhône-Alpes and the
Pfalz,
Noord-Brabant. These regions absorb more than

(2) See Commission Second European Report on S&T indi-
cators 1997, part III — European diversity, convergence
and cohesion.

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22 % of the Community’s Framework Programme
resources. The average number of patents they
lodged is five times higher than the European average.

to all tiers of public authorities. Lastly, there must be
effective benchmarking — including from the financial
point of view — of existing services and networks,
information, support, training and upskilling, and effec-
tive arrangements for protecting intellectual property.

The three new Member States are not included: their
regions would appear to fit into the third and fourth
categories.

This systems-oriented approach has also revealed
1.5.
ten ‘leading innovation islands’ highly-specialized in a
technological hard-core sector and possessing a broadly
spread fabric of SMEs that are not only high-tech but
also ‘the vanguard of technology’, [terminology used by
the Committee in its own-initiative opinions on the
impact on SMEs of the steady, widespread reduction in
RTD funds (at Community and national level) (1), and
ways and means of strengthening the networks for the
provision of information on and exploitation of applied
RTD programmes in Europe (2)]. ‘Innovation islands’ of
this kind have been identified in the South East of
England, Paris, Frankfurt, Munich, Turin, Rotterdam/
Amsterdam, Stuttgart, Lyon/Grenoble and Milan.

1.6.
It may be readily understood from the above
analysis that involvement in Community RTD actions
by the less developed regions has been clearly marginal,
in clear contrast with the provisions of Title XIV of
the Treaty concerning the priorities for strengthening
economic and social cohesion in all Community actions,
in terms of both closing the development gap between
the various regions and of catch-up by disadvantaged
regions. Given that market globalization implies compe-
tition between systems, it is clear that the shortcomings
and imbalances of the European system, as compared
to the other two trade blocs, are a grave threat to EU
competitiveness on the world market.

This means that the analysis and treatment
1.7.
cannot be restricted to the cohesion countries alone,
since they would then be partial and unable to address
the European innovation paradox, enhance European
competitiveness and initiate clear and appropriate stra-
tegies at Community, national, interregional, regional
and local level.

The approach must be based on identification of
the need for efficient and systematic industrial and
technological assessments, accessible to all the economic
and social actors of technological and industrial develop-
should also be available
ment. Such assessments

(1) OJ C 355, 21.11.1997.
(2) OJ C 284, 14.9.1998.

1.8.
The Committee has developed its own thinking
in this area in a series of opinions ranging from those
mentioned above on SMEs and technological research
and innovation, and those on the Green Paper on
innovation (3) and the Communication on the implemen-
tation of the First Action Plan for Innovation in
Europe (4), to the opinions adopted on utility models
and patents (5), on the Community’s Fifth Framework
Programme for RTD and demonstration activities 1998-
2002 (6), and on the specific programmes (7).

1.9.
The Committee has already had occasion to
address the problems connected with the cohesion aspect
of the information society (1) and the European Spatial
Development Perspective (ESDP)(7), i.e. on the Member
States’ long-term approaches to spatial planning. Lastly,
the Committee has frequently discussed issues arising
from the impact of the introduction of new technologies
on employment (8), the development of the capital
market for SMEs (9), and fostering entrepreneurship (10).

2. The Commission proposal

2.1.
The Communication from the Commission sets
out to provide a single, coherent framework for the
wide range of actions and measures which are aimed at
bringing together cohesion, competitiveness, research
and technological development and innovation in order
to integrate them into the productive fabric of the
regions, and particularly the less-developed ones, in the
interests of the harmonious development of the European
Union.

2.2. More specifically,
the Commission aims to
reinforce the competitive capacity of less favoured
regions (LFR) and geographical areas eligible for support

(3) OJ C 22, 22.7.1996.
(4) OJ C 235, 27.7.1998.
(5) OJ C 129, 27.4.1998.
(6) OJ C 355, 21.11.1997 and C 73, 9.3.1998.
(7) OJ C 407, 28.12.1998.
(8) OJ C 66, 3.3.1997.
(9) Committee opinion on European capital markets for Small
and Medium-sized Enterprises: prospects and potential
obstacles to progress, OJ C 235, 27.7.1998.

