Commission staff working document - Accompanying document to the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions - Towards joint programming in research : working together to tackle common challenges more effectively - Impact assessment {COM(2008) 468 final} {SEC(2008) 2282}
Date: 2008-07-15
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: EU research policy, cooperation policy, cross-border cooperation, impact study, research and development

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COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 

Brussels, 15/07/2008 
SEC(2008) 2281 

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 

Accompanying document to the 

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL, THE 
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 
COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS 

TOWARDS JOINT PROGRAMMING IN RESEARCH : 
Working together to tackle common challenges more effectively 

IMPACT ASSESSMENT  

{COM(2008) 468 final} 
{SEC(2008) 2282} 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

1. 

1.1. 

1.2. 

1.3. 

1.4. 

1.5. 

2. 

2.1. 

2.2. 

2.3. 

PROCEDURAL ISSUES AND CONSULTATION OF INTERESTED PARTIES... 4 

Introduction.................................................................................................................. 4 

Organisation and timing............................................................................................... 4 

Policy Background ....................................................................................................... 4 

External consultation and expertise ............................................................................. 7 

Opinion of the Impact Assessment Board.................................................................. 14 

PROBLEM DEFINITION ......................................................................................... 15 

Europe's societal challenges and the role of research ................................................ 15 

The need to improve the organisation of Europe's public R&D investment ............. 16 

European cooperation in public R&D – impressive history, but progress is slow .... 21 

2.4.  Why Europe needs a new process for joint strategic agenda setting and coordination 

of public R&D............................................................................................................ 23 

3. 

3.1. 

3.2. 

3.3. 

3.4. 

4. 

4.1. 

4.2. 

4.3. 

4.4. 

5. 

5.1. 

5.2. 

5.3. 

5.4. 

5.5. 

5.6. 

OBJECTIVES ............................................................................................................ 27 

General policy objectives........................................................................................... 27 

Specific objectives: .................................................................................................... 27 

Operational objectives:............................................................................................... 27 

Ensuring consistency with other EU policies and strategies...................................... 28 

PRESENTATION OF THE OPTIONS ..................................................................... 29 

"Business-as-usual" option......................................................................................... 30 

"Article 169 maximization" option ............................................................................ 30 

"Community-driven strategic" option ........................................................................ 30 

"Strategic European process" option.......................................................................... 31 

ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPACTS OF THE OPTIONS ........................................ 34 

Level of stakeholder support and 'ownership' ............................................................ 34 

Strategic focus............................................................................................................ 35 

Structuring effect........................................................................................................ 38 

Horizontal policy consistency .................................................................................... 39 

S&T Impacts .............................................................................................................. 40 

Economic impacts ...................................................................................................... 44 

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5.7. 

5.8. 

6. 

7. 

Social and environmental impacts ............................................................................. 45 

The preferred option and its impacts on different actors ........................................... 47 

RISK AND RISK MITIGATION.............................................................................. 48 

MONITORING AND EVALUATION ..................................................................... 51 

ANNEX.................................................................................................................................... 52 

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1. 

PROCEDURAL ISSUES AND CONSULTATION OF INTERESTED PARTIES 

1.1. 

Introduction  

This  Impact  Assessment  accompanies  the  Communication  "Towards  Joint  Programming  in 
Research", which is included in the Commission Legislative and Work Programme 20081 as 
one  of  the  priority  initiatives.2  Towards  Joint  Programming  (JP)  is  one  of  five  policy 
initiatives  planned  by  the  Commission  in  2008  as  a  follow-up  to  the  Green  Paper  “The 
European  Research  Area:  New  Perspectives”.3  It  responds  to  the  dimension  "Optimising 
research programmes and priorities" referred to in that paper. 

Conceived  within  the  context  of  the  revised  Lisbon  Strategy,  JP  is  the  process  whereby 
Member States engage on a voluntary and à la carte basis in the definition, development and 
implementation  of  common  research  agendas  addressing  a  specific  field  or  specific  topic. 
This  can  involve  the  coordination  of  existing  national  programmes,  or  the  setting  up  of 
entirely  new  ones,  putting  resources  together  and  collectively  monitoring  and  reviewing 
progress. Through increasing and improving the cross-border collaboration, coordination and 
integration  of  Member  States'  publicly  funded  research  programmes  in  a  limited  number  of 
strategic areas, it aims to help Europe to boost the efficiency of public funding and to better 
address  major  societal  challenges.  The  proposed  approach  is  to  promote  JP  through  a  high-
level political process driven by the Member States, which would offer flexibility in terms of 
instruments, geometry, and the level of programme coordination and integration pursued. JP 
targets  first  and  foremost  public  research  programmes  and  thus  public-public  cooperation 
rather  than  public-private  cooperation.  However,  industry  may  play  a  role  in  the 
implementation of particular JP initiatives. 

1.2. 

Organisation and timing  

Consultation with other Directorate-Generals was carried out through an inter-service group 
composed  of  DG  Education,  DG  Energy  and  Transport,  DG  Enterprise,  DG  Information 
Society,  DG  Regional  policy  and  the  Secretariat-General.  Set  up  in  November  2007,  the 
group  met  three  times  and  provided  contributions  during  the  preparation  of  the  impact 
assessment.  In  addition,  bilateral  contacts  were  taken  with  DG  Economic  and  Financial 
Affairs, DG Environment and the Joint Research Centre. 

1.3. 

Policy Background 

For  many  years,  the  Community  has  made  use  of  the  various  provisions  of  the  Treaty4  in 
order to encourage greater coordination and cooperation in research in Europe. However, over 
the  last  15  years,  the  political  support  for  enhanced  and  better  coordination  of  research 
activities  in  Europe  has  strengthened  considerably,  and  has  been  reiterated  many  times  by 
both the Council and the European Parliament.  

1 
2 
3 
4 

Commission Legislative and Work Programme 2008 COM(2007) 640 final, Brussels, 23.10.2007. 
2008/RTD/035. 
COM(2007) 161. 
Notably, articles 165, 169 and 171of the Treaty establishing the European Community, Official Journal 
C 325 of 24 December 2002 

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In  1993,  the  European  Council  adopted  an  action  plan5  in  response  to  the  White  Paper  on 
Competitiveness,  Employment  and  Growth6  which  highlighted  the  lack  of  coordination  of 
Europe's R&D activities, programmes and strategies, and recommended that measures should 
be  taken  to  further  effective  coordination  of  these  activities.  The  following  year,  the  Corfu 
European  Council  concluded  that  particular  emphasis  should  be  given  to  reinforced 
coordination  of  research  policy  to  give  new  impetus  in  the  follow-up  debate  on  the  White 
Paper.  It  invited  the  Council  to  pursue  a  more  systematic  coordination  of  Community  and 
national  research  policies  and  invited  the  Commission  to  take  any  useful  initiatives  to 
promote such coordination.7 This concern was also shared by the European Parliament, which 
adopted a resolution on the subject the same year.8 

A new impetus came in the year 2000 when the Lisbon European Council in its endorsement 
of  the  Commission  communication  on  the  European  Research  Area  (ERA)9  concluded  that 
research  activities  at  national  and  Union  level  must  be  better  integrated  and  coordinated  to 
make them as efficient and innovative as possible. They also stated that the instruments under 
the Treaty and all other appropriate means, including voluntary arrangements, must be fully 
exploited to  achieve  this objective  in a flexible,  decentralised  and  non-bureaucratic  manner. 
The Lisbon European Council requested that the Council and the Commission, together with 
the  Member  States  take  the  necessary  steps  as  part  of  the  establishment  of  a  European 
Research Area to develop appropriate mechanisms for networking national and joint research 
programmes  on  a  voluntary  basis  around  freely  chosen  objectives.10  In  the  same  year  the 
Research  Council  held  a  debate  in  the  light  of  the  conclusions  of  the  Lisbon  European 
Council  and  the  Commission  Communication  on  ERA.  The  Ministers  encouraged  the 
networking  of  national  and  joint  research  programmes  on  a  voluntary  basis  to  take  greater 
advantage of the concerted resources devoted to R&D in the Member States.11 The Research 
Council also noted in the same year the importance for Member States of coordinating their 
R&D  activities  to  ensure  that  national  policies  and  Community  policy  were  mutually 
consistent,  and  acknowledged  the  role  that  the  Commission  could  play  in  promoting  that 
coordination in cooperation with the Member States.12 

In 2001, the Research Council considered that the use of Article 169 of the EC Treaty could 
lead  to  greater  coherence  and  integration  of  national  and  Community  programmes  and 
research policies. The Council invited the Member States to identify possible specific topics 
for  pilot  programmes  where  the  use  of  Article  169  would  be  appropriate,  in  close  liaison, 
where necessary, with the Commission, and also invited the Commission to come forward by 
early  2002  with  proposals  to  the  Council  and  European  Parliament  for  participation  by  the 
Community  in  any  such  pilot  programmes.13  In  2002,  the  Competitiveness  Council 
recognised  the  importance  of  the  mutual  opening  of  national  research  programmes  and  the 
need  for  more  coordination  between  national  research  programmes,  as  well  as  between 

5 

6 
7 
8 
9 
10 
11 
12 
13 

Presidency  Conclusions,  European  Council,  Brussels,  10-11  December  1993.  The  Fourth  Framework 
Programme for Research (1994-1999) was an integral part of the Action Plan. 
COM(1993) 700, 5 December 1993. 
Presidency Conclusions, European Council, Corfu, 24 - 25 June 1994. 
COM(1994) 438 final, Brussels, 19 October 1994. 
COM(2000) 6 final, Brussels, 18 January 2000.  
Presidency Conclusions, European Council, Lisbon, 23-24 March 2000. 
2272nd Council meeting (Research), Brussels, 15 June 2000. 
2305th Council meeting (Research), Brussels, 16 November 2000. 
2380th Council meeting (Research), Luxembourg, 30 October 2001. 

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national and Community programmes, and indicated its support for the use of Article 169.14 
As  a  result,  CREST  launched  five  pilot  actions  for  the  mutual  opening  of  national 
programmes. These actions were subsequently transformed into ERA-NETs, but the need for 
a framework for further discussion on mechanisms was recognised. 

In 2004, the Competitiveness Council acknowledged the widespread interest in the ERA-NET 
scheme and encouraged the Commission to further develop it in FP7, supplemented by a new 
ERA-NET Plus tool which would allow the Community to top-up Member States joint calls 
with EU funding. The Council also invited Member States and the Commission to identify a 
limited  number  of  areas  for  further  application  of  Article  169.15  In  2005,  the  Presidency 
invited Member States to set priorities together, to define which national programmes should 
be co-ordinated and to consider the need for developing together a European strategy.16 

In  2006,  the  European  Parliament  put  emphasis  on  better  coordination  of  regional,  national 
and European research programmes and policies in its proposed amendments. Their report on 
the  FP7  proposal  recognised  that  fragmentation  was  a  major  obstacle  to  the  success  of  the 
European  research  agenda,  and  suggested  that  "…it  is  vital  that  the  Seventh  Framework 
Programme should support the coordination of national and regional research policies and 
programmes" and that in order "to avoid fragmentation and overlapping competencies, there 
should  be  more  cooperation  between  national  and  European  research  programmes,  and 
between economic actors in the long-term research agenda." 17 

In  2007,  the  Competitiveness  Council  invited  Member  States  to  "encourage  Research 
Councils  and  National  Funding  Agencies  in  Member  States,  as  well  as  intergovernmental 
European  Research  Organisations,  to  expand  their  collaboration  and  to  devise  innovative 
forms of pooling together their expertise and resources on a mutual voluntary basis for joint 
objectives",18 and called on the Commission to catalyse progress whenever appropriate.19 In 
February 2008, the Competitiveness Council adopted a key issues paper20 to be submitted to 
the  2008  Spring  European  Council  encouraging  the  Commission  and  Member  States  "to 
continue  developing  initiatives  for  joint  programming  of  research  in  areas  where  this 
approach  is  appropriate,  allowing  a  more  strategic  and  better  structured  approach  to  the 
launch of new joint programmes and common calls for projects from the end of 2010", and it 
welcomed the Commission's intention to present a communication on JP in 2008.21 Again, in 
March  2008,  the  European  Council  urged  the  Member  States  and  the  Community  to  make 
swift progress on further initiatives for JP of research, mutually complementary international 

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18 

19 
20 
21 

Informal  ministerial  meeting  of  Industry  and  Research  Ministers  in  Girona  (Spain)  in  February  2002 
and conclusions from the 2467th Council meeting (Competitiveness), Brussels,26 November 2002. 
2605th and 2624th Council Meetings (Competitiveness), Brussels, 24 September and Brussels, 25 and 26 
November 2004. 
UK  Presidency  Conference,  Conference  on  the  coordination  of  national  research  and  development, 
Manchester, 21 October 2005. 
Report  on  the  proposal  for  a  decision of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  concerning  the 
seventh  framework  programme  of  the  European  Community  for  research,  technological  development 
and  demonstration  activities  2007  to  2013,  (COM(2005)  0119  –  C6-0099/2005  –  2005/0043(COD)) 
Committee on Industry, Research and Energy. Rapporteur: Jerzy Buzek. A6-0202/2006 (final), 1 June 
2006. 
These  might  include  R&D  infrastructures,  collaboration  in  the  creation  and  strengthening  of  pools  of 
excellence of critical mass, the full internationalisation and/or shared approaches to research evaluation 
across Europe and to the encouragement of broader competition for research funding at national level. 
2832nd Council meeting (Competitiveness), Brussels, 22 and 23 November 2007. 
Council document 6933/08, Brussels, 26 February 2008. 
2852nd Council meeting (Competitiveness), Brussels, 25 February 2008. 

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S&T cooperation strategies and the strengthening of research infrastructure of pan-European 
interest.22  

The above list of declarations and actions demonstrates the clear and long-standing political 
support for the improved coordination of research activities in Europe. As will be shown in 
the next section, there is also a strong and sustained stakeholder support for initiatives in this 
direction.  

1.4. 

External consultation and expertise  

In  developing  the  Communication  and  the  impact  assessment,  the  Commission  services 
consulted stakeholders and drew upon external expertise in the following ways: 

•  an  open  consultation  was  carried  out  on  the  "The  European  Research  Area:  New 
Perspectives" Green Paper,23 which included detailed questions relating to the optimisation 
of research programmes and priorities through JP type activities; 

•  an  expert  group  was  set  up  to  deliver  analyses  and  views  concerning  the  optimising  of 

research programmes and priorities for the development of the ERA;24 

•  a  dedicated  debate  on  the  same  topic  was  held  at  the  Portuguese  Presidency  conference 

"The future of Science and Technology";25 

•  and views expressed in a variety of other public consultations and opinion surveys relating 
to science and technology and research policy issues were analysed and taken into account. 

1.4.1.  Consultation on the ERA Green Paper - Stakeholders’ opinions concerning JP 

The open consultation on the "The European Research Area: New Perspectives" Green Paper 
invited  responses  on  a  number  of  issues  relating  to  optimising  research  programmes  and 
priorities  in  Europe  and  the  importance  of  JP  type  activities.  The  consultation  gave 
stakeholders  the  possibility  to  respond  in  two  ways  -  via  an  on-line  questionnaire  and  via 
more detailed position papers (for a more detailed analysis of the findings see Annex 1). 

Views expressed in the position papers 

Table  1  summarises  the  opinions  expressed  in  the  position  papers  responding  to  the  ERA-
Green Paper consultation on the topics related to research coordination (see Annex 1). There 
was a general convergence in the opinions of the different groups of stakeholders, with some 
divergences  on  certain  specific  issues.  All  more  or  less  agreed  on  the  principal  issues  of 
fragmentation  and  the  need  for  coordination,  as  well  as  the  importance  of  shared  principles 

22 
23 
24 

25 

Presidency Conclusions, European Council, Brussels 13 and 14 March 2008. 
COM(2007) 161, Brussels, 4 April 2007.  
The  work  of  the  ERA  expert  group  on  "Optimising  public  research  programmes  and  priorities"  was 
carried out in 2007-2008 and relates to the core objective of JP, i.e., to ensure effective European-level 
coordination of national and regional research activities, programmes and policies, especially on issues 
of European interest. 
Held  in  Lisbon  on  the  8-10  October  2007,  the  conference  was  a  key  stakeholder  event  that  brought 
together  nearly  500  representatives  of  the  MS,  industry,  academia,  and  civil  society  and  was  jointly 
organised  by  the  Portuguese  Presidency  of  the  EU  and  by  the  EC  DG-Research.  One  session  was 
dedicated to the limitations and enabling factors of national research programme coordination.  

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for evaluation, peer review, accountability, etc of public research programmes. There was also 
a  high  level  of  consensus  that  JP  should  be  focussed  on  societal  issues.  Foresight  and 
participative  processes  or  platforms  -  such  as  European  Technology  Platforms  adapted  to 
societal issues - were suggested as approaches for identifying the areas for JP. No particular 
instrument  or  mechanism  was  favoured,  but  flexibility,  variable  geometry  and  bottom-up 
processes were stressed. Some fear was expressed concerning too prescriptive models dictated 
by  the  Commission.  The  favoured  role  of  the  Commission  was  that  of  facilitator  and  soft 
coordinator. 

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Table 1 : Stakeholders' positions relative to JP 

Questions / Issues  Member States 

Funding agencies 

Higher 
Institutions 

Education 

Other publ. sector R&D 
performers  

Business organisations 

Challenges 
priorities 

& 

food, 

Focus  on  societal  challenges 
and  issues,  e.g.,  climate  change, 
health, 
and 
long–term 
globalisation 
priorities, 
on 
and 
strategic/emerging areas and own 
strengths.) 

energy 

focus 

(also 

(long-term  orientation, 
general 
optimising 
conditions for science) 

Society 
driven 
research, e.g., ageing 

Coordination / 

fragmentation 

Need  for  coordination  especially 
linked  to  common  challenges, 
but with the reserve that diversity 
must be preserved. 

(yes) 

Little  recognition  of 
fragmentation  as  a 
problem 

Fragmentation  recognised  as  a 
problem in certain areas 

- 
How? 
Identification 
of 
areas/topics for JP 

participative 

Engagement  of  civil  society  and 
"users"  through  foresight  and 
processes 
other 
emphasised;  Impact  assessment 
and  evaluation  also  seen  as 
important  (IPCC  pointed  to  as 
model). 

not 

Stepwise; 
just 
foresight  but  also  high-
level  workshops;  mix 
bottom-up  with  top-
down approach 

ETP  type  platforms 
adapted  for  societal 
issues 

(Societal  issues  related 
to  the  maritime  world, 
e.g.,  management  of 
living 
natural 
and 
resources, 
climate 
change,  marine  energy, 
…) 

through 
Coordination 
stepwise 
selective, 
approach 
respecting 
subsidiarity  principle, 
real 
Fragmentation  a 
problem,  but  diversity 
also  positive  (protected 
national 
systems 
limiting  competition  as 
much  a  problem  as 
fragmentation) 

support 

Strong 
for 
Foresight,  Technology 
Platform  and  ESFRI 
inspired 
activities; 
CREST  could  play  a 
role. 

Mainly  societal  issues 
with  European  added 
value;  (focus  on  critical 
mass  in  areas  related  to 
competitiveness) 

Fragmentation 
and 
duplications  recognised 
as problematic 

ETPs 

Further  development 
of 
strongly 
supported,  also  other 
participative 
and 
exploratory forums; user 
focused 
research 
emphasised 

How?  -  Common 
principles  for  peer 
quality 
review, 
and 
joint 
evaluation, as well 
as 
the 
accountability  of 
public 
research 
funding? 

How?  -  National 
programmes 
opened 
participants 
other 
States? 

to 
from 
Member 

-  Most 

How? 
appropriate 
instruments? 

Importance  of  shared  principles 
through  bottom-up  approach  and 
sharing  of  best  practice  but 
divergence 
of 
on 
centralisation. 

degree 

Yes, 
through  flexible 
bottom-up  approach; 
helps 
the 
assessing 
European  added  value 
and  advancement  of 
ERA 

Yes: to be developed 
through  bottom-up 
approach rather than 
top-down 
approach 
(building  on  ERC 
experience) 

Yes,  would  provide 
synergies  and  increase 
better 
competition; 
policymaking 
(through 
common indicators) 

Strongly  supported,  to 
increase 
effectiveness 
and  efficiency  of  R&D 
although 
system 
approach 
voluntary 
favoured 

YES:  Especially  for  "curiosity 
driven"/basic  research  and 
in 
areas of common interest.  

(Yes), 
wise approach 

through 

step-

(Yes, 
partnership 
national 
groups) 

if 

in 
with 
research 

Mixed;  common  pots 
would 
increase 
competition  but  not 
always  appropriate  or 
feasible;  on  voluntary 
basis.  

YES;  through  gradual 
approach;  (support  to 
opening 
third 
countries on a reciprocal 
basis) 

to 

Support 
existing 
for 
instruments  (Article  169,  ERA-
NET,  etc);  need  for  better  use 
and  evaluation  of  existing  ones 
before new ones are introduced - 
too  many 
risks 
creating fragmentation 

instruments 

(combination 
of 
national  and  European 
and 
evaluation 
funding); 
(ERA-NET 
scheme  needs  more 
coherence 
and 
consistency)  

in 
from 

Divergence 
preferences 
public-private 
"Knowledge 
and 
Innovation  Centres" 
led  joint  programmes 
to OMC 

ERA-NET  good  but  not 
sufficient;  flexible  and 
geometry 
variable 
schemes 
needed; 
bilateral  cooperation  as 
starting  point  for  multi-
lateral cooperation;  

Development 
of 
existing 
instruments 
than  new  one, 
rather 
especially  make  ERA-
NET 
Scheme  more 
effectives 

How?  -  Role  for 
EC/Commission? 

