Council conclusions on the Special Report No 9/2007 by the European Court of Auditors concerning Evaluating the EU Research and Technological Development (RTD) framework programmes — Could the Commission's approach be improved?
Date: 2008-06-11
Institutions: Council of the European Union
Subjects: EU programme, European Commission, applied research, evaluation method, new technology, project evaluation, research and development

C 145/6

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

11.6.2008

IV

(Notices)

NOTICES FROM EUROPEAN UNION INSTITUTIONS AND BODIES

COUNCIL

Council conclusions on the Special Report No 9/2007 by the European Court of Auditors
framework
concerning ‘Evaluating the EU Research and Technological Development

(RTD)

programmes — Could the Commission's approach be improved?’

(2008/C 145/03)

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

RECALLING the Council conclusions on improving the examina-
tion of special reports drawn up by the Court of Auditors in the
context of the discharge procedure (1).

RECALLING that Article 163(1) of the Treaty provides that ‘the
Community shall have the objective of strengthening the scien-
tific and technological bases of Community industry and
encouraging it to become more competitive at international
level, while promoting all the research activities deemed neces-
sary by virtue of other chapters of this Treaty’ and the important
contribution of the Framework Programmes (hereinafter ‘FPs’) to
achieving the goals of the Lisbon Strategy, including in terms of
increasing human resources in research and development, giving
high priority to public investments in science and research and
fostering private investments, reforming public research infra-
structures and promoting internationalisation.

RECALLING that previous evaluations of the FPs, such as the Five
Year Assessment in 2004, provided an important contribution
towards the launch and adoption of subsequent FPs.

legal obligations of

the Commission
RECALLING the current
regarding the monitoring, evaluation and communication of
in particular Article 7 of Decision
information of FPs,
No 1982/2006/EC of
the
the European Parliament and of
Council of 18 December 2006 concerning the Seventh Frame-
the European Community for research,
work Programme of
technological
activities
(2007-2013) (hereinafter ‘FP7’) (2), Articles 27 and 28 of Regu-
lation (EC) No 1906/2006 of the European Parliament and of
the Council of 18 December 2006 laying down the rules for

demonstration

development

and

(1) Doc. 7515/00 FIN 127 of 3 April 2000 + COR 1 of 12 April 2000.
(2) OJ L 412, 30.12.2006, p. 1.

the participation of undertakings, research centres and universi-
ties in actions under the Seventh Framework Programme and
for the dissemination of research results (2007-2013) (3), as well
as the Council Decisions on Specific Programmes (4).

Technological Development

1. WELCOMES Special Report No 9/2007 by the European
Court of Auditors concerning ‘Evaluating the EU Research
framework
and
programmes — Could the Commission's approach be
improved?’ (5) (hereinafter ‘SR’); and RECOGNISES the efforts
and achievements of the European Court of Auditors in
producing this comprehensive SR.

(RTD)

2. GIVES serious consideration to the overall conclusion of the

SR and WELCOMES its Recommendations.

3. TAKES NOTE of the Commission's replies which accompany
the Report and WELCOMES the actions being already under-
taken or envisaged to improve the Commission's approach
to evaluations.

4. NOTES that the Court of Auditors' SR addresses the period
covered by the Fourth to the Sixth EU Research and Tech-
nological Development FPs and that in addition to evalua-
tion, the SR addresses a wider set of issues such as the
structure, the coordination and the implementation of the
FPs.

(3) OJ L 391, 30.12.2006, p. 1.
(4) See the respective Annexes concerning the information to be provided
by the Commission to the Committee (e.g. Annex V of Council Deci-
sion of 19 December 2006 concerning the specific programme ‘Coop-
implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the
eration’
European Community for research, technological development and
demonstration activities (2007 to 2013) (OJ L 54, 22.2.2007, p. 30)).
(5) Doc. 5136/08 FIN 4 RECH 5 ATO 5 COMPET 5 of 9 January 2008.

11.6.2008

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Official Journal of the European Union

C 145/7

appropriate evaluation methodologies and techniques
and, to this end, prepare a manual for the evaluation of
FP activities, and in this context further develop the use
of evaluation panels with the assistance of external
experts with a view to ensuring the necessary level of
independence;

(c) consider options for a more centralised evaluation and
reinforced coordination between the relevant Commis-
sion services, including the possibility of establishing a
joint evaluation office;

(d) optimise the collection, analysis and use of evaluation
data in such a way to better measure the achievement
of programme objectives in terms of outputs, outcomes
and socio-economic impacts, whilst avoiding undue
administrative burden for participants, and also maxi-
mising the usefulness of such data for decision making
at European, national and regional level;

(e) establish the type and scope of evaluation in particular
to give greater attention to assessing long-term impact
of past and present FPs with a particular emphasis on
European competitiveness; ensure timely and sufficient
information on the results to stakeholders with a view
to taking future policy decisions.

INVITES the Commission to inform the Council and the
European Parliament on the steps taken with regard to the
recommendations of the Court of Auditors to improve the
monitoring and evaluation of the FPs by end 2008, and to
present the evaluation strategy for FP7 in a timely manner.

INVITES the European Court of Auditors to follow-up its
audit in time for the 2010 discharge exercise and report
back to the Council and the European Parliament.

INVITES the Member States and the Commission, taking
into account the political priority given to governance in
the European Research Area, to strengthen their coopera-
tion and the
exchange of approaches and expertise
concerning the evaluation of the impact of the national
participation in the FPs and the national research and inno-
vation programmes, for example by the ‘European RTD
evaluation network’, in order to promote more coherence
among these impact studies of the Commission and the
Member States.

10.

11.

12.

5. RECOGNISES that

the European Court of Auditors has
observed that relevant Commission services implementing
the FPs have complied with the formal Commission-wide
including those specified in the 2000 and
requirements,
2002 Communications on evaluation.

6. UNDERLINES, also in view of

the forthcoming mid-term
review process of FP7,
that monitoring, evaluation and
review play a critical role in the effective operation and
possible adaptation of FPs (‘learning programmes’), and in
helping to shape future policies for
research both at
European and national level.

7. NOTES that the Commission established an overall evalua-
tion framework in 2000 which was revised in 2002 and
2007 and that
relevant adjustments are being made
continuously with particular reinforcement in the FP7 as
set out in the FP7 ex ante Impact Assessment (1),
in the
Internal Control Standards (2) and in the recently developed
‘Quality Assessment Framework’ (3). These improvements
include a new impetus
to the Commission's existing
internal ‘RTD evaluation network’, a better routine collec-
tion of data from projects, a new IT system for FP7, a more
coherent and systematic use of performance indicators and
the encouragement of scientometric approaches; and is
therefore LOOKING FORWARD to the forthcoming ex post
evaluation of FP6 in 2008.

8. STRESSES that, despite these adjustments,

further efforts
need to be undertaken to improve the research monitoring
and evaluation systems on evidence based approach; there-
fore:

9.

INVITES the Commission to pay utmost attention to the
recommendations of the SR and in particular to:

at programme

(a) ensure greater clarity in the intervention logic in the
conception and implementation of FPs in the context of
relevant Community decision making procedures,
in
level, with
particular
coherent and better defined scientific and socio-eco-
nomic objectives which should be specific, measurable,
achievable, relevant and timed, and balanced perfor-
mance indicators, whilst taking into account the specific
nature of RTD activities;

and project

(b) establish a unified and coherent evaluation strategy
across the relevant Commission services including the

(1) Doc. SEC(2005) 430.
(2) Doc. SEC(2007) 1341.
(3) http://ec.europa.eu/budget/documents/evaluation_en.htm