(10) Committee opinion on fostering entrepreneurship in
Europe: priorities for the future, OJ C 235, 27.7.1998.

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from the Structural Funds, by ensuring that Fund-
supported research and innovation — whether falling
under Objectives 1, 2 or 4 or ERDF Article 10 or ESF
Article 6 — are closely coordinated with the schemes of
multi-year Community programmes which are aimed at
SMEs and innovation, or at the training and mobility of
researchers.

2.3.
Close coordination of this kind must, in the
Commission’s view, involve the strategies and roles of the
various local, regional, Member State and Community
levels, in order to:

— strengthen the willingness of the regions to integrate
research and innovation into their economic develop-
ment;

— enhance learning processes in order to make busi-

nesses more innovative;

— assist businesses and institutions to break down
obstacles and adjust to new forms of work organ-
ization;

— coordinate national-level sectoral policies in such a
way as to support regional development more
closely.

To this end, the Commission identifies three

2.4.
priorities for these strategies:

— promoting innovation by means of:

• demand-side schemes with greater involvement
of economic players and SMEs; a total quality
management policy at regional and local level;
new financing and management mechanisms;
better and more focused business support services;
promotion of professional mobility, cooperation
between research institutes and SMEs; venture
capital support for new firms; intellectual property
rights policies; mechanisms to promote company-
related RTD, so as to boost the number of SMEs
undertaking research; promoting best practice in
commercial and financial start-up and marketing
for industrial applications and in research results
network services;

— improving networking and industrial cooperation:

various organizational and spatial conditions for
customized and differentiated approaches to tech-
nology support;

— strengthening human capabilities:

• greater Social Funds efforts to increase investment
in human capital and life-long learning in less
favoured regions; ESF action under Objective 4 to
improve qualifications and management capability
adapted to industrial change and changes in
production systems; promotion of information
technologies for open and distance learning sys-
tems, and support for tele-working.

2.5.
The Commission plans, on the basis of the raft
of measures outlined above, to establish guidelines for
structural
intervention in the sphere of RDT and
innovation; ex-ante evaluation of regional development
plans; consolidation of a demand-led, bottom-up
approach; joint development with the Member States of
a set of indicators for RTD and innovation from the
structural policy standpoint; strengthening of trans-
national partnership between centres of excellence in
LFRs and those in the other regions; encouraging
candidate countries to develop appropriate strategies at
national and regional level to stimulate exchange of
experience with the Member States; and creating an
RTD and innovation European interactive web site.

3. General comments

3.1.
The Committee welcomes the Communication’s
presentation concerning the links between Community
structural policies and the Union’s research and inno-
vation policies, as the Committee has urged on several
occasions. The ESC also believes that close coordination
of these policies is essential in order to achieve optimum
levels of practical synergy and to enable the needs of
citizens, businesses and society to be fully met with the
overall objective of sustainable, smooth medium- to
long-term growth, in keeping with the integrated RTD
problem-solving approach and with the key development
factor of intangible investment.

• development of ‘technological monitoring’ ser-
vices and their diffusion through networking;
identifying gaps between supply infrastructure and
SMEs; facilitating business networks; creating
clusters of subcontracting firms; developing tech-
nology validation and transfer projects; investigat-
ing the social aspects of innovation; analysis of the

3.2.
The pace of technology in Europe differs from
that of its competitor countries, being far slower, less
pervasive and less a part of daily life. In Europe, scientific
excellence has not been accompanied by a capacity to
translate it into industrial and commercial success at
market level. This is because Europe has devoted fewer

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resources to technological intangible investment than
the other trading blocs and also because the inflexibility
of the surrounding environment has favoured financial
in production rationalization over job-
investment
creating investment, as it was held to be safer, easier to
control and hence more profitable.

3.3. One asset which is lacking is an innovation and
enterprise culture — that is to say the strategic resource
will shape the European regions’ global competitiveness.
If the innovation paradox is a consequence of the
above-mentioned factors, and in particular of a culture
which, until recently, favoured the pre-competitive
nature of Community RTDD — far-removed from the
market, out of sight and difficult to understand; difficult
also to integrate with Community action under the
structural policy and incapable of translating the poten-
tial requirements of end-users and consumers into real
demand.