Commission 
facilitator; 

to 

act 

as 

a 

voluntary 

Case-  by-case  approach  to  JP  on 
variable 
a 
geometry  basis;  importance  of 
OMC stressed 

and 

(EC  as  coordinator  and 
facilitator  of  European 
research  policy;  more 
coordination 
of 
initiatives in place) 

EC  should  help  to 
join 
identification 
and  to  agenda-setting 
society-driven 
for 
coordinate 
and 
national  funding  of 
research  to  mobilise 
critical mass 

EC  to  act  as  facilitator 
of 
coordinator 
and 
actions 
priority 
and 
setting 

(facilitator)  

The 
role  of  demand 
oriented  policies  and 
procurement 
public 
stressed;  closer 
links 
between  research  and 
innovation needed 

( ) = limited number of answers. Source: "The European Research Area: New Perspectives" Green Paper open 
consultation position papers. 

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Position  papers  were  also  received  from  European  institutions.  The  European  Parliament 
considered  that  it  was  appropriate  to  implement  reciprocal  opening  of  national  programs  to 
participants from other Member States, especially in frontier research. 26 It also considered it a 
step  forward  to  exchange  information  on  existing  national  programs  and  to  encourage 
evaluation  of  national  research  activities  by  international  panels.  The Parliament  considered 
variable  geometry  mechanisms  suitable  to  develop  adequate  flexibility  in  the  realisation  of 
thematic  programs.  It  believed  that  actions  should  be  taken  to  update  existing  forms  and 
instruments  of  cooperation,  including  COST  and  EUREKA,  and  to  adapt  them  to  the  ERA 
perspective,  and  that  the  priorities  for  public  research  funding  should  be  based  on  a  broad 
approach, incorporate long-term strategies and involve both public and private stakeholders.27 

The  European  Economic  and  Social  Committee  indicated  that  it  was  in  favour  of  open 
coordination based on a bottom-up approach and rejected any far-reaching attempts to apply 
top-down  coordination  and  standardisation.  It  also  emphasised  the  need  for  a  plurality  of 
methods,  approaches  and  choice  of  issues.28  The  Committee  of  the  Regions  put  forward  a 
similar opinion.29 It emphasised the role of regional and local authorities in the coordination 
of  research  activities.  The  Committee  endorsed  the  ERA-NET  scheme  and  believed  that  it 
should  be  developed  further,  but  regretted  that "social  platforms"  were  not  addressed  in  the 
ERA  Green  Paper,  which  it  considered  "a  genuine  innovation  […]  to  formulate  and 
implement strategic research efforts around major challenges facing European society, e.g. the 
environment, ageing population and integration."30  

Responses to the on-line questionnaire 

The  responses  to  the  online  questionnaire  (see  annex  1)  confirmed  the  opinions  provided 
through  the  position  papers.  The  overwhelming  majority  respondents  were  in  favour  of 
increased coordination through joint research programming activities, especially as far as the 
identification  of  future  research  challenges  and  opportunities  was  concerned  (Figure  1). 
Although  both  small and large company respondents strongly supported  the  coordination of 
programming activities (88% and 82% respectively), small firms were much less favourable 
to  a  structured  dialogue  at  the  EU-level,  which  might  be  explained  by  their  more  limited 
capacities to participate in such dialogues. Governmental bodies were also highly supportive 

26 

27 

28 

29 

30 

European  Parliament,  Committee  on  Industry,  Research  and  Energy.  Draft  Report  on  Commission 
Green Paper "The European Research Area – New Perspectives", 26 August 2007. 
"This New Deal would involve a more ambitious approach towards the realisation of the ERA. Unlike 
the original initiative, it does not simply promote the establishment of links between existing European 
S&T players, each with their own existing roles and responsibilities. […] It could mean an expansion of 
national  or  regional  activities  in  some  areas  or  it  could  lead  to  an  increase  in  EU-level  actions  in 
others.  It  may  even  result  in  a  need  to  build  new,  common  European  S&T  institutions,  looking  at 
organizations  like  CERN  and  ESA,  good  examples  of  success  stories.  The  New  Deal  would  mean 
preparing  these  decisions  together  based  on  solid,  shared  evidence,  and  bravely  facing  the  changes. 
The EU ability to do so could herald a new phase for European research." Ibid, p. 12. 
Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the Green Paper "The European Research 
Area – New Perspectives", INT/358, Brussels, 24 October 2007. 
The  Committee  of  the  Regions  stated  that  "the  EU  should  only  legislate  where  this  appears 
indispensable to the creation of a European Research Area and where coordinating measures, inter alia 
under  the  open  method  of  coordination,  are  not  sufficient.  Beyond  this,  the  Committee  continues  to 
reject  any  centralised  planning  at  European  level;  supports  the  idea  of  coordination  of  regional  and 
national research programmes and priorities". Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on Commission 
Green Paper "The European Research Area – New Perspectives", EDUC-IV-011, 10-11 October 2007. 
Ibid, p. 7.  

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of  stronger  coordination  action,  especially  in  basic  research,  favouring  a  more  bottom-up 
approach. 

Figure 1: Responses of R&D Actors to the question "Do we need to work together, more closely, at EU 
level" 

Is EU action needed for the purpose of:

Structured dialogue

Programme evaluation

100

80

60

40

Identification of challenges

Project peer review

Selection of research priorities

Commercial organisation (<250 emp.)

Commercial organisation (>250 emp.) 

Is EU action needed for the purpose of:
Structured dialogue

Programme evaluation

100

80

60

40

Identification of challenges

Project peer review

Selection of research priorities

Governmental body

Research funding organisation

Higher Education Institutions

Public sector research performer

Source: "The European Research Area: New Perspectives" Green Paper open consultation on-line responses. 

An  analysis  by  nationality  of  respondents  also  revealed  some  interesting  differences. 
Respondents  from  a  cluster  of  large  member  states  (Germany,  France,  Italy,  Spain  and 
Poland)  together  with  Belgium,  the  Netherlands,  Denmark  and  Estonia  showed  a  marked 
support  for  several  aspects  of  JP.  In  particular,  the  need  for  EU  action  in  the  field  of  the 
identification of challenges was supported by almost 90% of the respondents in this cluster. 
There  was  very  strong  support  for  EU  action  in  the  field  of  project  peer  review  (82%)  and 
programme  evaluation  (79%).  The  selection  of  the  research  priorities  and  the  structured 
dialogue also received significant support (69% and 65% respectively). Respondents from a 
second  cluster  of  small  and  medium-sized  member  countries  (Portugal,  Greece,  Finland, 
Ireland, Bulgaria and Romania) indicated a strong support for JP. Over 96% considered that 
EU action is needed in the identification of challenges. Project peer  review and programme 
evaluation also scored very high (88 and 91% respectively). Finally, the support for increased 

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cooperation was less marked amongst respondents from a third group of countries consisting 
of  Sweden,  the  UK,  Austria  and  the  Czech  Republic.  Here  too,  however,  support  for  EU 
action  in  the  identification  of  challenges  (80%),  Project  peer  review  (72%)  and  Programme 
evaluation  (62%)  was  substantial.  The  pattern  of  responses  indicates  that  the  size  of  the 
country and the relative strength in research might influence the views of the stakeholder with 
respect to the potential benefits from the coordination of national programmes.31 

Figure 2 Responses of the Member States to the question "Do we need to work together, more closely, at EU 
level" 

Is EU action  n ee de d for  th e pu rp ose  of:

Structur ed dialogue

100

80

60

40

20

0

Programme evaluation

Identification of challenges

Project peer review

Selection of research prior ities

CZ, A T, SE, UK

DK, NL, EE, FR, BE, IT, DE, ES

PT, GR, BG, FI, RO, IR

Source: "The European Research Area: New Perspectives" Green Paper open consultation position papers. 

1.4.2.  Experts’ opinions on JP 

The expert group on "Optimising research programmes and priorities for the development of 
the  ERA"  was  set  up  to  debate  the  issues  related  to  the  coordination  of  national  research 
effort.  It  concluded  that  "today’s  fragmented  and  sub-critical  research  efforts  need  an 
optimised framework for the funding and execution of research", and that "coordination and 
cooperation between research and technology policies and programmes in Europe presents a 
huge  opportunity  for  mobilising  the  research  potential,  capacities  and  capabilities  across  all 
European regions". The expert group recommended that the Member States, under the aegis 
of  the  Competitiveness  Council,  should  develop  a  common  vision  with  priorities  for  trans-
national  research;  establish  a  common  set  of  principles  and  operative  guidelines,  as  well  as 
eliminate  legal  barriers  and  administrative  obstacles  for  trans-national  collaboration; 
implement  more  strategic,  sustainable  and  efficient  trans-national  programming  and 
coordination  of  national  research  programmes,  using  differentiated  approaches  for  frontier 
science,  applied  research  and  societal  research;  and,  ensure  the  involvement  of  programme 
owners  and  managers  and  other  research  actors  in  the  whole  policy  design  and 
implementation  process.  The  expert  group  also  recommended  that  the  Commission  should 
evaluate all ERA mechanisms individually and systemically to support the development of a 
common set of principles and operative guidelines (in what it terms the "ERA-Frame"); that it 
should, together with Member States and stakeholders, provide common guidance and tools 

31 

Countries with less than 5 participants in the survey were omitted. 

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for the implementation of each of the different ERA mechanisms; and, that it should promote 
and disseminate best practices and results from trans-national coordination and JP.32  

Another  important  debate  on  the  issues  relating  to  research  coordination  in  the  ERA  took 
place at a major conference in Lisbon organised by the Portuguese Presidency in the autumn 
of 2007. A session dedicated to optimising research programmes and priorities concluded that 
it is now up to the Member States to move, by developing a strategic policy framework. This 
framework  should  determine  which  policy  actions  should  be  done  regionally,  nationally 
and/or  internationally.  Principles  such  as  variable  geometry  and  subsidiarity  should  be  an 
integral part of this strategy. The session also concluded that there is a need for a high level 
process and platform to discuss these national strategies and the European vision or long term 
strategy  that  transpires  from  these.  Participants  felt  that  there  was  no  one-size-fits-all 
approach to JP - different types of research have different dynamics and drivers; that serious 
legal,  administrative  barriers  still  hamper  the  process  of  JP,  opening  up  programmes  and 
policy coordination, and that a lack of political will at the Member State level is preventing 
these  forms  of  coordination  to  be  taken  a  step  further.  A  plethora  of  instruments  already 
exists, as do successful examples of trans-national cooperation. Learning from the evidence of 
current mechanisms should be made before introducing new ones, and too many instruments 
may  cause  further  fragmentation.  There  was  also  a  general  agreement  of  the  need  to  move 
swiftly  -  that  time  is  of  essential  importance  and  any  process  of  strategy  formulation  and 
vision building should not hold up actions in the short term.33 

1.4.3.  Stakeholders'  opinions  on  the  key  role  of  research  and  the  need  for  enhanced 

coordination  

As well as examining the responses from the open consultation on the ERA Green Paper, an 
analysis  was  also  made  of  a  variety  of  other  public  consultations  and  opinion  surveys  in 
which citizens, policymakers and other stakeholders expressed their views on matters relating 
to the role of research in addressing Europe's societal challenges, and the need for enhanced 
coordination of public R&D in Europe (for detailed findings see Annex 2).  

Theses sources show that citizens, policymakers and other stakeholders are of the view that 
the  challenges  requiring  coordinated  European  action  are  increasingly  societal  and  cross-
border in nature. There is also a strong consensus that research can play a significant role in 
facing these challenges which correspond closely to the concerns of citizens.  

There is also clear and general support for joint EU-level action to improve the coordination 
of  public  research  efforts,  and  in  particular  the  coordination  of  national  programmes  which 
many believe can increase the efficiency of the overall EU research system. 

1.4.4.  Summary of the stakeholders’ opinions 

Four main messages emerge from the opinions expressed by stakeholders and experts, which 
can be summarised as follows: 

32 

33 

Expert  group  on  "Optimising  research  programmes  and  priorities  for  the  development  of  the  ERA" 
Final Report, Brussels, 26 February 2008. 
Session on "Optimising research programmes and priorities", "The future of Science and Technology" 
Presidency  Conference,  Lisbon,  8-10  October  2007  (rapporteur  P.  Boekholt,  director  Technopolis 
Group). 

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(1) 

(2) 

(3) 

(4) 

There  is  very  strong  support  for  the  identification  of  future  research  challenges  and 
opportunities  through  foresight,  as  well  as  the  use  of  "Social  Platforms"  (in  analogy 
with Technology Platforms). In the areas identified as being of common interest, there 
is a broad consensus on the necessity of launching joint foresight and joint evaluation 
before launching new targeted policy initiatives. 

There  is  a  need  for  more  efficient,  effective  and  strategic  coordination  of  Member 
States'  research  programmes,  especially  for  tackling  common  societal  challenges. 
that  addressing  resource-intensive  and  complex  scientific 
Stakeholders  agree 
challenges  requires  cross-border  cooperation  between  public  authorities.  Reinforced 
coordination  of  national  programmes  and  targeted  joint  actions  are  considered  as  a 
mechanism for realising the ERA. 

A  voluntary,  bottom-up  approach  coupled  with  strategic  top-down  guidance  is 
considered  indispensable  for  ensuring  flexibility  and  customisation  to  programme 
specificities.  Stakeholders  also  stressed  the  need  for  a  differentiated  approach  to 
coordination on a case-by-case basis respecting the principles of subsidiarity, variable 
geometry  and  real  European  added  value.  There  was  support  for  shared  and 
transparent  principles  for  funding  and  evaluation;  too  rigid  top  down  EC  level 
coordination was not favoured, as it could reduce positive competition and diversity. 

A  one-size-fits-all  approach  is  rejected;  a  majority  of  the  stakeholders  agree  that 
specific  research  areas  demand  specific  modes  of  cooperation  and 
tailored 
instruments.  For  instance,  for  basic/curiosity-driven  research  there  is  strong  support 
for  the  opening  up  of  national  programmes.  The  appropriate  use  of  existing 
instruments  (e.g.,  ERA-NETs,  ERA-NET  Plus,  Article  169,  JTI,  OMC,  creation  of 
new European research institutes, etc.) in specific areas is preferred to inventing new 
ones.  

1.5. 

Opinion of the Impact Assessment Board 

The  draft  Impact  Assessment  was  submitted  to  the  Impact  Assessment  Board  on  14  April 
2008.  It  issued  its  opinion  on  14  May  2008.  In  addition  to  some  technical  comments,  the 
Board  made  several  substantial  suggestions  for  improvement.  These  comments  have  been 
taken into account in the following way: 

•  The options section 4 has been further developed in order to make the differences between 
the  options  more  distinct,  including  with  regard  to  the  role  of  the  Community  and  the 
Member States, and the selection of themes and instruments under option 4. 

•  A more detailed explanation has been provided in sections 5.8 and 6 on how the preferred 
option addresses the reluctance of public bodies and other stakeholders to take forward the 
integration of national public research programmes. 

•  Further  clarification  has  been  introduced  in  section  2  and  6  regarding  the  issue  of 

collecting information on national programme activities. 

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2. 

PROBLEM DEFINITION 

2.1. 

Europe's societal challenges and the role of research 

2.1.1.  Research can contribute to tackling Europe's societal challenges 

Europe will face a substantial number of major societal challenges in the coming years: from 
boosting  economic  growth  and  competitiveness  to  tackling  climate  change  and  securing  its 
energy  supply.  The  challenges  referred  to  in  the  Commission  consultation  paper  adopted  in 
view  of 
the 
transformation  to  a  knowledge  and  service  economy;  demographic  sustainability;  social 
justice; climate change; secure, sustainable and competitive energy; migratory pressure; and 
security and safety.34  

the  2008/2009  budget  review 

increased  global  competition; 

include 

Research  has  a  pivotal  role  to  play  in  addressing  these  priorities  on  the  EU  agenda  in  the 
coming decades, precisely because science and technology can help provide solutions to all of 
the major challenges facing the EU. For example, in the new global landscape, with emerging 
economies such as India and China increasingly competing not just on price but also in terms 
of  innovative  products,  science,  technology  and  innovation  will  be  the  main  engines  of 
Europe's economic growth and competitiveness. When it comes to tackling public health and 
other  social  challenges  -  including  the  consequences  of  an  ageing  population  -  science  and 
technology  can  also  help  through  developing  new  medicines  and  treatments,  improving 
prevention  and  diagnosis,  and  delivering  better  treatments  for  age-related  illnesses.  And  in 
finding solutions to the problems of energy supply and environmental degradation, S&T will 
play  a  key  part,  for  example,  through  providing  new  technologies  for  reducing  energy 
consumption, and through developing new energy sources. 

2.1.2.  The need to raise S&T performance by investing more efficiently and effectively 

A  pre-condition  for  Europe  to  be  able  to  meet  these  societal  challenges  is  that  its  research 
system  must  be  capable  of  producing  results  of  the  highest  standard.  However,  Europe's 
performance in science and technology presents a mixed picture, and in many important areas 
it needs to raise its level if it is to meet the major challenges it faces. To do this, it will have to 
adopt a two-pronged strategy: it must try to stimulate higher levels of investment in R&D, and 
it must try to use this investment more efficiently and effectively. The societal nature of the 
challenges moreover implies that the public sector must take the lead. 

The  first  of  these  strategies  –  investing  more  –  has  proven  extremely  difficult  in  practice. 
Europe is currently under-investing in research compared with its main partners. Although the 
3%  target  for  R&D  spending  has  been  a  major  EU  goal  since  2002,  research  spending  has 
largely stagnated over the past decade. In 2006, the EU27 spent 1.84% of GDP on Research 
& Development (R&D). In 2000, R&D intensity for the same EU27 countries was 1.86%35. 
The part funded by government has also been flat over the same period, with Member States 
unable to expand their R&D budgets significantly owing to macro-economic pressures. At the 
same  time,  Europe's  share  of  global  R&D  spending  is  falling,  as  new  research-intensive 

34 
35 

SEC(2007) 1188 final, Brussels, 7 July 1997. 
Eurostat, Gross Expenditures on Research &Development (GERD) data. 

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countries emerge on the world stage. The share of EU-25 in the R&D expenditure of a set of 
major 20 OECD and non-OECD economies declined from 28.9% in 1995 to 25% in 2005.  

If Europe cannot rapidly increase spending on research, then it must pursue with even more 
vigour the complementary strategy of trying to make better use of its scarce R&D resources 
by  investing  them  more  efficiently  and  effectively.  In  this  context,  the  public  sector  has  an 
important role to play by seeking, against the background of budgetary restraint, to increase 
the return on public R&D funds. 

There  are  many  ways  of  trying  to  boost  the  impact  and  efficiency  of  public  R&D,  and 
Member  States  have  pursued  numerous  approaches  in  recent  years.  However,  as  the  next 
section  will  show,  one  of  the  paths  which  has  been  under-exploited  and  which  offers  great 
potential  gains  relates  to  improving  the  organisation  of  Europe's  public  R&D  investment 
through increased cross-border programme collaboration and coordination. 

2.2. 

The need to improve the organisation of Europe's public R&D investment 

2.2.1.  Performance in key S&T fields is not just a matter of levels of investment 

In some fields of research, under-investment in R&D compared with its global partners, may 
be part of the reason for Europe's weaker performance. Yet raising levels of public investment 
has  proven  difficult,  as  outlined  above.  However,  in  other  fields  Europe  is  investing 
generously by international standards, but it is still lagging when it comes to the impact of this 
research. In both cases – where there is under-investment and where funding is adequate – if 
S&T  performance  is  weak  then  this  will  make  it  more  difficult  for  Europe  to  tackle  the 
challenges  it  faces.  The  solution  lies  in  trying  to  get  more  out  of  the  research  system  by 
improving the organisation of Europe's public R&D investment 

The  most  obvious  example  of  an  S&T  field  particularly  affected  by  public  R&D 
underinvestment  is  health  research,  in  which  the  US  spends  more  than  twice  as  much  as 
Europe relative to GDP, and almost three times as much when measured relative to the size of 
the  respective  populations.36  It  is  no  surprise  then  that  in  these  areas,  Europe's  S&T 
performance lags behind that of its main partners. For instance, while the number of European 
scientific publications in the field of medicine is comparable to that of the US, they receive 
far fewer citations.37 Another field where Europe budget is far below the public funding in US 
is  biotechnology.  In  2005,  the  total  public  funding  of  biotechnology  in  all  32  European 
countries  amounted  to  4  077M  PPP$  (€3  540M)  while  federal  public  funding  of 
biotechnology in the United States amounted to 23 200M PPP$, which is more than five times 
more  than  Europe's  funding.38  Not  surprisingly,  at  both  the  European  and  the  US  patent 
offices, the US seriously outperforms Europe in terms of biotech patents.39 

36 

37 

38 
39 

Public R&D investment in the field of health amounts to 0.14 % of GDP in Europe but no less than 0.33 
%  of  GDP  in  the  US  (European  Medical  Research  Council  White  Paper  2007,  European  Science 
Foundation). 
Science  &  Innovation  Investment  Framework  2004-2014:  Next  Steps.  A  report  by  the  Department  of 
Health,  the  Department  for  Education  &  Skills,  the  DTI  and  HM  Treasury,  March  2006.  The 
pharmaceutical industry in figures. A report of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries 
and Associations (EFPIA), June 2006. 
BioPolis, Final Report, March 2007, pp. 52-53. 
European Commission, Europe in the global research landscape, 2007, p. 57. 

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However, there are counter-examples of S&T fields addressing societal challenges where the 
problem does not appear to be one of resources and where Europe's public sector appears to 
be  investing  (almost)  as  much  as  or  even  more  than  its  main  partners.  In  those  fields, 
however, Europe does not appear to perform as well as or better than its partners, which given 
comparable or higher levels of funding one would expect.  