The new course of the multiannual action pro-
3.4.
gramme under the Community RTDD policy, which is
now geared towards problem solving for citizens,
business and society, coincides with the launching of an
in-depth debate on the reform of the Structural Funds
within the framework of Agenda 2000. In the Com-
mittee’s view, it is vital to take advantage of this unique
opportunity presented by the simultaneous redefinition
of the two key instruments, in order to take a fully
integrated approach to intangible investment.

3.4.1.
From the standpoint of Community RTDD
policy, the new ‘problem-solving’ integrated key actions
should be accompanied by ‘new ways of managing the
wide variety of disciplines and sectors; applied, generic
and basic research, as well as demonstration activities,
must also be all-encompassing in terms of clustering and
simultaneous engineering, and companies, particularly
SMEs, and end-users must work together to standardize,
innovate, exploit and divulge, as well as to train. All
this must be integrated by European and international
cooperation — particularly Eureka — for each key
action’.

3.4.2. With regard to structural cohesion policy,
technological development and innovation can only be
fostered by combined, simultaneous and straightforward
action on structures, infrastructure, training, spatial
planning, boosting demand, business services, computer
networks, venture capital back-up and protection of
intellectual property. This would, on the one hand,
enhance technological development in terms of employ-
ment and social cohesion and, on the other, bring about
full integration into the local/regional economic and
productive fabric, in a spirit of European competi-
tiveness.

In this connection, the Committee deems it

3.5.
necessary to:

— formulate and adopt an overall Community strategy
for streamlining the relevant mechanisms of Euro-
pean policies, in order — while respecting regional
identities — to allow Europe to speak with one voice
from the point of view of competitiveness and the
sustainable and harmonious development of the
European system;

— identify integrated instruments with which to decom-
partmentalize local, regional and national
inno-
vation markets, which are all the more anachronistic
in view of EMU and the countdown to the single
European currency that will represent the completion
of the European single market;

— establish the levels of integration and their interac-
tion, inter alia in order to synchronize and ensure
the decision-making and
the compatibility of
implementation aspects of the structural cohesion
policy and RTD/innovation policy. This is vital in
order that the policies be fully and effectively
integrated;

— identify new ways to combine the cohesion and
RTDD instruments, using simplified methods and
procedures which are, wherever possible, uniform
and automatic. Full advantage should be taken of
the possibility allowed by the WTO agreements
(whereby up to 75 % of a project’s costs may be
subsidized) to vary the levels of support for company
RTD;

— set up systems to control and monitor combined
RTDD/cohesion schemes in order to assess their
effectiveness in terms of the achievement of the
declared objectives; this could be done by using
preestablished and harmonized performance indi-
cators, as well as benchmarking at regional level.

4. Towards an overall Community strategy of stream-

lining and integration

4.1. Market globalization has led to direct compe-
tition between socio-economic systems, legal systems,
abilities to put human resources to best use and
to incorporate new technologies into products and
processes that are updated at an increasingly rapid pace.
Competition is increasingly between systems rather than
between individual companies. An overall Community,
system-based strategy is therefore needed in order
to respond to such challenges, designed to ensure
development which is sustainable in the medium term.

4.2.
In the Committee’s view, this strategy should
include mechanisms for combined action at regional
level, in accordance with the main features and needs of

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the regions. A streamlined range of integrated actions
should also be developed, at national, regional and local
level, so that LFRs can interact with the regions where
the growth of technology is more rapid. The actions
should also concentrate on those SMEs whose potential
for innovation is as yet untapped — the ‘vanguard’ of
the research programmes.

4.3.
The elaboration of such an integrated and
coordinated strategy must be a matter, first and fore-
most, for the Commission management and for that of
its services. In this regard, the Committee fails to
understand why no mention is made of the experience
of the Task Forces under the Fourth Community RTDD
Framework Programme. The Task Forces could have
involved in
highlighted the numerous difficulties
operating structural intervention frameworks jointly
with targeted research based on employment, the pros-
pects for growth, the opportunities for broadening the
industrial base, sustainable development, European
added value and, in particular, economic and social
cohesion in terms of the presence of interested SMEs
spread throughout the EU, the promising outlook for
disseminating scientific, technical and training capacities
through quality networks, and the effects on remote and
outlying regions (1).