For instance, in 2005, government budgets for environmental research ("control and care of 
the environment") amounted to €2.2 billion in  Europe, compared with €0.5 billion in the US. 40 
In the same year, government budgets for energy research overall ("production, distribution, 
and rational utilisation of energy") amounted to €2.2 billion in  Europe, compared with €1.2 
billion  in  the  US.41  In  specific  energy  research  sub-fields  as  well,  the  public  sector  invests 
substantially more in Europe than in the US.42 For example, the public sector invested about 
350 million Euro in hydrogen and fuel cell research in Europe, and about 240 million Euro in 
the  US  in  2005.  However,  in  terms  of  performance  Europe  needs  to  do  better.  In  hydrogen 
and  fuel  cells  research,  Europe  is  leading  in  terms  of  scientific  publications  in  the  fields  of 
'hydrogen production' and 'hydrogen storage', but while in the former the gap with its nearest 
competitor (US) is still comfortable, in the latter the gap with its nearest competitor (China) is 
very small. And in the field of 'fuel cells', Europe has already been overtaken by the US in 
terms of scientific publications. In terms of patents, Europe is seriously outperformed by the 
US  and  Japan  as  far  as  both  'conversion  and  utilisation'  and  'hydrogen  production'  are 
concerned.43  In  bioenergy,  the  average  level  (from  2000  to  2004)  of  Europe's  public  RTD 
funding has been a third higher than that of its main competitor, US. However, while US are 
heavily focused on a limited number of projects such as integrated bio-refineries with greater 
chances of success, European research, despite some countries being very active, appears still 
"random" and ends up delivering fewer results in return. 

Another example is in the field of nanotechnologies, where European public research funding 
is almost comparable to that in the US. In the period 2004-2006, European public funding in 
the field of nanotechnology, was even higher in Europe (4.7 billion Euro) than in the US (3.8 
billion Euro) with Germany as top spender, followed by France and UK.44 Yet, since 2002, 
Europe's leading position in nanotechnology publications is weakening in relation to the US,45 
and  there  is  also  clear  evidence  that  the  US  is  outperforming  Europe  in  terms  of 
nanotechnology patents.46 For example, the top ten patenting institutions at the US Patent and 

40 
41 
42 

43 

44 

45 
46 

Eurostat, Government Budget Appropriations or Outlays on Research &Development (GBOARD) data 
Ibid. 
In  photovoltaic  research,  the  public  sector  invested  about  110  million  euro  in  Europe  compared  with 
about 55 % of that amount in the US. In biomass-bioenergy research, the public sector invested about 
103 million euro in Europe, or about 50 % more than in the US. The European public sector invested 
about 100 million euro in CO2 capture and storage research, and the US one about 50 million euro. In 
wind  research,  Europe's  public  sector  investment  was  about  57.7  million  euro  compared  with  32.1 
million euro by the US one. 
HY-CO (ERA-NET), Report on indicators of hydrogen and fuel cells research, 27 September 2006, p. 
33. 
Angela  Hullmann  European  Commission,  DG  Research,  Unit  “Nano  S&T  -  Convergent  Science  and 
Technologies”, November 2006. 
European Commission, Europe in the global research landscape, 2007, p. 45. 
Ibid, p. 46; OECD, Compendium of Patent Statistics, Paris, 2007; Masatsura Igami and Teruo Okazaki, 
Capturing  Nanotechnology’s  Current  State  of  Development  via  Analysis  of  Patents,  in:  STI  Working 
Paper 2007/4, OECD, Paris, 2007. 

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Trademark Office are all from the US, and only four of the institutions in the European Patent 
Office top ten are from Europe.47 

S&T fields differ hugely in terms of, for example, the amount of R&D invested, the degree of 
existing coordination/fragmentation and performance – and there is no straightforward linear 
relationship  between  these  factors.  The  graph  below  shows  the  size  of  public  funding,  an 
assessment  of  the  degree  of  coordination/fragmentation  at  European  level,  and  the  relative 
size of European public funding compared to the US for some S&T fields. 

The graph below (Figure 3) is not exhaustive, but serves to illustrate that each S&T field is 
unique  and  requires  its  own  tailored  approach  to  Joint  Programming,  the  development  of 
which should be evidence-based and grounded in the strategic analysis of detailed information 
on respective S&T fields. 

This will require the full involvement of Member States. 

Figure 3 A scattered public research in the European Research Area 

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Concentrated solar thermal

POLLUTION AND ENVIRONMENT 
PROTECTION

Nuclear fusion 

CO2 capture and storage

Biomass - Bioenergy

Nanosafety

Photovoltaic

Hydrogen and
 fuel cells

AGRICULTURE PRODUCTION AND 
TECHNOLOGY

NANOTECHNOLOGIES

Polar programs

Grids electricity

Geothermal

Cancer 

CIVIL SECURITY

INFORMATION AND COMMU-
NICATION TECHNOLOGY

Wind energy

SPACE

Brain diseases

BIOTECHNOLOGIES 

Low coordination/ High fragmentation

Dementia - Alzheimer 

Rare diseases

Medium

Low fragmentation / High coordination

X-axis:  This  estimates  the  degree  of  coordination  among  Member  State  (MS)  research  programmes 
and  of  funding  and  institutional  fragmentation,  based  on  qualitative  assessments  from  scientific 
publications, strategic reports, etc;  
Y-axis:  This  presents  the  logarithmic  ratio  of  public  R&D  investment  in  Europe  (MS+European 
Commission (EC)) compared to US, 
Size  of  bubbles:  This  is  directly  proportional  to  the  amount  of  European  public  funding  (MS+EC), 
based on New Cronos (e.g. GBAORD) and US government data as well as scientific publications 

47 

Hsinchun Chen, Mihail C. Roco, Xin L. and Yiling Lin, Trends in nanotechnology patents, In: Nature 
Nanotechnology, Volume 3, March 2008. 

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2.2.2.  Europe's  S&T  performance  can  be  improved  by  better  organising  public  R&D 

investment 

The above examples indicate that raising levels of public investment should not be the only 
solution to improving Europe's performance in S&T. In those fields where R&D is generously 
provided  for,  but  where  Europe's  performance  shows  cause  for  concern,  there  is  reason  to 
explore how these funds can be spent more efficiently and effectively. This is even more the 
case  in  those  low-performing  areas  where  public  research  investment  is  too  modest  by 
international standards, and where it is difficult for governments to radically increase funding.  

There are of course many factors that Europe could try to tackle to boost its performance in 
certain areas, and which it might try to tackle. These include, for example, problems related to 
the  transformation  of  research  results  into  marketable  products  and  services,  or  to  the 
governance  of  research  institutions,  notably  universities,  and  their  systems  for  managing 
research.  However,  a  glaring  weakness  relates  to  the  way  it  organises  its  public  R&D 
investment,  and  more  specifically  the  lack  of  cross-border  programme  collaboration  and 
coordination. Today, barely 15 % of European publicly financed civil R&D, and less than 6% 
of  total  R&D  investment  is  financed  in  partnership  and  coordinated  at  European  level  (see 
Figure  4).  This  is  done  mainly  through  the  Framework  Programme  (FP)  and  other 
Intergovernmental schemes (see Annex 3). Additional coordination of industry financed R&D 
takes place through exclusively private joint ventures as well as through the newly introduced 
Joint  Technology  Initiatives.  In  addition,  the  Framework  Programme  indirectly  coordinates 
part  of  the  industry  financed  R&D  through  its  leverage  effect,  by  requesting  that  private 
companies co-finance publicly supported research projects.48 JP nevertheless targets that 85% 
of  government  financed  R&D  which  is  currently  programmed,  financed,  monitored  and 
evaluated in a nationally fragmented landscape. 

As  seen  in  Section  1,  key  stakeholders  have  identified  this  lack  of  collaboration  and 
coordination  of  public  R&D  investment  as  one  of  the  most  important  problems  currently 
affecting  Europe's  capability  to  address  societal  challenges.  Within  the  context,  of  the  ERA 
Green  Paper  stakeholder  consultation,  for  instance,  80%  of  respondents  agreed  that 
addressing  resource-intensive  and  complex  scientific  challenges  requires  cross-border 
cooperation between public authorities. 

And  in  fact,  when  one  looks  at  particular  S&T  fields,  there  is  substantial  evidence  of 
institutional,  programme, procedural and other kinds of diversity and  a lack  of joint agenda 
setting  and  coordination.  While  diversity  can  be  considered  an  asset,  research  practitioners 
have  identified  the  lack  of  coordination  as  a  problem  in  a  wide  range  of  S&T  fields.  For 
example, it has been noted that research into ageing "seems to be well established though not 
nationally coordinated […] and there is an urgent need to plan and coordinate it strategically 

48 

Other schemes, such as COST, ESF also play an important coordination role, but they do not directly 
finance  R&D  investments.  The  Structural Funds  too  provide  a  significant  amount  of funding  to  RTD 
related activities: 13 billion euro in the period 2000-2006 and 50 billion euro for the period 2007-2013 
(roughly as much as the 7th Framework programme). The bulk of the funding has a strict geographical 
distribution  and  is  non-coordinated  between  Member  States.  However,  a  smaller  part,  is  dedicated  to 
regional cooperation activities - many linked to different aspects of the programming cycle; 292 million 
euro  in  the  period  2000-2006,  which  will  increase  to  842  million  in  the  period  2007-2013,  i.e.,  an 
average  of  120  million  per  year.  Since  these  funds  are  transferred  and  administrated  by 
national/regional authorities, however, they are included in the public financed civil R&D. Additional 
information on the statistical sources and methodology to construct the above estimates is provided in 
Annex 3. 

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at the national as well as the European  level".49  Similarly  in  the  area  of  hydrogen  and  fuel 
cells it has been observed that "the EU25+ is spending too much on research into stationary 
applications, and not enough on research into hydrogen production, storage and distribution 
and portable applications. [...] cooperation between small research programmes in different 
countries  can  deliver  benefits  to  the  EU25+  as  a  whole  by  efficiently  allocating  resources 
according to which areas require further research"50. As highlighted in the previous chapters, 
coordination  problems  have  been  found  in  numerous  other  research  fields,  for  instance  in 
cancer,  Alzheimer,  rare  diseases,  biodiversity,  climate  change  assessment  and  adoption, 
marine  pollution,  bioenergy,  organic  food  &  farming,  industrial  technology,  security  and 
transport.  In  cancer  research,  for  example,  two  agencies  in  the  US  (NCI  and  NIH)  provide 
85%  of  total  public  funding  (equal  to  4.5  billion  dollars)  whereas  Europe  has  many 
governmental agencies as funders, each providing on average 30-35 million euros. In the field 
of Alzheimer, the National Institute of Ageing funds a large part of public research in the US, 
whereas in Europe there is no similar institutional driving force.51 

This lack of pan-European cross-border programme collaboration and coordination is giving 
rise  to  a  number  of  serious  problems.  From  a  pan-European  perspective,  European  research 
efforts  often  unnecessarily  duplicate  each  other  and/or  they  lack  the  required  programme 
scope  (some  topics  are  not  researched  at  all)  and  scale  or  depth  (insufficient  resources  are 
allocated  to  the  research  on  each  issue).  The  multitude  of  national  procedures  makes  it 
difficult  for  cross-border  projects  and  multinational  actors  (e.g.  MNEs)  to  access  research 
funding. The resulting lack of cross-border project collaboration makes it difficult to address 
common  challenges  jointly.  It  complicates  the  necessary  pooling  of  scattered  data  and 
expertise, cross-border human resources training and mobility, and the rapid dissemination of 
research results. And it hampers pan-European public-private strategic research agenda setting 
and horizontal policy coordination. 

Figure 4 : R&D financed in partnership as a share of public financed civil R&D (left panel) and total 
R&D (right panel) 

30

25

20

15

10

5

0
1994

Resources to be 
coordinated through 
Joint Programming

R&D financed by national government

Intergovernmental schemes

Framework Programmes

100

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

R&D financed by business enterprises

Defense R&D financed by national government

Resources to be 
coordinated through 
Joint Programming

Civil R&D financed by national government

R&D financed by governments

Intergovernmental schemes

Framework Programmes

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

0
1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

R&D financed in partnership

Source: DG RTD estimates, for details on statistical sources and methodology see annex 3. 

49 

50 

51 

ERA-AGE  (ERA-NET):  Summary  recommendations  from  the  report  of  the  first  meeting  of  the 
European forum, 16 and 17 February 2005, p. 2. 
HY-CO  (ERA-NET):  Report  on  indicators  of  hydrogen  and  fuel  cells  research,  27  September  2006, 
p.19 and p.35. 
France  is  making  Alzheimer's  disease  and  other  dementias  (AD+)  a  priority  under  the  French 
Presidency of the EU (second semester 2008) and setting up a national plan for fighting AD+. For more 
information, cfr: Menard Joël, Rapport au Président de la République, Commission Nationale chargée 
de l'élaboration de propositions pour un plan national concernant la maladie d'Alzheimer et les maladies 
apparentées, 8 Novembre 2007, pp. 118.  

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2.3. 

European cooperation in public R&D – impressive history, but progress is slow 

2.3.1.  Europe has developed a variety of transnational cooperation activities 

The  role  of  R&D  cooperation  in  producing  more  efficient  and  effective  research  has  long 
been  recognised,  and  this  is  why  numerous  efforts  have  been  made  over  the  years  by 
European countries to co-invest in research.  

The  main  complementary  funding  schemes  designed  to  promote  trans-national  R&D 
cooperation are the EU Framework  Programme,  and  the  inter-governmental schemes COST 
and  EUREKA.  In  addition,  there  are  the  various  inter-governmental  research  organisations 
which have emerged over the last fifty years, such as CERN, the European Molecular Biology 
Organisation, the European Space Agency and the European Science Foundation. The result 
of  this  process  is  a  landscape  of  different  mechanisms  for  collaboration  and  coordination, 
each  with  its  own  rationale,  advantages  and  disadvantages.  (Annex  3  gives  a  more  detailed 
analysis of these various cooperation schemes.) 

The  European  cooperative  research  landscape  also  includes  the  various  bilateral  R&D 
agreements that have been established between EU Member States. A study in 2001 identified 
over 800 bilateral agreements in Europe.52 For example, the Nordic countries have been very 
active  in  promoting  bilateral  cooperation  involving  Nordic  research  institutions,  fixed-term 
research  programmes,  Nordic  Centres  of  Excellence  (NCoE),  grant  schemes  and  the  co-
ordination and planning of major infrastructure investments, with the recently created Nordic 
Research Board (NordForsk) as a central actor  

Despite  these  efforts,  the  share  of  intergovernmental  and  Community  actions  for  trans-
national  R&D  cooperation  in  total  government  financed  civil  R&D  has  stagnated  over  the 
past 10 years between 16 and 14%. Thus, despite the political consensus over the last 15 years 
that more needs to be done to coordinate national programmes (section 1), the situation on the 
ground has evolved at a very slow pace. 

Some recent initiatives have also tried to tackle the coordination of national programmes, but 
as will be seen below these have been very modest and limited in their impact.  

2.3.2.  Recent  steps  by  the  Community  to  enhance  coordination  –  useful  effects,  but 

modest impact 

Recognising  that  more  coordination  was  needed,  the  Community  has  tried  to  reinforce  its 
efforts to address this issue. The Open Method of Coordination was introduced in 2000 and 
has  been  applied  to  research  policies.  In  addition,  under  the  6th  and  7th  Framework 
Programmes  new  instruments  were  introduced  to  enhance  the  coordination  of  national 
programmes  –  ERA-NETs  and  Article  169  initiatives  (see  Annex  4  for  a  more  detailed 
presentation  of  these  efforts).  They  have  been  widely  welcomed  and  first  results  are 
promising.  However,  these  instruments  remain  extremely  modest  in  volume  compared  with 
total EU public R&D spending. Moreover, as will be seen below, all these new measures have 
their limitations. 

52 

Bilateral International R&D Cooperation Policies of the EU Member States, 2 volumes, Report for the 
European Commission, DG Research, 2001 

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Open Method of Coordination 

The  Open  Method  of  Coordination  was  introduced  by  the  European  Council  of  Lisbon 
(March 2000) as an instrument to help Member States progress jointly towards the common 
goals  of  the  Lisbon  strategy,  particularly  in  the  domains  –  like  research  -  where  policy 
competence lies mainly with the Member States. The OMC is a soft governance tool, based 
on benchmarking, policy learning, and identification of best practice.  

OMC established a structured discussion amongst national policy makers about certain topics, 
and  there  are  indications  that  it  may  have  had  some  effect  on  the  way  Member  States 
construct their national policy mixes. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  designed  consciously  as  a  soft  tool  of  coordination.  It  is  a  voluntary  and 
non-committing  process  relying  on  goodwill,  openness  and  peer  pressure.  As  there  are  no 
means for ensuring a follow-up, progress is likely to be slow in materialising. OMC has also 
suffered from limited visibility and follow-up at the higher political levels. 

Crucially, OMC has focused on policy coordination and not programme coordination as such, 
in other words on the non-funding related aspects of research policy. 

ERA-NETs 

ERA-NETs were conceived under the 6th Framework Programme as a bottom up approach for 
bringing  together  managers  and  owners  of  national  research  programmes  in  fields  they 
identified  as  needing  more  coordination.  71  ERA-NETs  were  launched  under  FP6,  which 
have resulted in about 85 joint calls totalling over 800 million euros. ERA-NETs have been 
widely welcomed by the research funding bodies, who appreciate their bottom-up nature, and 
their variable geometry. The mid-term review found that they fulfilled a real need and helped 
to overcome barriers to coordination. 

ERA-NETs  have  been  successful  in  creating  a  European  networked  "community"  of 
programme  owners  and  managers.  However,  their  impact  in  financial  terms  is  limited  to  a 
very small proportion of the total national research budget in the EU. Moreover, they suffer 
from  certain  weaknesses.  Administrative  and  legal  barriers  to  cross-border  funding  have 
hindered  their  expansion.  There  is  still  a  reluctance  to  open  up  programmes  and  funding  to 
foreign participants. Also, ERA-NETs have been initiated in a bottom-up way, which meant 
they were not always well embedded in national research strategies.53 

Article 169 initiatives 

Article 169 is another instrument of coordinated programming launched under FP6 and FP7. 
The  main  objective  of  an  Article  169  initiative  is  to  go  beyond  the  mere  coordination  of 
national  programmes  to  achieve  the  real  integration  of  different  national  and  regional 
programmes into a single joint programme. An Article 169 initiative is implemented jointly, 
and funded through integrated financial support. 

Unlike  an  ERA-NET,  in  an  Article  169  initiative  the  Community  does  not  just  support  the 
simple  coordination  of  the  national  programmes  undertaken  by  Member  States  but  rather 
participates actively including a Community financial contribution for research. While some 

53 

Report of the ERA Expert Group on Optimising Research Programmes and Priorities, 2008 

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new  169s  have  just  been  launched,  so  far  real  experience  has  been  limited  to  a  single  pilot 
initiative:  the  European  &  Developing  Countries  Clinical  Trials  Partnership  (EDCTP).  The 
main drawback found in the application of this instrument in the case of EDCTP has been the 
difficulty in identifying the relevant national programmes and in achieving a full integration 
of  these  programmes  through  a  "common  pot"  of  funding.  A  limitation  in  scope  is,  that  the 
Article  169  instrument  is  restricted  to  the  topics  covered  by  the  Framework  Programme 
Accordingly,  its  applicability  and  effectiveness  could  be  enhanced  by  making  it  part  of  a 
coherent framework that would provide a higher level strategic focus. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  evident  that  ERA-NETs  and  Article  169  initiatives,  while  promising,  are 
still the tip of the iceberg, at least in financial terms. It is also evident that these instruments 
have  their  limitations,  that  cannot  be  resolved  by  minor  adjustments.  Nor  is  it  possible  to 
exploit  the  other  inter-governmental  mechanisms  described  earlier  in  order  to  rapidly 
strengthen  the  coordination  of  national  programmes.  These  various  schemes  and  bodies 
accomplish their different goals, but they are not appropriate instruments for achieving large 
scale coordination of national programmes. In short, the existing modes of cooperation have 
proven to be insufficient for rapidly advancing the structural coordination of national public 
R&D programmes.  

2.4.  Why  Europe  needs  a  new  process  for  joint  strategic  agenda  setting  and 

coordination of public R&D  

What  is  needed  is  a  new,  more  strategic  approach  for  the  coordination  of  public  R&D 
programmes  in  Europe,  focussed  on  those  areas  that  can  contribute  solutions  to  Europe's 
pressing  societal  challenges,  and  where  coordination  can  deliver  gains  in  the  efficiency  and 
impact of research. Over the last 15 years a series of steps (outlined in section 1) have been 
taken  at  EU  level  in  an  effort  to  stimulate  greater  coordination  of  national  public  R&D 
programmes. Yet little progress has been made. Since 2000 some innovative instruments have 
been  added  to  existing  arrangements  in  order  to  further  encourage  this  trend  towards  more 
coordination, but these are not enough (section 2.3). 

Past efforts to promote improved collaboration and coordination have clearly been hampered 
by  a  lack  of  high-level  Member  State  political  commitment,  by  a  lack  of  sufficient  and 
credible data on and insights into the particular structure and organisation of respective S&T 
fields, and by instrument rigidity. 

Now, however, is a good time to launch a new initiative. There are two basic reasons for this. 
Firstly,  the  wider  policy  context  has  changed  as  commonly  faced  major  societal  challenges 
(climate change, energy security, etc.) have moved decisively to the top of the policy agenda 
in each Member State and at Community level, and Member States are now well aware of the 
costs  of  non-coordination  and  the  benefits  of  more  coordination  at  both  S&T  and  societal 
level. 