It is on these grounds that the Committee
4.4.
considers it essential to draw up such an overall strategy
for streamlining and integrating existing mechanisms of
the various European policies concerned: structural
policies, policies for research and innovation, education
and training, business and business culture, spatial
planning and enlargement.

5.

Identifying integrated instruments

5.1.
The Committee deems it essential to fully inte-
grate cohesion and RTDD instruments in order to
enhance their effect in terms of new jobs, new businesses,
new professions and a new competitiveness for Europe.

The innovation market, which is currently split
5.2.
into 15 national systems and even more regional sub-
systems, must be rapidly decompartmentalized by means
of various instruments. As it stands, in view of the single
European currency and the single market, the present
innovation market is purely anachronistic.

5.3. One such instrument could be that of back-
up/information/exploitation networks. These should
incorporate a broader mechanism to support ‘mediation’
in accordance with user needs, as well as mechanisms
for monitoring technological developments. They
should also be linked on an interregional and European
level, as recommended in the Committee opinion on
‘Ways and means of strengthening the networks for the
provision of information on and exploitation of applied
RTD programmes in Europe’ (2).

5.4.
Furthermore, trend charts should be created in
order to systematically compare research and technologi-
cal
innovation measures at regional, national and
Community level so that researchers and end-users
can jointly consolidate and avail themselves of the
instruments for action at various levels, as highlighted
by the Committee in its opinion on the proposals for
decision regarding the Fifth Community Framework
Programme on RTDD (1998-2002) (3).

5.5.
The Committee strongly emphasizes the need to
make the support of technology/innovation develop-
ment one of the top priorities among those established
by the Commission in the Structural Funds Support
Frameworks. This support should also be given priority
under the Cohesion Fund and the instrument
for
structural policies for pre-accession (ISPA), and be
granted the same status and resources as the other
priority actions. One of the main criteria for acceptance
of national and regional plans by the Commission
should be compliance with the above.

5.6. With a view to synergy between training and
RTDD, the Committee believes it is important to
integrate Community training programmes, such as
Leonardo and Socrates, not to mention Structural Fund
action under the new Objective 3. This is an essential
component of that intangible investment that is the
development of human and technological potential and
would help to prevent exclusion and strengthen the
social dimension of cohesion.

5.6.1.
The actions currently covered by Objective 4
must, however, be fully incorporated in Objective 3 in
order to accommodate the new technologies; the action
should include continuous training in management of
complex problems, as called for in the opinion on reform
of the Structural Funds adopted on 10 September 1988 (4).

5.6.2.
Lastly, we need to create a ‘virtuous circle’
drawing in projects which acknowledge the human
dimension, the involvement of people as key actors in

(1) Cf. Unité Operationnelle Recherche-Industrie; Aperçu des

travaux, Commission DGXII 1997.

(2) OJ C 284, 14.9.1998.
(3) OJ C 355, 21.11.1997.
(4) OJ C 407, 28.12.1998.

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development, and are based on a model for economic
and social development fostering a positive view of new
technological applications and the challenge of world
competition, through conscious participation by the
labour force in the development process.

6. Defining the integrated levels of action

6.1.
In the Committee’s view, the very notion of
‘problem-solving’ key actions in RTD, which imply new
simultaneous engineering capacities of various types
of action (technological, demonstrative,
innovative,
dissemination, educational, financial, etc.) — the aim
being to boost employment and production at regional
level — is likely to foster broad synergies with the
instruments for cohesion at the various levels of inte-
grated action.

6.2.
The inclusion of ex ante impact assessments in
the individual work programmes of the key actions, as
advocated by the Committee (1), will facilitate the
combined use of the relevant EU policy instruments.
This will, in turn, create more powerful synergies and
enhance the positive effects of such policies.

6.2.1.
In the Committee’s view, all Community instru-
ments relevant to project aims — regardless of the
Community’s policy approach, or of the directorate-
general or Commission service responsible for the
instruments — should be succinctly but explicitly
included in implementing programmes of the Fifth
Framework Programme. The aim is to ensure trans-
parence and coherence.

6.3.
The innovation units that are to be set up for
each key action, and whose task it is to ensure that the
research is devised and followed through in such a way
as to facilitate the transfer of the innovative results onto
the market, should broadly comply with the relevant
structural and regional policies, for instance by means
of the conference of national and Community networks
recommended by the Committee(2), to which the units
should be associated.

6.4.
The setting up of European Advisory Groups for
each key action or homogeneous groups of key actions,
together with networks of national advisory groups,
will enable closer contact to be made with the decision-
makers of the Structural Funds. In the Committee’s

(1) OJ C 407, 28.12.1998.
(2) OJ C 284, 14.9.1998.

view, this link is highly appropriate and should therefore
be assiduously supported by the Commission.

6.5.
In respect of the implementation of the Fifth
Framework Programme, the Committee had called for
permanent platforms to be set up for dialogue between
experts, industry, decisionmakers and users, as well as
economic and social interest groups. These could also
constitute a useful link with the relevant levels of action
of the Structural Funds Support Frameworks.

6.6.
The opportunities for decentralized management
granted by the Fifth Framework Programme for the key
actions ‘SMEs and innovation’ and ‘Improving human
research potential and the socio-economic knowledge
base’ could provide a vital
link with the regional
authorities responsible for implementing Community
structural policies, for example in the sphere of ‘super-
visory committees’.

The Committee reiterates the importance of the
6.7.
anticipated strengthening of the regional partnership
schemes of the Support Frameworks, which should
enable research centres in the regions (universities,
public and private research centres, companies) to
become active participants, thereby meeting the demand
for combined action on RTDD and cohesion. More
specifically, the Committee stresses the importance of
using, from a technology/innovation standpoint, local
employment initiatives and territorial pacts [see recent
Committee opinion on the subject (1)].

7. New forms of integrated action: procedures and

methods

7.1.
In the Committee’s view, the simplification of
Community mechanisms and procedures and combined
action, should take precedence over the proliferation of
action plans and programmes with different implemen-
tation procedures, as the latter have done nothing but
create confusion and alienation among potential users.

7.2.
In this regard, the Committee has repeatedly
stressed the fundamental need to create special links
between RTDD and cohesion instruments to make them
more user-friendly. It is also concerned about the
outcome of the combined efforts of the inter-DG ad hoc
group to deal with the problems raised by the various
procedural approaches of the different instruments,
differing implementation methods, and the range of
timescales and decision-making and management
methods.

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7.3.
Concerning the reform of the Structural Funds,
greater space should be given to integration with the
research-innovation-market process. A certain flexibility
should be maintained, however, with regard to the
automatic, synchronized and simplified procedures, in
line with the new approach of the Fifth Framework
Programme on RTD and future programmes.

remain within the 75 % limit on RTD aid laid down by
the WTO agreements and are compatible with the
Community research aid system determined by EC
competition policy.

7.4.
The new Structural Funds operations, in particu-
lar, should be increasingly demand-led and potential
demand should be sustained and boosted, especially in
the less developed regions. The operations should also
be guided by the Europe-wide extension of demand.
the RIS
Demand-led action could be increased if
(Regional Innovation Strategies) projects were converted
from pilot strategies with few resources to ‘strong’
strategies with adequate funding.

7.4.1.
In the Committee’s view, circulation and
exchange at regional level of the most successful experi-
ences should be facilitated by replicating successful
institutional arrangements for bringing together oper-
ators and decision-makers with a view to expanding the
capacity for absorption of the Structural Funds and
exploiting the opportunities provided by the Business
Innovation Centre networks.

The reform of the Structural Funds and the triple
7.5.
system for Community initiatives should leave adequate
space for the Interreg initiative. Interreg could play an
important role in bringing together the ‘sleeping bird’
and ‘wild cat’ regions and the more advanced regions,
known as the ‘cash cows’ and ‘stars’ of Europe, allowing
an interregional comparison of systems with different
features and speeds.