Secondly,  in  this  supportive  context,  there  is  now  a  unique  opportunity  to  learn  from  and 
build  upon  the  valuable  recent  experience  with  coordination  instruments  by  setting  up  a 
properly  structured  policy  process  based  firmly  on  the  principles  of  Better  Regulation: 
working closely with the Member States in a transparent manner; respecting the principles of 
subsidiary,  European  added  value  and  proportionality;  preparing  and  launching  concrete 
initiatives  on  the  basis  of  an  extensive,  credible  evidence-base;  and  ensuring  the 
accountability and transparency of the process via proper monitoring and evaluations systems. 

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2.4.1.  Benefits of cross-border programme collaboration and coordination 

In  general,  an  R&D  programme  is  characterised  by  clearly  defined  objectives,  a  set  budget 
with  often  fixed  duration,  a  usually  targeted  set  of  research  actors,  a  system  of  selecting 
proposals, and rules for participation. R&D programmes have a number of well-documented 
advantages  in  relation  to  more  institutional  forms  of  funding:  they  provide  targeted  and 
transparent objectives, they induce healthy competition between research groups and promote 
research  excellence,  they  offer  flexibility  and  adaptability  of  design  and  goals,  and  they 
facilitate monitoring and evaluation.  

However, the societal returns to public research programmes can be increased by improving 
the  organisation  of  European  public  R&D  via  more  and  better  cross-border  programme 
collaboration  and  coordination.  This  is  because  carrying  out  research  through  trans-national 
cooperation  can  increase  its  impact  and  bring  other  important  benefits  such  as  addressing 
common  challenges  jointly  and  developing  common  solutions,  overcoming  barriers  to  entry 
such  as  high  start-up  and  operating  costs  in  certain  S&T  fields,  pooling  data  and  expertise, 
achieving higher scientific, technological and innovation impacts, eliminating cross-European 
programme duplication, increasing programme depth, and reducing programme management 
costs. Concrete examples of the tangible benefits for S&T, the economy and society are given 
in sections 5.5, 5.6 and 5.7. The costs to Europe of non-coordination can therefore be viewed 
as the non-realisation of these significant benefits. 

2.4.2.  Subsidiarity and European added value  

It is of course important to establish a clear basis and rationale for Community action in this 
area. The right for the Community to act in this field is set out in several articles of the Treaty 
which  make  provisions  for  research  coordination  and  cooperation  between  Member  States 
and the Community. Article 165 stipulates that "the Community and the Member States shall 
coordinate  their  research  and  technological  development  activities  so  as  to  ensure  that 
national  policies  and  Community  policy  are  mutually  consistent".  It  also  allows  the 
Commission, in close cooperation with the Member States, to "take any useful initiative" to 
promote  such  coordination.  As  already  mentioned,  Article 169  allows  the  Community  to 
make  "provision,  in  agreement  with  the  Member  States  concerned,  for  participation  in 
research  and  development  programmes  undertaken  by  several  Member  States,  including 
participation  in  the  structures  created  for  the  execution  of  those  programmes".  Article 171 
allows the Community to "set up joint undertakings or any other structure necessary for the 
efficient  execution  of  Community  research,  technological  development  and  demonstration 
programmes".54 

In order for Community action to be justified, it is also necessary for the subsidiarity principle 
to be respected. This involves assessing two aspects. Firstly, it is important to be sure that the 
objectives of the proposed action could not be achieved sufficiently by Member States in the 
framework of their national constitutional system (necessity test). In the case of the proposed 
process for JP, purely inter-governmental actions aimed at coordination of public R&D have 
not  expanded  rapidly  in  recent  years  (section  2.3.1),  and  the  only  initiatives  aimed  at 
programme  coordination  have  been  developed  within  the  context  of  Community  activities 

54 

Treaty establishing the European Community, Official Journal C 325 of 24 December 2002. The Treaty 
of  Lisbon  amending  the  Treaty  on  European  Union  and  the  Treaty  establishing  the  European 
Community left these articles unchanged, with the exception of article 165 (see Official Journal C 306 
of 17 December 2007). 

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(section  2.3.2).  Therefore,  Member  States  are  unlikely  to  be  able  to  address  these  problems 
acting alone. 

The second aspect to consider is whether and how the objectives could be better achieved by 
action  on  the  part  of  the  Community  (test  of  EU  value-added).  The  rationale  for  EU  action 
stems  partly  from  the  trans-national  nature  of  some  of  the  key  challenges  (for  example, 
climate  change)  where  Member  States  need  to act  together  to  properly  tackle  the  problems. 
But  it  can  also  be  justified  in  terms  of  offering  the  potential  for  greater  scale,  scope  and 
effectiveness of public R&D programmes in Europe, as set out in section 2.4.1 above. 

2.4.3.  Conclusion – the need for a new process 

There  is  a  growing  recognition  that  a  new  strategic  approach  is  needed  to  strengthen  the 
collaboration and coordination of public R&D programmes. Despite the considerable efforts 
made  in  the  EU  to  encourage  greater  coordination  of  public  R&D,  progress  has  been  very 
limited  and  slow.  Some  of  this  lack  of  progress  can  doubtless  be  attributed  to  the  inherent 
complexity  of  setting  up  mechanisms  for  transnational  cooperation.  However,  Europe  must 
also  learn  from  its  past  experience.  A  repeated  theme  in  the  evaluation  of  measures 
implemented so far is that a significant obstacle to real JP – especially when it involves the 
creation  of  a  "common pot" of funds – is the innate inertia of public bodies in the Member 
States due to legislation, conflicting policy objectives, different traditions and procedures, etc.  

This may partly explain why soft approaches like OMC and ERA-NETs have been popular. 
Nevertheless, as outlined in section 2.3, they are recognised as having a limited effect when it 
comes to encouraging JP. The Article 169 instrument has also been a positive innovation, but 
has had its problems. While these are being addressed in the new wave of 169 initiatives, the 
volume of such actions (and of the ERA-NETs) in relation to total public R&D in Europe is 
miniscule.  

There is a need for a new approach. Experience shows that JP will not take off rapidly under 
the  present  system.  What  is  needed  is  a  process  involving  the  concerned  parties  coming 
together to discuss and plan what can be done. The proposed initiative on JP is a response to 
this need. JP is a process whereby Member States engage on a voluntary and à la carte basis 
in the definition, development and implementation of research agendas addressing a specific 
field or specific topic. It can involve the coordination of existing national programmes, or the 
setting  up  of  entirely  new  ones,  putting  resources  together  and  collectively  monitoring  and 
reviewing progress. The new initiative should be shaped by the views of stakeholders and by 
the experiences of the past. 

Clearly,  such  a  process  must  involve  the  Member  States.  National  programmes  belong  to 
them,  and  they  must  decide  what  is  in  their best interest. No progress  can  be  made  without 
their full commitment to the process. As managers of the national programmes, they also have 
all  the  information  and  experience  about  how  funds  are  spent  in  a  particular  field  and  with 
what coverage and effect. 

For these reasons, it is important that a process for moving towards JP should not be too top-
down with the Commission in the driving seat. The Commission's role should be acting as a 
facilitator. The process should not be too bottom-up either, because this would lead to a lack 
of coherent strategy and focus. 

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An  effective  process  would  involve  Member  States  together  identifying  areas  of  common 
concern  where  collective  action  can  be  more  effective  in  tackling  important  societal 
challenges.  In  particular,  it  must  use  suitable  criteria  agreed  by  all  parties  in  order  to 
determine the fields in which JP could most usefully be launched.  

To make these criteria operational there must be a solid information base. However, the lack 
of accurate and comparable information on national and regional research programmes is one 
of  Europe's  fundamental  weaknesses  at  the  moment.  Best  efforts  to  obtain  data  on  these 
programmes  have  provided  only  a  partial  picture  of  the  national  research  landscape,  and 
evidence  of  duplication,  gaps  and  sub-optimal  scale  still  tends  to  be  ad-hoc  (such  as  the 
examples cited by ERA-NETs, or in certain reports by research bodies). This is because they 
have  tried  to  be  all-embracing,  including  all  fields  of  S&T  for  all  Member  States,  and 
providing quite aggregated data and information. For JP a more focussed approach is required 
involving the collection of more detailed information on selected fields of interest. 

This is a matter that can best be tackled through a collective process involving the Member 
States.  Information  needs  to  be  gathered  on  existing  national  and  regional  programmes  in 
various areas, their coverage, and issues of gaps, duplication or lack of scale and scope.  

There  is  a  need  for  an  approach  which  allows  for  flexibility  in  terms  of  participating 
countries.  Not  all  Member  States  share  the  same  challenges  in  every  area,  especially  in  the 
expanded  EU  of  27.  There  is  a  need  for  the  use  of  variable  geometry  in  setting  up  joint 
programmes. 

Finally,  an  effective  process  must  allow  for  a  graduated  response.  It  should  make  use  of 
lighter instruments (e.g. ERA-NETs) where there performance in a field of S&T is good, and 
use stronger JP mechanisms in those areas where performance is problematic. 

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3. 

OBJECTIVES 

3.1. 

General policy objectives 

The general policy objectives of the JP initiative are to enhance the EU's capacity to achieve 
its high level policy goals and respond to the major challenges it faces in the coming years: 

•  To contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the revised Lisbon Strategy. 

•  To help Europe respond more effectively through research to key societal challenges such 

as climate change, energy supply, ageing population. 

•  To contribute to the achievement of the European Research Area (ERA) objectives. 

3.2. 

Specific objectives:  

In  order  to  contribute  to  achieving  these  general  policy  objectives,  it  will  be  necessary  to 
improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public research programming in Europe in areas 
where it is facing major societal challenges. Specific objectives are: 

•  To strengthen the coordination of national public research programmes in Europe in areas 
which can provide solutions to important societal challenges and where there is evidence 
of an added value from adopting a joint cross-border approach. 

•  In  this  way,  to  increase  the  impact  of  these  programmes,  both  S&T  impacts  (scientific 
excellence,  pooling  of  resources,  data  and  expertise,  achievement  of  critical  mass, 
facilitating programme optimisation) and economic and societal impacts. 

3.3. 

Operational objectives: 

In  order  to  promote  the  above  improvements  in  impact  and  efficiency,  the  operational 
objectives are:  

•  To  provide  an  effective  process  which  will  promote  a  more  strategic  approach  to 
coordinating  national  research  programmes  aimed  at  helping  to  tackle  Europe's  societal 
challenges. 

•  To ensure that this process and the ensuing joint public research programming initiatives 

enjoy a high level of stakeholder support and ownership. 

•  Through  the  process,  and  the  use  of  appropriate  instruments,  to  promote  cross-border 
public research programme integration and structuring effects, notably the achievement of 
critical mass of R&D effort. 

•  To provide a process that allows for a graduated response in terms of Joint Programming 

instruments, as well as variable geometry in terms of country participation. 

•  To ensure that joint initiatives are based on up-to-date and accurate information on national 

and regional programming activities. 

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•  To promote stronger horizontal policy consistency. 

3.4. 

Ensuring consistency with other EU policies and strategies 

The objectives envisaged are consistent with other EU strategies and policies. Meeting these 
objectives  through  the  initiative  proposed  can  contribute  to  the  overall  EU  strategy  for 
Growth  and  Jobs,  in  particular  its  innovation  strategy,  aimed  at  strengthening  EU 
competitiveness, which depends in part on realising the European Research Area. It can also 
improve  the  transformation  of  the  results  of  research  into  new  products  and  processes,  and 
widen  the  access  of  industry  and  in  particular  SMEs  to  the  public  funding  of  research.  In 
focusing coordinated efforts on major societal challenges, these objectives are also coherent 
with the strategy on Climate Change and Sustainable Europe, for example, with respect to the 
implementation  of  the  Energy  Efficiency  Action  Plan,  the  new  Energy  Action  Plan  and  in 
particular the development of low carbon technologies. Finally, there is also a clear link with 
the  objectives  of  the  EU  Health  Strategy  in  the  priority  area  Putting  Citizens  First,  for 
example,  by  helping  to  tackle  important  societal  challenges  such  as  the  aging  society  and 
related sicknesses. 

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4. 

PRESENTATION OF THE OPTIONS  

We now consider a number of concrete policy options to reach the stated policy objectives. 
Against  the  background  of  the  progress  made  so  far  in  the  field  of  European  cross-border 
public  research  programme  coordination  and  collaboration  and  of  the  lessons  learned  so  far 
from  the  implementation  of  particular  instruments,  four  policy  options  have  been  identified 
and developed. These are labelled as follows on the basis of their main characteristic(s): 

(1) 

"Business-as-usual" option; 

(2) 

(3) 

(4) 

"Article 169 maximization" option; 

"Community-driven strategic" option; 

"Strategic European process" option. 

The difference between these four options hinges mainly on two issues: the way in which JP 
areas  are  identified,  and  the  range  of  instruments  considered  for  implementation.  The  main 
characteristics of each policy option are briefly discussed in more detail in the following sub-
sections. 

In  addition  to  the  four  policy  options  explored  in  more  detail  below,  some  other  policy 
options  were  considered  initially  but  rapidly  eliminated.  The  most  important  one  was  what 
can be called the "renationalisation" option. Under this option, the Community lets the ERA-
NET scheme and Article 169 initiatives already operating run their course but does not launch 
new  ones,  thereby  gradually  scaling  down  its  involvement  in  the  field  of  JP.  Instead,  the 
promotion  of  JP  becomes  once  more  an  exclusive  responsibility  of  the  Member  States, 
without  any  Community  involvement.  This  option  responds  most  radically  to  those 
stakeholders  concerned  about  subsidiarity  who  demand  that  the  coordination  of  policies 
should be predominantly left to Member States. The problem with this option is that it more 
or  less  resembles  the  pre-ERA-NET  and  pre-Article  169  era.  Several  decades  ago,  useful 
infrastructure-centred  initiatives  were  taken  (CERN)  and  valuable  schemes  like  COST  and 
EUREKA  launched,  but  since  then  very  little  progress  has  been  made  towards  cross-border 
programme  coordination  and  collaboration.  That  means  that,  under  this  option,  the  lack  of 
strategic  focus,  the  lack  of  critical  mass,  the  coverage  gaps,  the  wasteful  duplication  and 
unhealthy competition, etc. found in many areas with regard to pan-European research efforts 
would persist. Given these great drawbacks, the Community can hardly be expected to present 
and seriously assess such an option (see Section 2). 

Another  policy  option  eliminated  at  an  early  stage  was  the  use  of  the  Open  Method  of 
Coordination (OMC). Since OMC is a soft governance tool, involving benchmarking, policy 
learning,  and  identification  of  best  practice,  it  is  not  well-adapted  to  the  creation  of  joint 
programmes.  Moreover,  OMC  as  implemented  already  in  the  field  of  research  focuses  on 
policy  coordination  and  not  programme  coordination  as  such  -  in  other  words  on  the  non-
funding related aspects of research policy. 

Finally,  the  option  of  adopting  an  EU  regulatory  approach  to  dismantle  administrative  and 
legal barriers to programme coordination was also eliminated early on. Not only would this be 
unpopular  in  the  Member  States,  and  counterproductive  to  the  aim  of  overcoming  national 

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reluctance to dismantle obstacles, but also it would risk impinging on matters which fall under 
national competence. 

4.1. 

"Business-as-usual" option 

Under this option, JP topics – which do not have to coincide with those of the FP (at least in 
the case of ERANET) – are identified in an ad-hoc bottom-up way by a variety of Member 
State  stakeholders  (see  Table  2).  Implementation  takes  place  through  a  limited  number  of 
instruments  (essentially  ERA-NET  scheme  and  Article  169)  and  is  loosely  coordinated  (no 
overall  JP  coordination  mechanism  has  been  put  in  place).  A  flexible  approach  is  taken 
towards critical mass (in terms of number and relevance of partners) and towards the level of 
programme integration pursued. 

This option is the baseline option, against which the other options are compared. It responds 
strongly to those stakeholders who think that, as far as JP is concerned, Member States should 
be in the driver seat, and who favour an approach which is bottom-up, flexible (in terms of 
range  of  possible  topic  proposers,  possible  topics,  critical  mass,  level  of  programme 
integration  pursued,  horizontal  policy  consistency,  etc.)  and  based  solely  on  existing 
instruments. 

4.2. 

"Article 169 maximization" option 

This "light intervention" option shares some of the characteristics of the "business-as-usual" 
option  as  JP  topics  are  identified  in  a  bottom-up  way  by  the  Member  States,  and 
implementation  takes  place  through  a  limited  number  of  instruments  (essentially  ERA-NET 
scheme and Article 169) (see Table 2). Where this option differs from the "business-as-usual" 
one,  however,  is  in  proposing  an  approach  which  is  both  more  intensive  (a  much  larger 
number of initiatives would be launched) and less soft, aiming for a larger impact.55 JP topics 
would  have  to  coincide  with  the  FP,  ERANET  (Plus)  would  be  rigidly  positioned  as  an 
Article  169  preparatory  stage,  overall  horizontal  policy  consistency  would  be  more 
systematically pursued (through the Article 169 decision-making process), and more attention 
would be paid to the critical mass and level of programme integration of the initiatives. Under 
this option stakeholders would be consulted by the Commission. 

Like the "business-as-usual" option, this option responds to those stakeholders who think that 
Member States should be in the driver seat and favour an approach which is bottom-up and 
based solely on existing instruments. But it also responds to those who agree that much more 
needs to be done than is being done now in the field of JP and are prepared to sacrifice some 
of the flexibility of the "business-as-usual" option for achieving that. 

4.3. 

"Community-driven strategic" option 

The most important difference between the "Community-driven strategic" option and the two 
previous  options  is  that  it  is  strategic  instead  of  bottom-up.  The  starting  point  is  the 
identification  of  major  societal  challenges  and  the  assessment  of  the  need  for  and  lack  of  a 

55 

The scope for developing Article 169 beyond current activities is clearly demonstrated by the (ongoing) 
preparation  since  EDCTP  of  the  Article  169  initiatives  AAL  (joint  research programme  on  "Ambient 
Assisted  Living"),  EUROSTARs  (joint  research  programme  for  research  performing  SMEs  and  their 
partners),  EMRP  (joint  research  programme  in  the  field  of  metrology)  and  Bonus-169  (joint  research 
programme in the field of Baltic Sea research). 

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critical mass of publicly supported research in respective S&T fields (see Table 2). Under this 
option, it is the Community which takes the lead in carrying out these strategic assessments 
and proposing suitable JP topics. It is also the Community which takes the lead in selecting 
the  most  appropriate  instrument  from  among  a  well-defined  range  of  already  familiar 
Community  instruments  which  can  be  implemented  relatively  quickly.  Under  this  option 
stakeholders would be consulted by the Commission. 

While  it  is  true  that  this  option  seems  to  go  against  stakeholder  concerns  about  too  far-
reaching Community intervention in the field of JP, it would appear to have some important 
advantages  as  well.  It  responds  well  to  those  stakeholders  who  agree  that  the  cross-border 
coordination and integration of  national  public  research programmes needs to  be intensified 
and improved, especially where responding to major societal challenges is concerned. And it 
proposes to do so in an effective (the "governance gap" issue is solved), cost-efficient (light 
process)  and  quick  (potentially  high  speed  of  implementation)  manner  building  on  existing 
instruments. 

4.4. 

"Strategic European process" option 

The "strategic European process" option resembles the "Community-driven strategic" option 
in  that  it  too  is  strategic,  and  based  on  tackling  major  societal  challenges,  but  it  differs 
crucially with regard to the roles played by the Community and by the Member States. Under 
the "strategic European process" option, it is the Member States (not the Community) which 
identify  topics  for  JP.  And  it  is  the  Member  States  which  select  or  develop  the  most 
appropriate  instrument  from  among  a  wide  range  of  possible  instruments  in  order  to 
accommodate  in  the  best  manner  possible  the  specific  circumstances  of  the  respective  S&T 
field (including Community instruments like ERA-NET scheme and Articles 168, 169, 170 or 
171;  "SET-Plan"  or  "security  research"  kinds  of  approaches;  the  creation  of  new  European 
institutions  and/or  new  kinds  of  Networks  of  Excellence;56  ERC-kind  or  Euratom-type  of 
initiatives;  Structural  Funds;  etc.).  The  Commission  plays  the  role  of  facilitator.  It  is 
responsible for reporting back to Council at each stage in the process, and for evaluating the 
process as a whole and the progress made in specific areas.  

To be more specific, this option would involve the following steps: 

•  The  Council  would  nominate  a  group  of  high-level  representatives  to  identify  possible 
areas  for  Joint  Programming  on  the  basis  of  clear  criteria  and  stakeholder  consultations. 
The Commission will act as secretariat of this group. 

•  On  the  basis  of  proposals  and  criteria-based  justifications  provided  by  the  high-level 
representatives,  the  Commission  would  submit  recommendations  to  the  Council  for 
launching Joint Programming initiatives in selected areas. 

•  The  Council  would  ask  ministers  to  nominate  representatives  to  dedicated  area-specific 
working  groups,  which  have  as  their  mandate  to  prepare  in  each  area  a  particular  Joint 
Programming initiative, and for which the Commission will act as secretariat. 

56 

Involving the funding not just of integration activities but also of joint research. 

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Under this option stakeholders would be consulted by the Member States themselves. As is 
the  case  for  other  stakeholders,  industry  will  be  consulted  so  that  its  views  can  contribute 
towards the vision and common agenda. 

Like  the  "Community-driven  strategic  option",  the  "strategic  European  process"  option 
responds  well  to  those  stakeholders  requesting  the  more  intensive  and  better  cross-border 
coordination  and  integration  of  national  public  research  programmes  to  respond  better  to 
major societal challenges. But compared to the previous option, it sacrifices implementation 
speed  and  process-efficiency  to  obtain  much  greater  effectiveness  through  greater  political 
commitment,  evidence-based  policy-making,  and  the  selection  and/or  development  of 
carefully crafted instruments accommodating well the specific circumstances of the respective 
S&T fields. 