7.6.
Interreg could prove to be particularly important
for closer links between the Europe of 15 and the
applicant countries. In these areas, action implemented
under the Structural Funds and the pre-accession funds
is vital in order to create and/or reinforce common
ground between the two sides and to establish synergies
between not only cohesion and RTDD but also between
the instruments for cooperation and technical/economic
assistance. This applies equally to joint action in the
Euro-Mediterranean area.

7.7.
Lastly, the Committee stresses the importance of
clarifying the possibilities of jointly operating several
Community instruments to the same end, provided they

7.8.
The possibility of operating within such margins
is particularly important to ensure that the new advanced
technologies, notably those of the information society,
are not counterproductive with regard to cohesion. In
other words, that they do not result in an increase of
inequality and exclusion, which may be the case if the
action lacks ‘critical mass’.

7.9.
The battle against social exclusion must be
waged not only on behalf of the weaker members of
society but also of the less favoured regions, which are
even more geographically marginalized by the lack of
structural and infrastructural networks connected to the
rest of the EU. Technological progress must be made by
integrating different levels — Community, national and
regional — to develop cutting-edge technology together
with pervasive, horizontal technologies that are able
to foster development in for instance those low-tech
industrial sectors that need advanced production pro-
cesses in order to withstand growing international
competition.

7.10.
Integrating support for training policy with
support for research policy is crucial to ensuring the
competitiveness and development of the European sys-
tem and bringing retraining into line with the require-
ments of constant technological progress, in order to
avoid social exclusion and marginalization. Promoting
cooperation between universities, training bodies at
different levels and industry is essential in this field too,
if training models are to be devised which can boost the
capacity of human resources to cope with complex and
constantly changing problems.

8. Control and monitoring systems

The mapping out of needs, the establishment of
8.1.
RTD and innovation indicators from a structural point
of view, together with industrial and technological
assessment and benchmarking of business innovation
support
should be
accomplished in accordance with harmonized method-
ologies, and be covered by systematic and up-dated

structures and infrastructures

15.2.1999

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 40/19

synopses at Community and decentralized level, access-
ible to those involved in research and innovation,
particularly in SMEs, and to national and Community
decision-makers, so that they can ‘establish the long-term
strategic objectives of RTD and innovation policies’.

8.2.
The importance of ‘technological monitoring’
mechanisms and industrial and technological assess-
ment, as well as the benchmarking of existing regional
structures and infrastructure, and of disseminating and
applying the best practices thereby identified, has been
stressed on several occasions in the above-mentioned
recent Committee opinions, and in its opinion on
benchmarking: an instrument available to economic
actors and public authorities (1). They will provide both
a real service to businesses, keeping them up to date on
the best available technology, and guidelines for the
decision-makers at different levels. They will also spread
the local or regional best practices recorded in Europe.

8.3.
Lastly, the Committee emphasizes the need for
precise indicators on the state of RTD and innovation
which will allow structural action to be assessed and

(1) OJ C 296, 9.7.1997.

Brussels, 2 December 1998.

monitored. It also recommends close coordination with
the performance indicators currently being drawn up
for the Fifth Framework Programme. The experience
gained in the preparation of the ‘Second European
Report on S & T Indicators 1997’ and from the European
Innovation Monitoring System and the ESTO (European
Science and Technology Observatory) and the Institute
for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) of Seville
can also provide guidance.

8.3.1.
The Committee urges that the MEANS pro-
gramme (Methods for Evaluating Activities of a Structur-
al Nature) — launched by the Commission in order to
boost Europe’s evaluation ability and to pool know-how
in this area — be developed appropriately and linked
with the Fifth Framework Programme on RTD instru-
ments.

8.4.
This system of indicators should be structured
in such a way that a true assessment can be made of the
practical effects of the combined use of the RTD and
structural instruments. Above all, it should allow a
calculation to be made of the repercussions on social
cohesion, employment, the creation of new businesses
and professions and the contribution to competitiveness
in its various forms.

The President

of the Economic and Social Committee

Beatrice RANGONI MACHIAVELLI