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Table 2 : ERA JP Initiative: Options 

s
c
i
p
o
t
P
J
f
o
n
o
i
t
c
e
l
e
S

s
t
n
e
m
u
r
t
s
n
I

Options 

Identification of 
JP topic 

Relation between 
JP topics and FP 
thematic priorities 

Identifier of JP 
topics 

(1) 
"Business-as-usual" 
option 

Bottom-up 
ERA-NET scheme: Calls for 
proposals 
Article 169: 'Open' call for MS 
ideas 

Related and unrelated 
ERA-NET scheme: Related or 
unrelated 
Article 169: Related 
Mixed 
ERA-NET scheme: Regional 
and national programme owners 
and managers 
Article 169: Member States 

Instruments 
considered for 
implementation 

Limited number 
ERA-NET scheme 
Article 169 

(2) 
"Article 169 
maximization"
option 

Bottom-up 
'Open' call for 
Member State ideas 

(3) 
"Community-
driven 
strategic" 
option 

Strategic 
Identification of 
challenges, Assess 
of need for critical 
mass, analysis of 
sub-optimality, etc. 

(4) 
"Strategic European 
process" option 

Strategic 
Identification of challenges, 
assessment of need for critical 
mass, analysis of sub-
optimality, etc. 

Related 

Related and 
unrelated 

Related and unrelated 

Member States 

Community 

Single 
Article 169 
(Rigid positioning of 
ERA-NET scheme 
as Article 169 
preparatory stage) 

Broader range 
ERA-NET scheme 
Article 169 
Article 168 
Article 170 
Article 171 

Member States 
( facilitated by the European 
Commission services where 
needed) 
Wide range 
ERA-NET scheme; Article 
169, Articles 168, 170, 171, 
"SET-plan" or "security 
research" kind of approaches, 
New European institutions, 
New kinds of NoE, ERC-kind 
of approaches, Euratom-kind 
of approaches, Structural 
Funds… 

Proposed strategic European 
process 

Coordination 
mechanism 

None 

Article 169 
decision-making 
process 

Proposed 
Community-driven 
strategic process 

Thematic overlap 
between 

Complementarities 
between different 
JP instruments 

Consistency 
between JP and 
other instruments 

Not pro-actively avoided 

Pro-actively avoided 

Pro-actively avoided 

Pro-actively avoided 

Not systematically pursued 
E.g., ERA-NET scheme: 
promotes mutual opening 
E.g., some ERA-NET scheme 
can result in Article 169) 

Systematically 
pursued 
Rigid positioning of 
ERA-NET scheme 
as Article 169 
preparatory stage 

Systematically 
pursued 

Systematically pursued 

Not systematically pursued 

Systematically 
pursued 

Systematically 
pursued 

Systematically pursued 

Critical mass 

Not systematically pursued 

Full programme 
integration 

Not systematically pursued 
Even non-programmes can 
participate 
4 integration steps (2 highest 
steps – i.a. joint calls – not 
binding) 
Different possibilities to fund 
joint calls (common pot not 
obligatory) 

Systematically 
pursued 
At least in terms of 
network size 
Variable geometry 
remains possible 

Systematically 
pursued 
Integration of clearly 
defined national 
programmes 
Joint calls as 
objective 
Joint financing of 
calls as objective 
(but difficult to 
achieve) 

Systematically 
pursued 
Variable geometry 
remains possible 

Systematically 
pursued 
Strategic integration 
of national 
programmes 
"full policy cycle" 
approach: full 
programme integra-
tion with joint fore-
sight, planning, im-
plementation (joint 
calls financed from a 
common pot), 
monitoring and 
evaluation 

Systematically pursued 
Variable geometry remains 
possible 

Systematically pursued 
Maximisation of the 
complementarities between 
national programmes 
In some cases, a "partial 
policy cycle" approach: e.g. 
only joint foresight or joint 
evaluation 
In some cases a "full policy 
cycle" approach: full program-
me integration with joint fore-
sight, planning, 
implementation (joint calls 
financed from a common pot), 
monitoring and evaluation 

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5. 

ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPACTS OF THE OPTIONS  

In  this  section,  the  impacts  of  the  four  policy  options  presented  in  the  previous  section  are 
discussed.  A  wide  range  of  impacts  are  considered:  level  of  stakeholder  support  and 
'ownership'  (inclusiveness  of  topic  identification  and  instrument  choice  process;  topic 
ownership;  openness  and  participation);  strategic  focus  (thematic  scope;  focus  on  societal 
challenges;  ability  to  set  SMART  objectives);  structuring  effect  (instrument  flexibility; 
speed  of  implementation;  programme  integration;  critical  mass  (on  the  input  side);  policy 
consistency  (overlap  within  JP  instruments,  complementarities  between  JP  instruments; 
consistency  between  JP  and  other  instruments;  impact  on  ERA  governance);  and  societal 
impacts (S&T impacts; economic impacts; social and environmental impacts). 

Some important comments are in order here: 

•  Since  the  proposed  policy  process  does  not  impose  any  regulatory  administrative  burden 

on stakeholders, this issue is not assessed here. 

•  The Communication, which this Impact Assessment is accompanying, proposes a process 
for  identifying  suitable  topics  and  implementation  instruments  for  JP.  This  means  that 
these topics and instruments are not known to us at this point in time, and that no proper 
ex-ante evaluation can be carried out. Some of the instruments ultimately chosen may have 
implications  for  the  Community  budget,  however.  Those  budgetary  implications  will  be 
assessed  separately  in  the  impact  assessments  and  ex-ante  evaluations  accompanying  the 
proposals on those particular initiatives. 

•  In  a  similar  vein,  issues  which  are  the  specific  object  of  other  Community  initiatives  in 

follow-up to the ERA Green Paper (mobility, IPR) will not be treated in detail here. 

5.1. 

Level of stakeholder support and 'ownership' 

The level of stakeholder support for a particular option is a function of the inclusiveness of its 
processes for topic identification and instrument choice, and of the resulting topic ownership 
and  instrument  openness  and  participation.  Against  that  background,  the  options  with  the 
greatest  stakeholder  support  are  the  "strategic  European  process"  and  "business-as-usual" 
options,  with  their  inclusive  processes  and  high  levels  of  stakeholder  topic  ownership  and 
participation (see Table 3). They are followed by the "Article 169 maximization" option, with 
its  more  narrow  participation.  The  "Community-driven  strategic"  option,  with  its  non-
inclusive process, its low level of stakeholder topic ownership, and its potentially low level of 
participation, comes last. 

Inclusiveness of topic identification and instrument choice process 

Under the "business-as-usual", "Article 169 maximization" and "strategic European process" 
options,  outside  stakeholders  have,  as  part  of  an  inclusive  process,  a  great  say  as  far  as  the 
identification and selection of, respectively, JP topics and instruments are concerned. That is 
much  less  the  case  under  the  "Community-driven  strategic"  option,  under  which  the 
Community itself would select the JP topics and instruments. 

An important question which this raises is whether, without the  cooperation of the Member 
States,  the  Community  disposes  of  a  sufficiently  detailed  knowledge  of  Member  State 
research programmes to be able to appropriately select JP topics by itself. 

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Topic ownership 

Under the "business-as-usual" option, JP topics are defined in a bottom-up way. As a result, 
stakeholders  have  substantial  'ownership'  of  those  topics.57  Such  stakeholder  ownership  can 
also  be  achieved  under  the  "Article  169  maximization"  and  "strategic  European  process" 
options - under the former because JP topics are defined in a bottom-up way, and under the 
latter because of the joint MS-Community identification of topics for JP. It is only under the 
"Community-driven  strategic"  option  that  such  'ownership'  cannot  be  ensured  to  the  same 
extent  as  in  this  case  it  is  the  Community  itself  which,  without  much  consultation  with  the 
Member States, identifies the topics for JP. 

Openness and participation 

Some of the instruments through which the "business-as-usual" option operates – in particular 
ERA-NET  scheme  –  are  'open',  meaning  that  they  have  low  barriers  to  entry.58  This  has 
resulted in wide participation. This is reflected, for instance, in the high number of ERA-NET 
proposals  (200+),  the  high  number  of  ERA-NETs  (71),  and  the  high  number  of  ERA-NET 
participants (1000+ participations by 450 different programme owners/managers).59 Both the 
"Community-driven  strategic"  and  "strategic  European  process"  options  are  also  marked  by 
such  openness  (since  they  include  accessible  instruments  such  as  ERA-NET),  while  the 
"Article 169 maximization" option is somewhat more restrictive. As a result, similar levels of 
inclusiveness and participation as under the "business-as-usual" option can be achieved under 
the "strategic European process" and "Community-driven strategic" options, but in the case of 
the  latter  the  level  of  stakeholder  support  will  be  decisive.  In  the  case  of  the  "Article  169 
maximization"  option,  the  use  of  a  somewhat  more  restrictive  instrument  could  result  in  a 
more narrow participation pattern. It should be noted that options 3 and 4 allow in appropriate 
cases  for  the  use  of  Article  170  initiatives  which  would  allow  the  participation  of  non-EU 
countries. 

5.2. 

Strategic focus 

An option's strategic focus is a function of its thematic scope, its focus on societal challenges, 
and its ability to set SMART objectives. Measured against these criteria, the option with the 
greatest  strategic  focus  is  the  "strategic  European  process"  option,  with  its  wide  thematic 
scope, focus on societal challenges and ability to set SMART objectives (see Table 3). This is 

57 

58 

59 

"The ‘bottom-up’ nature of the initiative was much appreciated by the main stakeholders". ERA-NET 
Review 2006, Report of the Expert Review Group (hereafter Horvat Report), Brussels, December 2006  
"The  use  of  Specific  Support  Actions  as  well  as  Coordination  Actions  allowed  for  the  possibility  of 
initial  exploratory approaches";  "The adoption of a  four-step  process  for  participants,  with  the  latter 
two  steps  non-mandatory,  was  entirely  suitable  for  this  first,  experimental  phase  of  ERA-NET";  "The 
flexible approach to the use of different funding regimes for joint calls encouraged participants both to 
join in and to explore ways of overcoming some of the practical barriers to the implementation of joint 
actions", "ERA-NETs were also open to participants from all eligible countries (inside and outside of 
Europe)";  "One  of  the  key  attractions  of  the  scheme  was  the  ability  to  adopt  variable  geometry 
configurations". Horvat Report, p. III. 
"The success of the ERA-NETs also owes much to the inclusion of a wide range of stakeholders. The 
inclusion of ‘programme owners’ as well as ‘programme managers’ was particularly important given 
the longer-term aim of altering perceptions in ministerial circles about the importance of trans-national 
research  activities.  Extending  the  invitation  to  participate  to  regional  ‘owners’  and  ‘managers’  was 
also astute given the importance of regional R&D governance systems in some national settings and the 
growing  importance  of  the  regional  level  in  European  RTD  and  innovation  policies.  The  only  regret 
here is that more did not accept the invitation" Horvat Report, p. III. 

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followed  by  the  "Community-driven  strategic"  option,  where,  however,  the  ability  to  set 
SMART objectives will depend on the level of stakeholder support. The "business-as-usual" 
and "Article 169 maximization" options, which do not necessarily focus on important societal 
challenges  and  do  not  systematically  involve  all  stakeholders  in  setting  SMART  objectives, 
come last. 

Thematic scope 

Under the "business-as-usual" option, there is no obligatory coverage of JP topics by the FP 
thematic priorities. As a result, the thematic scope of this option is without limit.60 Such wide 
thematic  scope  is  also  achieved  under  the  "Community-driven  strategic"  and  "strategic 
European  process"  options  since  under  these  options  as  well  JP  topics  do  not  have  to  be 
covered by the FP thematic priorities. It is only under the "Article 169 maximization" option 
that  the  thematic  scope  cannot  be  so  wide  since  coverage  by  the  FP  thematic  priorities  is 
required by the Article 169 criteria. 

Focus on societal challenges 

Under  the  "business-as-usual"  option,  JP  is  pursued  in  a  number  of  areas  identified  in  a 
bottom-up  manner.  Yet  the  issues  covered  may  not  always  respond  to  a  societal  challenge, 
and  there  may  not  always  be  a  need  for  critical  mass  and  evidence  of  sub-optimality.  The 
same comment applies to the "Article 169 maximization" option. Under the third and fourth 
options,  however,  only  S&T  fields  corresponding  to  a  societal  challenge,  with  a  need  for 
critical mass and evidence of sub-optimality will be covered. 

Ability to set SMART objectives 

Under the "business-as-usual" and "Article 169 maximization", the ability to achieve a wide 
consensus  and  high  level  commitment  from  all  stakeholders  to  SMART  objectives  is  not 
systematically  ensured.  Under  the  "Community-driven  strategic"  option,  it  could  be  greater, 
but  depends  on  stakeholder  support.  The  process  envisaged  under  the  "strategic  European 
process" option, however, has been developed to achieve exactly that. 

60 

For a list of the areas and topics addressed in each ERA-NET, see Annex 2. 

EN 

36 

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Table 3 : ERA JP Initiative: Impacts 

s
u
c
o
f

c
i
g
e
t
a
r
t
S

t
r
o
p
p
u
s

r
e
d
l
o
h
e
k
a
t
S

t
c
e
f
f
e

g
n

i
r
u
t
c
u
r
t
S

y
c
n
e
t
s
i
s
n
o
c

y
c
i
l
o
P

t
c
a
p
m

i

l
a
t
e
i
c
o
S

Options 

Thematic scope 

Focus on societal 
challenges 

Ability to set SMART 
objectives 

(1) 
"Business-as-
usual" 
option 
+ 
(Wide thematic 
scope) 
- 
(No) 
- 
(Very limited) 

Inclusiveness of topic 
identification and 
instrument choice process 

+ 
(High) 

(2) 
"Article 169 
maximization" 
option 
+/- 
(More limited 
thematic scope) 
- 
(No) 
+/- 
(Limited) 

+ 
(High) 

Topic ownership 

Openness and 
participation 

Instrument flexibility 

Identification 
topics, 
objectives, 
etc. 

Launching 
instruments 

n
o
i
t
a
t
n
e
m
e
l
p
m

I

d
e
e
p
s

+ 
(Great) 
+ 
(Openness, 
inclusiveness, wide 
participation) 
+/- 
(Limited) 
+ 
(Rapid) 

+ 
(Great) 
+/- 
(Less openness, 
more narrow 
participation) 
- 
(None) 
+ 
(Rapid) 

+ 
(Rapid) 

+/- 
(Medium) 

Programme integration 

- 
(Not ensured) 

- 
(Not ensured) 

Critical mass (input side) 

- 
(Not ensured) 

+/- 
(Partially ensured) 

Overlap within JP 
instruments 
Complementarities 
between JP instruments 
Consistency between JP 
and other instruments 

Impact on ERA 
governance 

S&T impacts 

Economic impacts 

Social and environmental 
impacts 

- 
(Yes) 
+/- 
(Weak) 
+/- 
(Weak) 
+/- 
(Weak) 

+/- 
(Weak) 

+/- 
(Weak) 

+/- 
(Weak) 

EN 

+ 
(No) 
+ 
(Strong) 
+ 
(Strong) 
+/- 
(Not very strong) 

+/- 
(Not very strong) 

+/- 
(Not very strong) 

+/- 
(Not very strong) 

37 

(3) 
"Community-driven strategic" 
option 

+ 
(Wide thematic scope) 

+ 
(Yes) 
(+) 
(Potentially great, but dependent on 
stakeholder support) 
- 
(Low) 

- 
(Little) 
(+) 
(Potentially openness, inclusiveness, 
wide participation, but dependent on 
stakeholder support) 
+ 
(Wide) 
(+) 
(Potentially rapid, but dependent on 
stakeholder support) 

(+) 
(Medium to rapid, depending on 
instrument chosen, but dependent on 
stakeholder support) 
(+) 
(Depends on level stakeholder 
support) 
(+) 
(Depends on level stakeholder 
support) 
+ 
(No) 
+ 
(Strong) 
+ 
(Strong) 
(+) 
(Potentially strong, but dependent 
on stakeholder support) 
(+) 
(Potentially strong, but dependent 
on stakeholder support) 

(+) 
(Potentially strong, but dependent 
on stakeholder support) 
(+) 
(Potentially strong, but dependent 
on stakeholder support 

(4) 
"Strategic 
European 
process" option 
+ 
(Wide thematic 
scope) 
+ 
(Yes) 
+ 
(Great) 

+ 
(High) 

+ 
(Great) 
+ 
(Openness, 
inclusiveness, wide 
participation) 
+ 
(Wide) 
+/- 
(Medium) 

+ 
(Medium to rapid, 
depending on 
instrument chosen) 
+ 
(Better ensured) 

+ 
(Better ensured) 

+ 
(No) 
+ 
(Strong) 
+ 
(Strong) 
+ 
(Strong) 

+ 
(Strong) 

+ 
(Strong) 

+ 
(Strong) 

   EN 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
5.3. 

Structuring effect 

The structuring effect is a function of instrument flexibility, implementation speeds, the level 
of  programme  integration  achieved  and  the  critical  mass  put  together  on  the  input  side. 
Measured against these criteria, the option with the greatest structuring effect is the "strategic 
European process" option, with its high level of instrument flexibility and its better guarantees 
for  programme  integration  and  input  critical  mass  than  the  other  options  (see  Table  3).  The 
identification  of  topics,  objectives,  etc.  may  take  some  more  time  than  under  the  other 
options, which calls for a well structured and well governed process. The structuring effect of 
the  "Community-driven  strategic"  option  is  potentially  large  but  uncertain,  since  it  depends 
entirely  on  the  level  of  stakeholder  support.  The  "business-as-usual"  and  "Article  169 
maximization"  options  have  much  smaller  structuring  effects,  mainly  because  they  have 
limited or no instrument flexibility and do not fully ensure programme integration and input 
critical mass.  

Instrument flexibility 

It  is  important  to  be  able  to  choose  the  most  appropriate  (set  of)  instrument(s)  given  the 
specific  circumstances  in  and  degree  of  maturity  of  each  selected  JP  area.  Yet  under  the 
"business-as-usual" option, instrument flexibility is limited as the choice is only between the 
ERA-NET  scheme  and  Article  169.  That  is  why  a  December  2005  report  by  Optimat  and 
VDI/VDE/IT  recommended  that  a  wider  range  of  flexible  instruments  be  developed.61  The 
possibility  to  choose  the  most  appropriate  instrument(s)  is  even  more  restricted  under  the 
single  instrument  "Article  169  maximization"  option,  which  essentially  centres  on  a 
maximalist instrument as far as programme integration is concerned and which therefore may 
not be suitable for less mature areas where nevertheless fruitful steps in the direction of JP can 
already be taken. It is only under the third and fourth options that instrument flexibility would 
be greatly enhanced. 

Speed of implementation 

It  is  important  to  be  able  to  start  implementation  reasonably  quickly,  and  this  to  keep  the 
political  momentum  going.  Rapid  implementation  -  because  of  both  rapid  identification  of 
topics, objectives, etc. and rapid launching of instruments - is possible under the "business-as-
usual"  and  the  "Community-driven  strategic"  options,  though  under  the  latter  the  level  of 
stakeholder  support  is  decisive.  Under  the  "Article  169  maximization"  option,  the  speed  of 
implementation is somewhat lower as it takes somewhat more time to launch instruments. The 
speed  of  implementation  is  also  somewhat  lower  under  the  "strategic  European  process" 
option since it takes somewhat more time to identify topics, objectives, etc. 

61 

"[…]the  transnational  strategies  being  implemented  were  based  on  achieving  national  objectives  or 
addressing national weaknesses and […] it would be necessary to provide some incentive, perhaps from 
the  Framework  Programmes,  to  encourage  more  innovative  approaches  addressing  both  national  and 
ERA objectives,  maybe  through  a wider  range of flexible instruments  in  addition  to both  Article  169 
and  ERA-NET"  (Optimat  –  VDI/VDE/IT,  Examining  the  Design  of  National  Research  Programmes, 
Study prepared for European Commission – DG Research (Directorate M2), December 2005, p. 27). 

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38 

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Programme integration 

Under  the  "business-as-usual"  option,  full  programme  integration  is  not  systematically 
pursued.  While  in  Article  169  initiatives,  the  objective  is  to  achieve  full  programme 
integration, in ERA-NETs this is not necessarily the case since the two highest of four steps 
towards full programme integration are not obligatory.  

It is questionable whether the "Article 169 maximization" option can achieve a higher level of 
programme  integration  than  the  "business-as-usual"  option.  The  main  risk  is  that  through  a 
bottom-up  process,  areas  marked  by  substantial  barriers  to  programme  integration  could  be 
selected for JP and that a pure instrument approach without guaranteed high level stakeholder 
support would be unable to eliminate these barriers (as EDCTP was unable to do). More or 
less  the  same  comment  applies  to  the  "Community-driven  strategic"  option  too,  since  the 
possible lack of high-level stakeholder support may also prevent the effective elimination of 
barriers  to  programme  integration.  The  "strategic  European  process"  option  constitutes  the 
best  guarantee  for  a  high  level  of  programme  integration.  It  ensures  that  high-level 
stakeholders are closely involved in the JP initiative, and committed to it because they have 
defined the strategic research agenda and identified the appropriate instruments. This means 
that they will have full ownership of the process and will thus should play a much more active 
role  than  in  the  past  in  adapting  legal  and  administrative  rules  where  needed.  Moreover, 
linking the JP process to tackling urgent societal challenges will provide an added incentive 
for  them  to  dismantle  barriers.  The  flexible approach  to  choosing  instruments  also  helps  by 
offering alternatives in cases where some instruments may be unwieldy for a given purpose. 

Critical mass (on the input side) 

There are several possible approaches to the notion of critical mass. One can look at network 
size,  network  quality,  or  both.  The  Community  has  so  far  approached  the  notion  of  critical 
mass mainly in terms of network size. Under the "business-as-usual" option, critical mass in 
terms of  network  size is systematically pursued in Article 169, but not  in ERA-NETs, even 
though in practice, in both schemes, a sizeable number of partners participate.62 Critical mass 
in  terms  of  network  size  will  be  very  systematically  pursued  under  the  "Article  169 
maximisation"  option.  Under  Options  3  and  4,  a  broader  approach  towards  critical  mass, 
taking account of both the number of countries involved and the expertise/relevance of those 
countries,  will  be  taken.  These  two  options  also  allow  for  the  use  of  Article  170  initiatives 
(which would enable the participation of non-EU countries ) where this is useful, notably for 
further building critical mass. 

5.4. 

Horizontal policy consistency 

Horizontal  policy  consistency  is  a  function  of  the  degree  of  overlap  within  a  particular  JP 
instrument  (e.g.  between  different  ERA-NETs);  the  degree  of  complementarities  between 
different JP instruments (e.g. between ERA-NETs and Article 169 initiatives); the consistency 
between JP and other instruments (e.g. Article 169 initiatives and the FP); and the impact on 
overall  ERA  governance  and  horizontal  policy  coordination  (e.g.  coordination  between 

62 

In EDCTP, for instance, the number of participating countries is 15. Critical mass in terms of network 
size is not systematically pursued in ERA-NET, however, where the minimum number of participating 
countries is just three. In practice, however, most ERA-NETs have a reasonable number of participating 
organisations, the median being 13, the average 14, and the maximum 26. 

EN 

39 

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research policy on the one hand and education, innovation, ICT, energy, environmental, etc. 
policies on the other hand). Against this background, the highest degree of policy consistency 
can  be  achieved  under  the  "strategic  European  process"  option  (see  Table  3).  The  potential 
policy consistency of the "Community-driven strategic" option is also great but unsure since 
dependent on the level of stakeholder support. A somewhat lower level of policy consistency 
is  achieved  under  the  "Article  169  maximization"  option  and  a  very  weak  one  under  the 
"business-as-usual"  option,  since  there  are  thematic  overlaps  within  instruments,  weak 
complementarities  between  JP  instruments,  weak  consistency  between  JP  and  other 
instruments, and weak impact on ERA governance. 

5.5. 

S&T Impacts 

JP  -  improving  the  organisation  of  European  public  R&D  via  more  and  better  cross-border 
programme coordination and collaboration - increases the societal returns to public research 
programmes.  This  is  because  carrying  out  research  through  trans-national  cooperation  can 
increase its impact and bring other important benefits: 

•  Overcoming  S&T  barriers-to-entry:  JP  enables  Member  States  to  pool  their  financial 
resources  to  overcome  the  high  barriers-to-entry  characterising  some  S&T  fields  -  in 
particular  those  with  high  fixed  start-up  and  operating  costs  depending  on  "big  science" 
and  large-scale  research  infrastructures  –  and  thereby  achieve  sizeable  scientific,63 
technological,64  and  other65  impacts  (structuring  effects,  impacts  on  human  resources,  on 
industry, and on local economies). 

63 

64 

65 

Research infrastructures serve as repositories of knowledge. See the Note by Panel B, Prepared for the 
Conference and Incorporating Highlights of the Debate in Strasbourg on 19 September. Technological 
Innovation,  industrial  and  Socio-economic  Aspects  of  Research  Infrastructures  (hereafter  Panel  B 
Report).  They  act  as  hubs  which  bring  together  users  from  different  S&T  areas  and  promote  inter-
disciplinary research (EC (1999), p. 3.). The use of research infrastructures helps researchers advance 
their  scientific  understanding,  i.a.  through  the  use  of  newly  acquired  methods  and  techniques.  In  a 
survey  of  external  research  infrastructure  users,  65  %  of  respondents  replied  that  their  work  at  the 
facility had given them use of and insight into important new techniques, and 80 % replied that their 
work at the facility had advanced their scientific understanding. European Commission (1999), Training 
and  Mobility  of  Researchers  (1994-1998).  Mid-term  Review  of  the  Access  to  Large-scale  Facilities 
Activity. Panel's Mid-term Review Report (hereafter TMR 1994-1998). 
A not insignificant number of patents are filed based on the work carried out at research infrastructures 
(TMR  1994-1998,  p.11).  Research  infrastructures  also  play  an  important  role  in  the  development  of 
technological  clusters.  The  ILL  was  an  important  factor  in  attracting  the  EMBL  and  the  ESRF  to 
Grenoble and CERN has also had some influence on inward investment to the locality both in France 
and Switzerland. There is now a global body of evidence which indicates that real benefits arise from 
agglomerations  of  research  and  higher  education  institutes  and  technology  based  companies  (and 
Grenoble is a frequently cited example). 
Infrastructures also generate benefits for human resources. Researchers are able to learn new methods 
and techniques. In a survey of external research infrastructure users, 65 % of respondents replied that 
their  work  at  the  facility  had  given  them  use  of  and  insight  into  important  new  techniques.  Research 
infrastructures  act  as  hubs  bringing  together  users  from  different  S&T  areas,  promoting  inter-
disciplinary  research,  and  also  from  different  geographical  areas  thus  creating  pan-European  trans-
disciplinary  networks.  Research  infrastructures  have  important  impacts  on  industry.  In  the  long  run, 
industry is set to benefit significantly from the scientific, technological, training and structuring impacts 
and effects already mentioned above. Yet the more direct impacts of research infrastructures on industry 
are  also  large.  Industrial  researchers  and  technicians  can  receive  training  in  technological  and 
knowledge-related aspects, but also in the complex organisational aspects of technological innovation. 
At publicly supported research facilities, industrially developed materials and products are tested (TMR 
1994-1998).  As  a  result  of  the  strict  requirements  of  scientific  projects  carried  out  at  research 

EN 

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•  Facilitating  pan-European  public  research  programme  optimisation:  JP  allows  for 
pan-European public research programme optimisation by ensuring - within the context of 
scientific  and  technological  uncertainty  –  that  all  relevant  topics  and  approaches  in  a 
particular S&T field can be researched in parallel (optimising programme scope) and that 
sufficient  resources  are  allocated  to  the  research  on  each  topic  (by  eliminating  wasteful 
cross-European programme duplication and increasing programme depth). 

•  Promoting scientific excellence: JP promotes scientific excellence through joint calls with 
common  funding  which  increase  the  competition  for  funding  and  the  quality  of  research 
proposals  –  a  "European  Research  Council"-effect  is  then  obtained.  National  research 
programmes usually address only domestically based researchers. Where national research 
programmes  operate  in  the  absence  of  domestic  expertise  and  where  research  proposals 
and the research carried out are of low quality, JP allows for avoiding the waste of public 
resources. 

•  Addressing  challenges  jointly,  developing  common  solutions,  and  speaking  with  one 
voice:  JP  enables  several  Member  States  in  a  particular  region  (e.g.  Baltic  Sea  area),  or 
Europe  as  a  whole,  to  tackle  together  commonly  faced  challenges  (e.g.  climate  change, 
ageing), develop common, standardised solutions (e.g. in the area of transport), and speak 
with  one  voice  in  the  international  scene.  The  latter  facilitates  the  interaction  of  non-
European countries with Europe in the field of research. 

•  Promoting  cross-border  project  collaboration:  JP  promotes  cross-border  project 

collaboration, which brings with it a multitude of benefits: 

–  It facilitates the pooling of data and expertise scattered across several countries or 

Europe as a whole (e.g. rare diseases). 

–  It promotes the rapid dissemination of research results.66 

–  It promotes cross-border human resources mobility and training. 

–  And it increases the scientific, technological and innovation impacts of each Euro 
of public research support. International scientific collaboration and co-publishing 
is facilitated by international science programs, and allows countries to reinforce 

66 

infrastructures, materials and products are often newly developed or substantially improved, often with 
commercial potential. 
If results are not well disseminated, the value of carrying out research is seriously diminished. Indeed, 
one  of  the  key  justifications  of  public  expenditure  on  R&D  is  to  maximize  the  social  return  through 
ensuring the widest possible dissemination of research results. Moreover, in the context of the Lisbon 
objectives, research can only contribute to economic growth, to competitiveness and to job creation if 
the results are disseminated to the European business sector so that they can be transformed into new 
products, processes or services. Carrying out this dissemination at a level higher than that of a single 
Member  State  –  to  users,  industries,  firms  (SMEs  in  particular),  citizens,  etc.  –  is  more  efficient  and 
leads to a better exploitation of research, with a larger impact than would be possible at the level of a 
single Member State. Given the classical obstacles of language, proximity etc., when research is carried 
out purely at national level, it can be difficult for researchers abroad to access this new knowledge if no 
special  incentives  are  provided.  In  addition,  a  country  may  generate  important  results  in  a  particular 
area  of  science,  but  if  it  has  no  industrial  activity  corresponding  to  this  discipline,  then  commercial 
exploitation  may  be  severely  hampered.  Cross-border  collaborative  projects  provide  a  powerful 
mechanism for disseminating results internationally. 

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41 

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their  domestic  specialisation  or  to  compensate  for  domestic  weaknesses.67 
International technological co-operation (i.e. between inventors with residence in 
different  country)  is  even  more  fruitful  than  domestic  co-operation.68  The 
empirical evidence that collaboration affects innovative performance positively is 
substantial. 69,70 

•  Facilitating  horizontal  policy  coordination:  The  pooling  of  Member  State  public 
research  support  efforts  into  highly  visible,  large-scale  research  programmes  integrated 
cross-nationally will facilitate horizontal policy coordination, or the coordination between 
research  policy  on  the  one  hand,  and  education,  innovation,  ICT,  energy,  environmental, 
etc. policies on the other hand.  

•  Reduction of programme management costs: It allows for the reduction of the national 
management cost of those national programmes which are integrated cross-nationally (and 
for providing more support for research).71 

•  Cross-border policy-learning: It enables cross-border policy-learning and improvements 

in the running of non-integrated national programmes. 

•  Improved accountability and transparency: Joint evaluation will improve accountability 

and the transparency of public R&D support. 

Box: Positive S&T impacts of JP on industry 

Some of the positive S&T impacts, JP has on industry have already been referred to above: 

•  Pooling  scattered  data  and  expertise:  As  already  mentioned  above,  JP  promotes  cross-border  project 
collaboration,  which  facilitates  the  pooling  of  data  and  expertise  scattered  across  several  countries  or 

67 

68 

69 

70 

71 

Wolfgang  Glänzel,  National  Characteristics  in  International  Scientific  Co-Authorship  Relations,  In: 
Scientometrics, Vol. 51, 2001, pp. 101-2. 
Dominique  Guellec  and  Bruno  Van  Pottelsberghe  de  la  Potterie,  The  Value  of  Patents  and  Patenting 
Strategies:  Countries  and  Technology  Areas  Patterns,  In:  Economics  of  Innovation  and  New 
Technologies, 2002, Vol. 11, pp. 133–148. 
Chang,  for  instance,  has  found  that  "the  success  of  firms,  regions,  sectors  and  nations  has  become 
increasingly dependent on how effectively they generate and use knowledge in an increasingly growing 
interdependent  economy,"  that  "inter-organisational  co-operation  is  positively  associated  with  the 
firm's  innovation  performance,"  and  that  "the  firm's  networking  capability  with  suppliers,  customers, 
and  knowledge-creating  organisations  asserts  a  decisive  influence  on  its  innovative  performance".  – 
Yaun Chieh Chang, Benefits of Cooperation on Innovative Performance, In: R&D Management, Vol. 
33 2001, pp. 425-437. 
The  European  Commission  found  for  both  Germany  and  Finland  that  "a  positive  impact  of 
collaboration on the propensity to patent in both countries is…evident" and that "the externalities due 
to  clients  increase  the  innovation  intensity  by  half  a  percentage  point."-  European  Commission, 
European Competitiveness Report 2004, 2004, p. 79 and p. 87. 
There are many aspects to the management of a public research programme. Priorities have to be set, 
work  programmes  developed,  calls  for  proposals  launched,  proposal  evaluations  organised,  contracts 
negotiated, projects managed, and ex-post evaluations carried out. This means that the management of a 
public  research  programme  is  quite  intensive  in  terms  of  both  human  and  financial  resources.  The 
management of public research programmes is also characterised by economies of scale. As the size of 
a  public  research  programme  increases,  the  share  of  resources  allocated  to  its  management  decreases 
more  than  proportionally.  Joint  programming  -  under  which  some  or  all  programme  management 
activities (launching calls for proposals, organising proposal evaluations, etc.) are carried out jointly - 
allows Member States to save on their programme management costs and achieve economies of scale. 

EN 

42 

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Europe  as  a  whole.  This  enables  the  private  sector  to  pursue,  much  more  than  it  can  now,  "open 
innovation"  strategies.  According  to  the  currently  dominant  "open  innovation"  paradigm,  research  and 
innovation  are  becoming  increasingly  costly  and  complex,  which  forces  firms  to  search  for  outside 
knowledge,  and  turns  networks  and  partners  into  important  elements  in  the  innovation  strategy.  This  is 
especially important for SMEs, which usually are not in a position to access foreign knowledge. 

•  Rapid  dissemination  of  research  results:  Innovation  is  often  accompanied  by  so-called  first-mover 
advantages. The firm which is first to bring a new product or process to the market is often the one which 
can occupy a large share of the market. Rapid innovation, however, depends to a large extent on the rapid 
domestic  and  cross-border  dissemination  of  research  results.  JP,  by  promoting  cross-border  project 
collaboration,  facilitates  such  rapid  dissemination.  This  is  especially  important  for  SMEs,  which  usually 
are not easily included in the dissemination loop. 

•  Development of common, standardised solutions: Industry has a great interest in market predictability, 
which to a large extent depends on the development and acceptance of common standards and norms. JP, 
which  facilitates  the  development  of  common,  standardised  solutions,  contributes  to  such  market 
predictability. 

In addition, a number of other benefits for industry can be identified: 

•  Facilitating  access  to  public  research  support:  Multinational  companies  often  carry  out  research  in 
different  European  countries.  To  access  public  support  for  their  research,  they  have  to  familiarise 
themselves  with  a  multitude  of  different  national  and  regional  research  programmes  operating  in  the 
different  European  countries,  each  with  their  own  objectives,  application,  proposal  selection  and 
management procedures, and cycles. SMEs and locally embedded universities and research institutes have 
difficulty accessing information on foreign research programmes. JP will significantly reduce the number 
of public programmes operating in Europe thereby making it easier for companies to access public research 
support.72 It will reduce the cost of information and the cost of applying for companies and have a positive 
effect on the crowding-in factor or leverage effect of public R&D support, resulting in higher private and 
overall R&D investment. 

•  Facilitating  the  development  of  joint  public-private  strategic  research  agendas:  Europe's  industry  is 
well-networked and able to speak to Member States and to the Community with one voice. On the other 
hand,  however,  and  as  already  mentioned,  a  multitude  of  different  of  different  national  and  regional 
research programmes are operating in the different European countries, preventing the public sector from 
speaking  with  one  voice  to  industry.  JP  will  enable  the  public  sector  to  speak  with  a  single  voice  on 
particular research subjects and this will facilitate the interaction and strategic research coordination with 
the  private  sector  (which  can  facilitate  the  development,  further  down  the  line,  of  joint  technology 
initiatives). JP also facilitates the coordination of public research support programmes supporting industrial 
technologies  (see,  for  instance,  recent  ERA-NETs  (concerning  construction,  micro-  and  nano-
manufacturing) supporting Technology Platforms). 

•  Facilitating horizontal policy coordination: The much higher visibility of large-scale joint programmes 
and  their  results  as  compared  to  national  programmes  will  enable  the  rapid  alignment  of  non-research 
policies  to  facilitate  the  take-up  of  those  research  results.  It  will  facilitate  the  coordination  of  research 
policies  with  education  and  innovation  policies  (an  explicit  stakeholder  demand),  as  well  as  with  other 
policies. 

It can be expected that all of the aforementioned benefits for industry will make Europe a more attractive place 
for business R&D investment, which will have a positive impact on Europe's R&D intensity. 

72 

According  to  Lena  Lange,  former  director  of  Novozymes  and  of  Nordforsk:  "Whilst  industry  is 
globalising  its  research  strategy  to  address  global  challenges,  it  needs  to  interact  and  depend  upon 
myriads of decision makers for public research." In The Future of Science and Technology in Europe, 
Lisboa, 8-10 October 2007.. 

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The extent to which these aforementioned benefits of JP will be achieved depends entirely on 
the extent to which a real structuring effect is attained. With these considerations in mind, it 
can  be  argued  that  the  S&T  benefits  of  JP  are  best  achieved  under  the  "strategic  European 
process" option, which as argued above achieves the largest structuring effect (see Table 3). 
The  S&T  impact  of  the  "Community-driven  strategic"  option  is  potentially  large  but 
uncertain,  since  it  depends  entirely  on  the  level  of  stakeholder  support.  The  "business-as-
usual"  and  "Article  169  maximization"  options  have  (much)  smaller  structuring  effects  and, 
therefore, also (much) smaller S&T impacts. 

5.6. 

Economic impacts 

The Communication, which this Impact Assessment is accompanying, proposes a process for 
identifying suitable topics and implementation instruments for JP. This means that these 
topics and instruments are not known to us at this point in time. This of course hampers the 
precise ex-ante estimation of societal (economic, social, environmental) impacts. 

Because  of  the  abovementioned  reason,  it  was  not  possible  within  the  scope  of  this  Impact 
Assessment to engage in a precise econometric modelling exercise (as was possible and has 
also been done within the context of the FP7 Impact Assessment).73 Nevertheless, a generic 
argument  can  be  developed.  Public  investment  in  research  generates  important  economic 
impacts.  Economic  growth,  employment  and  international  competitiveness  (in  terms  of,  for 
instance,  import  and  export  performance)  depend  to  a  large  extent  on  technological 
innovation, which itself depends crucially on research. Modern mainstream economic theory 
– whether neoclassical, endogenous or evolutionary – has recognised for quite some time now 
that technological progress and innovation are the main engines of economic growth.74, 

There  is  also  empirical  support  for  the  contribution  of  S&T  to  economic  performance. 
Estimates of private returns to firms’ own investment in R&D still produce varying figures, 
but there is an emerging consensus that gross returns between 20 and 30 % are common and 
plausible. Microeconomic studies confirm the existence of significant spillovers of knowledge 
from  the  firms  that  perform  the  R&D  to  other  firms  and  industries.  Taking  account  of 

73 
74 

COM(2005) 118, Brussels, 6 April 2005. 
According  to  Baumol,  innovation  explains  much  of  the  extraordinary  economic  growth  record  under 
capitalism.  The  reason  is  that  in  important  parts  of  the  economy,  competition  is  based  on  innovation 
rather  than  price.  Firms  are  therefore  forced  by  market  pressure  to  support  innovative  activity 
systematically and substantially (William J. Baumol, The Free-Market Innovation Machine. Analyzing 
the  Growth  Miracle  of  Capitalism,  Princeton,  N.J.  and  Oxford,  2002,  viii-ix).  According  to  Romer, 
productivity  growth  is  driven  by  innovation  resulting  in  the  creation  of  new  though  not  necessarily 
improved product varieties (Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt, Appropriate Growth Policy: A Unifying 
Framework,  9  August  2005,  p.  2-3).  And  under  the  Schumpeterian  paradigm,  growth  results  from 
"quality  improving  innovations  that  render  old  products  obsolete,  and  hence  involves  the  force  that 
Schumpeter called 'creative destruction'" (Aghion and Howitt, Appropriate Growth Policy: A Unifying 
Framework, Paper presented for the 2005 Joseph Schumpeter Lecture, Amsterdam, 25 August, 2005, p. 
3).  Even  basic  research  generates  several  direct  economic  benefits.  It  is  a  source  of  useful  new 
information;  It  creates  new  instrumentation  and  methodologies.  Those  engaged  in  basic  research 
develop  skills  which  yield  economic  benefits  when  individuals  move  from  basic  research  carrying 
codified and tacit knowledge. Through participation in basic research, access is granted to networks of 
experts and information. Those trained in basic research may be good at solving complex technological 
problems. And, finally, on the basis of basic research, spin-off companies are created (Ben Martin et al., 
The  Relationship  between  Publicly  Funded  Basic  Research  and  Economic  Performance,  A  SPRU 
Review, Report Prepared for HM Treasury, July 1996, p. vii.). 

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measured spillovers typically raises the estimated gross rate of return on business investment 
into the range of 30 to 40 %. Macroeconomic studies, which by definition cover all sectors of 
the  economy,  also  find  significantly  higher  returns  to  R&D  in  OECD  countries,  with 
estimates ranging from 50 % to over 100 %. A recent Austrian report found that the rise of 
corporate spending on R&D from 0.8 % to 1.1 % of Gross Domestic Product in the second 
half of the 1990s produced a boost of three tenths of a %  in  growth.75 Both  microeconomic 
and macroeconomic studies find that an important source of productivity growth in all OECD 
countries comes from the international diffusion of technology. A country’s ability to absorb 
those foreign technologies is enhanced by investment in education and by investment in own 
R&D. 

The  economic  literature  is  not  conclusive  on  the  employment  effects  of  innovation,  since 
process  innovation  (the  introduction  of  labour-saving  technologies)  is  likely  to  have  a 
negative  effect  on  employment  at  least  in  the  short  run,  assuming  all  other  factors  remain 
constant, while product innovation creates new markets and employment opportunities.76 But 
empirical evidence suggests that technological change promotes employment.77. 

Within  this  context,  what  JP  –  which  is  best  supported  through  the  "strategic  European 
process"  option  (see  Table  3)  -  does  (as  has  been  demonstrated  in  Section  2  and  at  the 
beginning  of  this  section),  is  increasing  –  leveraging  as  it  were  -  the  societal  returns  on 
Member State public research investment beyond what can be achieved at the level of a single 
Member  State.  Compared  to  purely  national  programming  and  funding,  JP  and  funding 
enables  the  production  of  useful  knowledge  which  otherwise  could  not  be  produced  (by 
overcoming  barriers  to  entry,  by  pooling  necessary  data  and  expertise,  etc.),  increases  the 
quality  of  the  research  carried  out  (by  increasing  the  competition  for  funding),  ensures  that 
more  relevant  knowledge  is  produced  (by  linking  research  to  jointly  faced  challenges),  and 
guarantees  a  higher  societal  pay-off  through  higher  impact  publications  and  patents,  higher 
degrees of innovativeness, rapid dissemination and the development of standardised solutions. 

5.7. 

Social and environmental impacts 

While  a  generic  argument  can  be  developed  for  economic  and  employment  impacts,  that  is 
not possible for social and environmental impacts since it is not yet clear in which areas JP 
initiatives will be developed. Defining that is exactly what the proposed JP policy process is 
intended to do. What is clear, though, is that whatever the social or environmental challenge 
to  be  addressed,  progress  will  be  made  most  quickly  and  efficiently  under  the  "strategic 
European process" option, which is characterised by great strategic focus - that is, focus on 
major societal challenges - and achieves the largest structuring effect and therefore the largest 
S&T impact, which increases the societal returns to public R&D support (see Table 3). 

75 

76 
77 

Federal  Ministry  of  Education,  Science  and  Culture,  together  with  Federal  Ministry  of  Transport, 
Innovation  and  Technology,  and  Federal  Ministry  of  Economics  and  Labour,  Austrian  Research  and 
Technology Report 2004, Vienna, 2004, p. 2. 
European Commission, Employment in Europe 2004, p. 77. 
Such evidence includes a recent study of the DG Employment which found that the rate of growth of 
total factor productivity (due to improvements in the efficiency of production or to pure technological 
progress) has a positive impact on the employment rate, with a one-year lag, and that both in the short- 
and  long-term,  total  factor  productivity  and  employment  are  positively  correlated  (European 
Commission, Employment in Europe 2004, p. 80). 

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Some examples can be provided of the way in which JP could contribute to quicker and better 
solutions for social and environmental problems.  

•  In the field of Cancer Clinical  Practice  Guidelines  (CPGs)  research,  many  CPGs  address 
the same topic.78 JP could facilitate pan-European public research programme optimisation 
by eliminating wasteful duplication. 

•  Risk of overlaps has also been found in the field of Organic Food Security, especially in 
animal  production  system  research.79  In  this  field  as  well  JP  could  contribute  to  the 
optimisation of the pan-European public research effort. 

•  The countries surrounding the Baltic Sea are affected by common environmental problems. 

JP allows these countries to address the challenges they have in common jointly.80 

•  Climate change is a phenomenon producing effects on a global, continental, national and 
regional scale. Research into the impact of climate change tends to be organised locally to 
focus on local problems, although some of the lessons learned could equally be applied in 
many regions. This is just one argument for greater co-operation between Europe’s various 
climate research programmes.81 

•  The same argument is valid for research into ageing. Population ageing is another example 
of  one  of  Europe’s  most  pressing  problems.  In  particular,  ageing  represents  a  huge 
challenge for health care, social services and pension systems, as well as for the medical 
profession. Here too it can help to carry out research jointly.82 

•  JP  and  cross-border  project  collaboration  facilitate  the  development  of  common, 
standardised solutions. For example, efficient transport systems are crucial to the efficient 
functioning of the single market, but transport research and policy are still too often seen 
from  a  national  perspective.  Closer  co-operation  between  national  transport  research 
programmes  can  produce  economies  of  scale  and  greater  overall  effectiveness,  and  also 
help to inform transport policy at European level. 

•  In  some  fields  of  research,  complementary  data  and  expertise  may  be  dispersed  across 
several countries, and if national research systems do not coordinate with each other then 
the  benefits  of  pooling  these  resources  will  be  lost.  For  example,  when  researching  rare 
diseases at regional or national level, the difficulty to reach the necessary critical mass of 

78 
79 

80 

81 

82 

See the SWOT analysis prepared by CoCanCPG, D 4.5.1, p 7. 
Arja  Nykanem  and  Stefano  Canali  (2006),  An  analysis  of  OFF  research  topics  in  CORE  Organic 
participating countries conducted, Core Organic Project, D4.1.a, p.19. 
Efforts are already underway to coordinate marine research in The Baltic Sea, Europe’s largest internal 
body  of  water.  Ensuring  sustainable  development  requires  regional  policies  based  on  sound  scientific 
knowledge.  The  BONUS  network  brings  together  11  organisations  involved  in  the  funding  and 
organisation  of  Baltic  marine  science  to  pool  their  research  funding  and  coordinate  the  use  of 
infrastructures. 
An  ERA-NET  project  "CIRCLE"  is  currently  preparing  the  ground  for  a  coordinated  information 
network on climate change. 
The ERA-AGE project is making some efforts to bring together the national research programmes from 
14 European countries to help Europe address age-related problems in a concerted way. The US, whose 
citizens are ageing at a slower pace than Europe, identified this major issue 30 years ago, and the 2005 
budget for the National Institute of Ageing surpassed US$ 1000 million.  

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patients, expertise, and facilities is one of the major obstacles. There are at least 6000 to 
7000  rare  diseases,  which  taken  together  affect  some  20  million  European  citizens. 
Research  is  often  hampered  by  a  thin  distribution  of  patients  which  impairs  gathering  of 
enough  subjects  for  suitable  studies,  few  specialised  research  groups,  and  a  lack  of 
standardisation of available data and material collections. 

5.8. 

The preferred option and its impacts on different actors 

The conclusion of the above argumentation is that the preferred policy option is the "strategic 
European process" option. The "business-as-usual" option is rejected mainly on the basis of 
its lack of strategic focus, its weak structuring effect, its negative impact on horizontal policy 
consistency, and its weak societal impact. Similarly, the "Article 169 maximization" option is 
rejected on the basis of its lack of strategic focus, its "one-size-fits-all" approach and its more 
limited  structuring  effect  and  societal  impacts.  The  "Community-driven  strategic"  option, 
while its potential impact is great, is rejected on the basis of the risk it entails. It is likely that 
it  will  not  be  supported  by  stakeholders,  which  will  negatively  affect  strategic  focus, 
structuring  effect,  and  societal  impacts,  and  anyway  it  is  unlikely  that  the  Community 
disposes  of  a  sufficiently  detailed  knowledge  about  Member  State  research  programmes  to 
suitably identify JP topics. 

The  "strategic  European  process"  option  enjoys  the  highest  levels  of  support  from 
stakeholders,  who  agree  that  there  is  a  need  for  the  definition  of  strategic  research  agendas 
and  their  implementation  in  a  coordinated  manner,  especially  for  tackling  common  societal 
challenges; that a partnership, which couples a voluntary, bottom-up approach with strategic 
top-down guidance, is indispensable for ensuring flexibility and customisation to programme 
specificities;  that  the  principles  of  subsidiarity,  variable  geometry  and  real  European  added 
value need to be respected; and that a one-size-fits-all approach cannot be pursued. 

It is precisely by proposing a process in which Member States feel secure and in control that 
the preferred option seeks to overcome the reluctance of public bodies and other stakeholders 
to take forward the integration of national research: it is an entirely voluntary process, which 
gives full ownership to the Member States, who decide in a bottom-up way what they want to 
do; it is selective, allowing Member States to choose the JP initiatives they are interested in 
and want to be associated with, and to opt out of those they do not wish to be involved in; it is 
also  flexible,  allowing  countries  to  choose  between  various  instruments  which  can  promote 
stronger or looser forms of coordination as appropriate and as desired by Member States.  

Because  of  these  high  levels  of  stakeholder  support  and  the  joint  programme  area  and 
instrument choice process proposed, the "strategic European process" option provides the best 
guarantees  for  obtaining  the  largest  aggregate  systemic  structuring  effects  (by,  for  instance, 
increasing  the  competition  for  funding  and  providing  under-performers  with  incentives  to 
improve their performance, instituting common evaluation, etc.). 

This  in  turn  will  allow  for  the  full  realisation  of  the  benefits  of  cooperation.  These  include 
overcoming  barriers  to  entry;  pan-European  programme  optimisation;  scientific  excellence; 
jointly tackling commonly faced challenges, developing common, standardised solutions, and 
speaking with one voice; cross-border project collaboration (with its own set of benefits such 
as  the  pooling  of  data  and  expertise,  rapid  dissemination,  cross-border  human  resources 
mobility  and  training,  and  increased  scientific,  technological  and  innovation  impacts); 
reduced  national  management  costs  of  integrated  programmes;  the  improvement  of  non-

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integrated programmes; and improved accountability and transparency. More specifically for 
industry, the benefits include 'open innovation', the rapid dissemination of research results, the 
development  of  common,  standardised  solutions,  better  access  to  public  research  support, 
easier development of joint public-private strategic research agendas, and quicker horizontal 
policy coordination. Ultimately, these S&T impacts translate into a higher societal return on 
public  research  investment,  which  means  higher  economic  growth,  competitiveness  and 
employment, and quicker and better solutions for social and environmental challenges. 

Under 
this  option,  Europe's  citizens  will  benefit  from  higher  economic  growth, 
competitiveness  and  employment,  and  from  quicker  and  better  solutions  for  social  and 
environmental problems. These will result from the important S&T benefits derived from JP 
and its significant structuring effects. 

Europe's enterprises will benefit from a greater ability to pool scattered data and expertise and 
pursue open innovation strategies, from the more rapid dissemination of research results, from 
the development of common, standardised solutions, and from better access to public research 
support  [through  reduced  information  costs  (concerning  the  existence  of  programmes  and 
their procedures)  and  reduced  administrative burden  (concerning actual grant applications)]. 
In addition, the development of joint public-private strategic research agendas and horizontal 
policy coordination will be facilitated. 

Europe's scientists will benefit from larger and more strategically targeted research programs, 
a greater ability to pool data and expertise scattered across several countries or Europe as a 
whole,  from  the  more  rapid  dissemination  of  research  results,  from  increased  cross-border 
human  resources  mobility  and  training,  and  from  the  ability  to  achieve  higher  scientific, 
technological  and  innovation  impacts.  These  impacts  are  of  particular  importance  for 
scientists  in  regions  and  countries  catching  up  in  terms  of  research  investment  and 
performance.  

Europe's  research  programme  owners  will  benefit  from  a  larger  scientific,  technological, 
innovation and societal return on their investment in public research support, as well as from 
reduced  programme  management  costs  (which  can  be  disproportionately  high,  especially 
where small research programmes are concerned, given the need to launch separate calls for 
proposals,  evaluate  those  proposals,  etc.),  cross-border  policy  learning  (which  will  improve 
the quality of research programmes), and increased accountability and transparency (through, 
for  instance,  joint  evaluation).  These  impacts  are  of  particular  importance  for  research 
programme  owners  and  managers  in  regions  and  countries  catching  up  in  terms  of  research 
investment and performance. 

6. 

RISK AND RISK MITIGATION 

With  the  preferred  "strategic  European  process"  option  are  various  risks  associated.  The 
various S&T and societal impacts discussed above are the impacts which can be achieved if 
the  proposed  JP  policy  process  is  implemented  successfully.  Yet,  its  full  success  is  not 
guaranteed  a  priori.  This  is  very  clearly  demonstrated  by  the  last  fifteen  years'  of  slow 
progress  in  the  field  of  European  cross-border  programme  coordination  and  collaboration 
(discussed  in  section  1).  In  order  for  this  process  to  be  successful,  a  number  of  important 
boundary conditions have to be met convincingly. 

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The  proposed  JP  policy  process  foresees  that  this  Communication  and  its  accompanying 
Impact  Assessment  constitute  the  basis  for  the  development  of  a  common  vision  on  and  a 
clear  shared  understanding  of  what  JP  is  and  what  it  entails  in  terms  of  funding,  joint 
ownership, sharing of expertise, opening, etc. The careful drafting of these documents, as well 
as the subsequent in-depth discussions to be held on these documents at Council level and in 
other  for  a,  will  ensure  this.  Yet  hitherto  acquired  experience  from  JP  at  various  levels  has 
shown  that  a  sine  qua  non  condition  for  success  is  the  existence  from  the  very  outset  of  a 
strong political impulse and of a deep and sustained commitment at the highest political level 
in  the  Member  States.  The  risk  exists,  however,  that  this  required  commitment  will  not 
materialise,  which  could  result  in  a  heavily  bureaucratised  "empty"  and  ultimately 
unsuccessful policy process. This is what has happened time and again over the course of the 
past fifteen years. 

First, this risk would appear to be smaller now than it was perhaps in the past and this because 
of the growing recognition in the Member States of the societal challenges Europe is facing 
and of the S&T and societal costs of non-coordination and of the S&T and societal benefits of 
JP. Second, the proposed policy process has been designed specifically to mitigate this risk. A 
high-level  political  process  is  proposed,  as  different  from  a  regular  consultation  approach, 
which  rests  squarely  on  the  Member  States,  with  the  Commission  services  in  a  facilitating 
role. The process assigns an important and continuing role to the Council in terms of: 

•  Inviting Member States' and Associated Countries' research ministers to mandate personal 

representatives for an ad-hoc group to identify suitable JP areas.  

•  Mandating  JP  area  specific  high-level  Member  State  working  groups  to  define  SMART 

objectives, formulate strategic research agendas, etc. 

•  Closely monitoring the process on an annual basis (via obligatory annual reporting by the 

Commission), and 

•  Evaluating the process after 3 years. 

The  proposed  process  is  evidence-based  and  grounded  in  an  in-depth  strategic  analysis  of 
respective  S&T  fields,  which  will  ensure  that  only  feasible  JP  initiatives  are  taken.  An 
accommodating  approach  is  proposed,  which  is  marked  by  instrument  flexibility  (a  wide 
range of possible Community and other instruments for implementation), variable geometry, 
and  flexibility  in  terms  of  the  extent  of  programme  integration  pursued  (partial  cycle,  full 
cycle). 

A second risk is that of institutional inertia and "field-level" operational stakeholder resistance 
to, for instance, integrated, jointly funded, more competitive calls for proposals. Evaluations 
of  past  coordination  measures  have  suggested  that  this  inertia  may  be  due  to  a  number  of 
factors:  fear  of  losing  control  of  programmes,  non-existence  of  well-defined  national 
programmes,  national  legislation  that  does  not  allow  support  to  foreign  institutions,  lack  of 
multi-annual budgets and requirement of yearly parliamentary approval, a desire not to lose 
the  visibility  of  some  key  national  projects.83  The  "strategic  European  process"  option  has 
important  features  which  will  help  to  overcome  these  obstacles  and  assuage  any  potential 

83 

Optimat – VDI/VDE/IT, Examining the Design of National Research Programmes, Study prepared for 
European Commission – DG Research (Directorate M2), December 2005 

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concerns  of  Member  States.  Firstly,  it  is  an  entirely  voluntary  process  which  gives  full 
ownership  to  the  Member  States  who  decide  in  a  bottom-up  way  what  they  want  to  do. 
Member States have the full power to define particular JP actions and can decide to opt in or 
opt out of them as they wish. Where they choose to participate in a JP action, they will not 
lose  control  as  such,  but  the  form  of  control  they  have  will  depend  upon  the  nature  of  the 
action. The key calculation for Member States, however, will not be about control per se, but 
rather about whether any perceived losses from doing JP are outweighed by the benefits to be 
obtained  from  cross-border  cooperation  (impact on  scale,  scope  etc.).  Secondly,  the  process 
offers  flexibility  in  the  choice  of  instruments,  which  means  that  new  programmes  could  be 
created  if  desired,  even  where  well-defined  national  programmes  do  not  exist.  It  is  also  a 
targeted  and  gradual  process  which  allows  area-specific  obstacles  to  be  tackled  over  a 
reasonable  period  of  time.  And  by  focussing  on  pressing  societal  challenges  of  common 
concern, it provides a serious incentive to mobilize efforts and break down barriers. 

A third risk is that the proposed JP policy process will lack the required evidence base. The 
identification  of  suitable  JP  topics,  the  formulation  of  SMART  objectives  and  strategic 
research  agendas,  etc.  will  require  the  collection  of  strategic  intelligence  on  what  specific 
kinds  of  research  each  Member  State  is  supporting,  through  which  programmes  and 
institutions, etc. 

To  mitigate  this  risk,  the  involvement  of  experts  in  the  respective  S&T  fields  is  foreseen. 
They would identify the necessary information, and takes steps to ensure its collection. The 
approach would differ from previous efforts at information gathering which tended to cover 
all Member States and all fields of science, and as a result were time-consuming and produced 
quite aggregated results. Instead, it would focus only on the selected specific fields (probably 
around three in the first phase of JP) and only on the Member States that wish to participate in 
JP in each field. This focussed approach. would allow data to be collected more rapidly and at 
a much greater level of detail. Since a JP initiative in a given area would necessarily involve 
the  key  players  in  the  field,  this  would  also  facilitate  the  task  of  gathering  the  information 
required. 

This  information  gathering  process  should  use  data  already  available  in  the  Member  States 
and  thus  should  impose  no  additional  reporting  obligation.  Member  States  may  decide  to 
update the information collected over the course of time if this is useful. It is also a voluntary 
exercise  limited  to  those  Member  States  participating  in  a  specific  JP  area,  and  it  is  the 
Member  States  themselves,  not  the  Commission,  who  will  decide  upon  the  best  method  for 
gathering information. 

In summary, it can be argued that the main risk mitigation strategy underlying the proposed 
process  is  that  of  learning  from  and  building  upon  the  valuable  recent  experience  with 
coordination  instruments  by  setting  up  a  properly  structured  policy  process  based  firmly  on 
the principles of Better Regulation: working closely with the Member States in a transparent 
manner;  respecting  the  principles  of  subsidiary,  European  added  value  and  proportionality; 
preparing and launching concrete initiatives on the basis of an extensive, credible evidence-
base; and ensuring the accountability and transparency of the process via proper monitoring 
and evaluations systems. 

EN 

50 

   EN 

 
7. 

MONITORING AND EVALUATION  

An important role will be played in the mitigation of risks by the creation of suitable systems 
for  monitoring  and  evaluating  the  process  proposed  in  this  communication  for  the 
identification  of  topics  and  areas  for  JP,  the  formulation  of  SMART  objectives,  the 
development of strategic research agendas, the launching of specific JP initiatives, etc. Within 
this  context,  it  is  of  key  importance  that  sufficient  human  and  financial  resources  are 
dedicated to monitoring and evaluation. 

Regular  monitoring  and  evaluation  of  progress  against  the  SMART  objectives  should  be 
ensured. 

Based on expert reports, the Commission will inform the Council of progress at each stage of 
the  process  so  that  it  can  provide  adequate  steering  and  allow  more  interested  countries  to 
join. 

The  Commission  together  with  the  Member  States  will  evaluate  the  Joint  Programming 
process  as  a  whole.  This  evaluation  will  be  commenced  three  years  after  the  launch  of  the 
process.  

EN 

51 

   EN 

 
Annex 1 

ANNEX  

ERA  Green  paper  open  consultation:  on 
positioning papers. 

line  consultation  and 

Following  the  publication  of  the  Green  Paper  "The  European  Research  Area:  New 
Perspectives" (COM(2007)161, Brussels April 4 2007), the European Commission launched a 
broad institutional and public debate on what needs to be done to give renewed impetus to the 
realisation of an open, competitive and attractive European Research Area. An on-line public 
consultation was opened between 1 May 2007 and 31 August 2007. 474 individuals and 211 
organisations  including  large  companies,  SMEs,  associations  of  commercial  interests, 
governmental  bodies,  funding  agencies,  universities,  etc.  from  across  Europe  and  other 
countries responded to the consultation.84  

The  following  tables  summarises  the  distribution  of  the  responses  to  a  selected  set  of 
questions relevant for the purpose of Joint Programming. Table IV, in particular, presents the 
respondents' view on the need to open the national programmes in basic research and how this 
should  be  achieved,  whereas  Table  II  presents  the  distribution  of  respondent's  answers 
concerning the need to open applied research and on how this can best be achieved. 

Table VI presents the distribution of respondents' views with respect to the perceived benefits 
of cooperation in different domains. These figures in particular were used for figures 1 and 2 
in  section  1.4.1.  Note  that  in  the  figures,  the  percentages  of  respondents  agreeing  with  the 
statements were presented as a percentage of non missing answers. 

In  the  same  open  consultation,  there  were  an  additional  146  free-format  positioning  papers, 
from MS, NGOs, industry associations, SMEs; large companies, European bodies, etc. Table 
IV presents a list of the positioning papers used as input for table 1 in section 1.4.1. 

84 

EN 

further 

For 
consultation_en.html 

details 

see 

http://ec.europa.eu/research/era/progress-on-debate/stakeholder-

52 

   EN 

 
                                                 
Table IV: Green Paper open consultation: Opening of basic research 

If in agreement, this can be achieved by: 

National  and  regional 
investigator 
driven  (basic)  research  programmes 
should be opened to the participation 
from  all  EU  Member 
of  persons 
States. 

Full  opening  of  programmes 
applications 
opening). 

from 

to 
(mutual 

all 

Limited  opening  of  programmes  to 
on  bilateral 
based 
applications 
agreements 

The  networking  of  research  activities 
conducted  at  national  or  regional 
level,  and  the  mutual  opening  of 
national 
research 
programmes  with 
the  Commission 
taking  a  facilitating  role  (ERA-Net 
type) 

regional 

and 

Unilateral  opening  of  national  and 
regional  programmes  to  some  or  all 
EU Member States 

s
r
e
w
s
n
a
o
N

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

s
r
e
w
s
n
a
o
N

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

e
e
r
g
A

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

29 

11 

7 

53 

52 

11 

44 

11 

11 

33 

78 

11 

27 

0 

0 

73 

27 

27 

4 

0 

0 

s
r
e
w
s
n
a
o
N

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

e
e
r
g
A

34 

60 

17 

11 

89 

0 

45 

36 

18 

14 
23 

14 
8 

13 

18 

26 
13 

40 
29 
28 

6 
13 

17 
12 
12 

21 
0 

3 

6 
0 

5 
12 
7 

50 
69 

50 
46 

36 
23 

0 
15 

14 
15 

57 
46 

7 
15 

67 

44 

28 

0 

28 

49 

15 

62 
75 

38 
46 
53 

44 
25 

74 
56 
52 

21 
25 

2 
29 
14 

18 
13 

5 
2 
4 

18 
38 

19 
12 
30 

53 
38 

71 
54 
59 

21 
13 

7 
15 
16 

3 

0 

0 

0 
8 

5 

3 
13 

12 
5 
4 

organisation 
fewer 

Individuals 
Association 
representing 
commercial  interests  /  Chamber 
of Commerce 
Commercial 
(including  consultancy) 
than 250 employees 
Commercial 
organisation 
(including  consultancy)  more 
than 250 employees 
Governmental body 
Higher  Education 
Institution 
(University,  University  College, 
Polytechnic etc) 
Public sector research performer 
other 
than  Higher  Education 
Institution 
Research funding organisation 
Non-Governmental, not for profit, 
not 
commercial 
interest Organisation 
Other 
Total 

representing 

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

s
r
e
w
s
n
a
o
N

e
e
r
g
A

20 

58 

11 

78 

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

5 

0 

7 

0 

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

s
r
e
w
s
n
a
o
N

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

e
e
r
g
A

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

e
e
r
g
A

l

a

t

o
T

30 

63 

15 

8 

14 

69 

22 

89 

0 

11 

0 

45 

27 

27 

18 

27 

27 

36 

9 

36 
31 

50 
38 

31 

46 

24 
38 

10 
27 
22 

44 
25 

69 
56 
56 

0 
0 

5 

6 
0 

2 
5 
5 

7 
8 

3 

0 
0 

12 
0 
6 

43 
54 

57 
54 

14 
8 

0 
23 

46 

51 

26 

5 

50 
75 

17 
39 
33 

44 
25 

71 
56 
60 

18 
25 

12 
27 
16 

6 
13 

12 
5 
8 

27 

29 
15 

18 

32 
38 

5 
12 
15 

1 

2 

2 
2 

6 

5 
1 

6 
6 
100 

EN 

53 

EN 

 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Table V: Green Paper open consultation: Opening of applied research 

If in agreement, this can be achieved by: 

and 
driven 

regional 
National 
(applied) 
socially 
research 
programmes 
should  be  opened  to  the 
participation of persons from 
all EU Member States. 

Full opening of programmes 
to  applications 
from  all 
(mutual opening). 

opening 

Limited 
of 
programmes  to  applications 
based 
bilateral 
on 
agreements 

of 

level,  and 

Networking 
research 
activities done at national or 
regional 
the 
mutual  opening  of  national 
and  regional  research  pro-
the 
grammes 
a 
Commission 
facilitating 
(ERA-Net 
type) 

taking 

with 

role 

opening 

of 
Unilateral 
national 
regional 
and 
programmes  to  some  or  all 
EU Member States 

Individuals 

Association representing commercial interests / Chamber of Commerce 

Commercial organisation (including consultancy) fewer than 250 employees 

Commercial organisation (including consultancy) more than 250 employees 

Governmental body 

Higher Education Institution (University, University College, Polytechnic etc) 

Public sector research performer other than Higher Education Institution 

Research funding organisation 

s
r
e
w
s
n
a
o
N

34 

56 

27 

21 

31 

21 

26 

13 

Non-Governmental, not for profit, not representing commercial interest Organisation 

43 

Other 

Total 

29 

33 

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

12 

11 

9 

14 

23 

21 

0 

25 

12 

15 

13 

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

10 

22 

0 

21 

0 

8 

12 

0 

7 

12 

10 

s
r
e
w
s
n
a
o
N

64 

89 

36 

57 

62 

56 

53 

38 

74 

59 

62 

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

7 

0 

18 

29 

15 

21 

26 

13 

7 

24 

10 

e
e
r
g
A

43 

11 

64 

43 

46 

51 

62 

63 

38 

44 

45 

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

2 

0 

0 

0 

8 

0 

3 

13 

0 

2 

2 

s
r
e
w
s
n
a
o
N

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

70 

15 

100 

0 

45 

64 

62 

59 

44 

50 

71 

59 

67 

27 

7 

15 

21 

21 

13 

5 

10 

14 

e
e
r
g
A

28 

11 

45 

14 

15 

23 

18 

38 

19 

15 

25 

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

3 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

13 

12 

5 

3 

s
r
e
w
s
n
a
o
N

68 

89 

45 

57 

62 

56 

41 

38 

71 

59 

65 

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

4 

0 

27 

0 

0 

5 

3 

0 

5 

7 

5 

e
e
r
g
A

13 

0 

27 

29 

23 

21 

35 

25 

12 

27 

16 

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

4 

0 

9 

7 

0 

0 

0 

0 

5 

0 

3 

s
r
e
w
s
n
a
o
N

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

71 

14 

100 

0 

45 

71 

69 

59 

44 

38 

74 

56 

68 

36 

7 

8 

28 

18 

13 

10 

29 

15 

e
e
r
g
A

24 

11 

18 

36 

38 

38 

56 

63 

19 

34 

28 

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

5 

0 

0 

0 

8 

3 

6 

13 

10 

5 

5 

e
e
r
g
A

11 

0 

18 

21 

15 

10 

32 

38 

7 

10 

12 

l

a

t

o
T

69 

1 

2 

2 

2 

6 

5 

1 

6 

6 

100 

EN 

54 

EN 

 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Table VI: ERA Green Paper open consultation: Distribution of responses by category of respondent. 

Do we need to work together, more closely, at EU level for the planning of research priorities, implementation of research programmes and the evaluation and review of research? Specifically, do we 
need to work together on: 

Participatory 
processes: 
structured  dialogue  between 
stakeholders 
including  civil 
society  to  prepare  informed 
decisions / opinions 

Foresight: 
research 
opportunities. 

identifying 
challenges 

future 
and 

Programming: 
selecting 
research  priorities  based  on 
measurable  objectives  and 
deadlines (programming). 

Project 
review: 
peer 
evaluation  of  publicly  funded 
research  proposals  by  peer 
review. 

Research 
evaluation: 
evaluation  of  ongoing  publicly 
funded research programmes. 

national 

Programme  peer  review  and 
structures: 
evaluation 
and 
European, 
regional 
research 
programmes  should  agree  to 
be  evaluated  together  in  joint 
evaluations  by  similar  teams 
of 
to 
common 
shared 
practices. 

according 

experts 

and 

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

e
e
r
g
A

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

i

g
n
s
s
M

i

e
e
r
g
A

Individuals 

40 

14 

11 

35 

59 

56 

0 

0 

44 

56 

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

7 

0 

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

i

g
n
s
s
M

i

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

e
e
r
g
A

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

i

g
n
s
s
M

i

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

e
e
r
g
A

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

i

g
n
s
s
M

i

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

e
e
r
g
A

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

i

g
n
s
s
M

i

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

e
e
r
g
A

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

i

  Total 
g
n
s
s
M

i

3 

0 

31 

44 

16 

44 

56 

0 

7 

0 

32 

56 

44 

56 

7 

0 

5 

0 

32 

51 

11 

44 

56 

0 

5 

0 

32 

49 

10 

44 

33 

0 

6 

0 

35 

69 

67 

1 

Association 
representing 
commercial  interests  / 
Chamber 
of 
Commerce 

Commercial 
organisation 
fewer 
employees 

than 

with 
250 

Commercial 
organisation with more 
than 250 employees 

36 

18 

18 

27 

55 

9 

9 

27 

64 

9 

0 

27 

45 

18 

9 

27 

64 

9 

0 

27 

45 

9 

9 

36 

2 

64 

7 

14 

14 

79 

0 

7 

14 

79 

0 

7 

14 

57 

14 

14 

14 

64 

7 

7 

21 

36 

36 

14 

14 

2 

Governmental body 

31 

23 

15 

31 

69 

Research 
organisation 

funding 

75 

0 

13 

13 

88 

0 

0 

0 

0 

31 

54 

15 

0 

31 

69 

0 

13 

63 

13 

13 

13 

75 

13 

0 

0 

31 

62 

0 

8 

31 

62 

0 

8 

31 

13 

63 

13 

13 

13 

50 

25 

13 

13 

2 

1 

EN 

55 

EN 

 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Do we need to work together, more closely, at EU level for the planning of research priorities, implementation of research programmes and the evaluation and review of research? Specifically, do we 
need to work together on: 

Participatory 
processes: 
structured  dialogue  between 
stakeholders 
including  civil 
society  to  prepare  informed 
decisions / opinions 

Foresight: 
research 
opportunities. 

identifying 
challenges 

future 
and 

Programming: 
selecting 
research  priorities  based  on 
measurable  objectives  and 
deadlines (programming). 

Project 
review: 
peer 
evaluation  of  publicly  funded 
research  proposals  by  peer 
review. 

Research 
evaluation: 
evaluation  of  ongoing  publicly 
funded research programmes. 

national 

Programme  peer  review  and 
structures: 
evaluation 
European, 
and 
research 
regional 
programmes  should  agree  to 
be  evaluated  together  in  joint 
evaluations  by  similar  teams 
of 
to 
common 
shared 
practices. 

according 

experts 

and 

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

e
e
r
g
A

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

e
e
r
g
A

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

i

g
n
s
s
M

i

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

e
e
r
g
A

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

i

g
n
s
s
M

i

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

e
e
r
g
A

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

i

g
n
s
s
M

i

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

e
e
r
g
A

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

i

g
n
s
s
M

i

e
e
r
g
a
s
D

i

e
e
r
g
A

i

i

n
o
n
p
o
o
N

i

  Total 
g
n
s
s
M

i

i

g
n
s
s
M

i

62 

23 

3 

13 

79 

5 

0 

15 

59 

21 

3 

18 

64 

13 

3 

21 

67 

13 

3 

18 

59 

21 

8 

13 

6 

62 

18 

3 

18 

82 

0 

0 

18 

68 

15 

0 

18 

71 

12 

0 

18 

74 

3 

3 

21 

41 

15 

26 

18 

5 

48 

5 

12 

36 

64 

2 

2 

31 

45 

10 

12 

33 

55 

2 

12 

31 

55 

7 

7 

31 

50 

10 

7 

33 

6 

Higher 
Education 
Institution  (University, 
University 
College, 
Polytechnic etc) 

Public sector research 
performer  other  than 
Higher 
Education 
Institution 

for  profit,  not 

Non-Governmental, 
not 
representing 
commercial 
organisation 

interest 

Other 

Total 

59 

17 

2 

22 

73 

59 

18 

11 

37 

82 

7 

7 

0 

2 

20 

44 

29 

34 

62 

21 

5 

8 

22 

59 

22 

35 

74 

11 

0 

5 

20 

59 

20 

35 

71 

13 

2 

6 

20 

54 

15 

12 

20 

6 

36 

63 

15 

11 

37 

100 

EN 

56 

EN 

 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Table VII: ERA Green Paper open Consultation: free format contributions 

Member States 

Higher Education Institutions 

Public sector research performers other than higher 
education 

Research funding organisations 

Associations representing commercial interests 

Austrian Ministry for Economics and Employment 

A group of leading Universities 

Academy of Science of the Czech Republic 

Academy of Finland 

Advanced  R&T  for  Embedded  Intelligence  &  Systems, 
(ARTEMISIA) 

Belgian  Science  Policy,  Commission  for  International 
Cooperation (CIC) 

CSE-CNE 

Centre  National  de 
(CNRS/CSIC/MPS) 

la  Recherche  Scientifique 

Biosciences Federation (BSF) 

Association  of  the  German  Chambers  of  Industry  and 
Commerce (DIHK) 

Czech Senate 

Chalmers University of Technology 

Commissariat d'Énergie Atomique 

Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation (RPF) 

BUSINESSEUROPE  (The  Confederation  of  European 
Business) 

Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports 

Conférence des Présidents d'Université 

Deutsche  Forschungsgemeinschaft 
Research Foundation) 

(DFG,  German 

Danish Councils for Independent Research (DCIR) 

CBI - The voice of Business 

Danish national position paper 

European Law and Policy Research Group 

Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY) 

European Research Council 

Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie de Paris (CCIP) 

Danish Parliament 

European University Association (EUA) 

European Heads of Research Councils (EUROHORCs) 

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences 

Confederation  of  Netherlands  Industry  and  Employers 
(VNO-NCW) 

Ministry of Education and Research 

Higher Education Researcher Development (UKHERD) 

Europe's 
(EIROforum) 

intergovernmental  Research  Organisations 

Scientific  and  Technological  Research  Council  of 
Turkey (TUBITAK) 

DRIVE for Growth 

Finnish  Ministry  of  Trade  and  Industry  &  Ministry  of 
Education 

Former  Republic  of  Macedonia  Ministry  of  Education 
and Science 

Index Copernicus International S.A 

Fraunhofer Gesellschaft 

Scottish Funding Council 

ETP Plants for the Future 

League of European Research Universities (LERU) 

German Aerospace Centre (DLR) - contribution 

European  Association  of  Research  and  Technology 
Organisations (EARTO) 

Center for Strategic Analysis (France) 

National Oceanography Centre 

German Aerospace Centre (DLR) - position 

European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC) 

German Ministry for Education and research 

SHERPA – University of Nottingham 

Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft 

European  Confederation  of  Iron  and  Steel  Industries 
(EUROFER) 

Research Council (Germany) 

UK HE Higher Education sector 

Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) 

European Digital Technology Industry (EICTA) 

Irish Department of Enterprise, trade and employment 

University of Hertfordshire 

Institut  Français  de  Recherche  pour  l'Exploitation  de  la 
Mer (IFREMER) 

Italian Ministry for University and Research 

Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) 

Dutch Government 

Norwegian Ministry of Research and Higher Education 

EN 

Institut  National  de  la  Santé  et  de  la  Recherche 
Médicale (INSERM) 

Institut  National  de  Recherche  en  Informatique  et  en 
Automatique (INRIA) 

57 

European Rail Research Advisory Council (ERRAC) 

European  Road  Transport  Research  Advisory  Council 
(ERTRAC) 

European Steel Technology Platform (ESTEP) 

European Technology Platform Food for Life 

EN 

 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Member States 

Higher Education Institutions 

Public sector research performers other than higher 
education 

Research funding organisations 

Associations representing commercial interests 

Poland's position 

Institut Pasteur 

Romanian Ministry of Education, Research and Youth 

Le  Haut  Conseil  de  la  Coopération  Internationale 
(HCCI) 

Spanish Ministry of Education and Science 

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft / Gesamtbetriebsrat 

Swedish Ministry of Education and Research 

Research Information network 

Swedish Parliament 

Swiss State Secretariat for Education and Research 

Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Council 

UK Government 

European Technology Platform for Global Animal Health 
(ETPGAH) 

European 
(ENIAC) 

Technology  Platform  Nanoelectronics 

European  Technology  Platform  of 
Industries (WATERBORNE) 

the  Waterborne 

European  Technology  Platform  on 
Manufacture (MANUFUTURE) 

the  Future  of 

German Publishers and Booksellers Association 

InnovaWood 

International  Association  of  Scientific,  Technical  & 
Medical Publishers (STM) 

Networked  European  Software  and  Services  Initiative 
(NESSI) 

Syndicat National de l'Edition (SNE) 

The Publishers Association 

Trade Marks, Patents & Designs Federation (TMPDF) 

Electricité de France (EDF) 

ELSEVIER 

ERICSSON 

Philips Research 

QinetiQ  -  leading  international  defence  and  security 
technology company 

EN 

58 

EN 

 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Annex 2 

Stakeholder  opinions  on  the  key  role  of  research  and  the  need  for 
enhanced coordination  

As well as examining the responses from the ERA Green Paper open consultation, this Impact 
Assessment  exercise  also  considered  a  variety  of  other  public  consultations  and  opinion 
surveys  in  which  citizens,  policymakers  and  other  stakeholders  expressed  their  views  with 
respect to: 

•  the role of research in addressing Europe's societal challenges, and  

•  the need for enhanced coordination in public R&D in Europe. 

The challenges that require coordinated European action are increasingly societal and cross-
border in nature (for example, ageing population, climate change, energy).85 These challenges 
correspond  closely  to  the  concerns  of  citizens.  For  instance  96%  of  Europeans  feel  that 
protecting  the  environment  is  an  important  challenge.  Climate  change  stands  out  clearly  as 
one of specific the issues that citizens worry about, followed by water pollution, air pollution 
and man made disasters.86  

It is widely recognised - by experts, citizens and R&D actors - that research will play a key 
role  in  responding  to  these  challenges.  A  European-wide  network  of  national  foresight 
managers  carried  out  a  mapping  of  S&T  topics  responding  to  pan-European  societal 
challenges, and identified the following S&T topics as the top-ten in terms of trans-national or 
European  interest:  (1)  developing  new  technologies  for  monitoring  and  preserving  the 
environment;  (2)  developing  clean  and  alternative  energies;  (3)  developing  converging 
technologies  for  medicine;  (4)  early  stage  detection  and  identification  of  micro  organisms 
responsible  of  infectious  diseases;  (5)  solving  the  energy  problem  for  transport;  (6) 
evaluating,  anticipating  the  impacts  of  the  climate  change;  (7)  better  understanding  of  the 
brain:  neurology  and  neurobiology;  (8)  increasing  information  security;  (9)  exploring  new 
applications for nano-materials and processes; (10) shifting to a hydrogen based economy.87 

Citizens  too  are  convinced  that  research  can  play  a  significant  role  in  facing  Europe's 
challenges.  94%  of  EU  citizens  believe  that  medicines  and  new  medical  technologies  will 
have a positive effect on our way of life in the next 20 years; 91% believe that solar energy 
will  have  a  positive  effect  on  society  and  92%  declare  that  energy  saving  measures  in  the 
home  will  impact  society  in  a  positive  way.  Citizens  would  appear  to  be  confident  of  the 
advantages  of  new  energy  sources  to  power  cars,  with  90%  declaring  that  this  will  have  a 
positive effect on our way of life.88 In the context of climate change and energy supply, the 

85 

86 
87 
88 

The public consultation paper on the review of the future EU budget – a review motivated by the need 
for Europe to better cope with its future challenges – identifies the most pressing societal challenges as: 
the capacity to further adjust to structural change, globalisation, the transformation to a knowledge and 
service economy, ageing and demography, solidarity within the EU and with the rest of the world, the 
impact of climate change, energy, security, etc. "Reforming the budget, changing Europe", SEC(2007) 
1188 final Brussels, 12.9.2007 
Special Eurobarometer 295, “Attitudes of European citizens towards the environment”, March 2008 
FORSOCIETY ERA-NET 
http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_225_report_en.pdf 

EN 

59 

   EN 

 
                                                 
majority  of  EU  citizens  consider  that  energy  related  research  should  be  a  priority  for  the 
European Union. 89 

In  the  open  consultation  on  the  Strategic  Energy  Technology plan,  321  individuals  and  283 
institutions  expressed  their  views  (between  7  March  2007  and  13  May  2007)  on  Europe's 
energy challenges. More than 95% of the respondents agreed that technology had a vital role 
to  play,  that  'business  as  usual'  was  not  an  option,  and  that  the  EU  must  act  jointly  and 
urgently. In the same consultation, around 95% of the respondents considered that there was 
an added value in undertaking actions at the European level to promote energy technologies, 
and  that  taking  the  right  actions  to  develop  and  introduce  in  the  market  new  energy 
technologies now could lead to sustainable energy in the future (see Table VIII).90 

Table VIII: SET–Plan open consultation (percentage distribution of responses) 

Do  you  think  that 
there 
is  added 
value in European 
Union  level  action 
to promote energy 
technologies? 

role 

In the 21st century technology 
has  a  vital 
to  play 
enabling  economic  growth 
environmental 
without 
degradation, 
ensuring 
by 
sufficient  clean  and  affordable 
energy. 

To continue developing energy 
technologies 
as 
usual' is not an option.  

'business 

to 

The  European  Union  must  act 
jointly and urgently. It will take 
decades 
progressively 
transform  the  energy  system, 
but  we  must  start  now.  It  is  a 
process  that  requires  strategic 
and  coordinated  action  at 
European,  national,  regional 
and 
level,  pro-active 
planning and a comprehensive 
policy framework. 

local 

w
o
n
k

t
o
n

o
D

Individual 

3 

o
N

2 

e
e
r
g
a
s
d

i

t
a
h
w
e
m
o
S

e
e
r
g
a
s
d

i

l

y
g
n
o
r
t

S

e
e
r
g
a

t
a
h
w
e
m
o
S

e
e
r
g
a

l

y
g
n
o
r
t

S

i

d
e
d
c
e
d
n
U

i

n
o
n
p
o

i

o
N

e
e
r
g
a
s
d

i

t
a
h
w
e
m
o
S

e
e
r
g
a
s
d

i

l

y
g
n
o
r
t

S

e
e
r
g
a

t
a
h
w
e
m
o
S

e
e
r
g
a

l

y
g
n
o
r
t

S

i

d
e
d
c
e
d
n
U

e
e
r
g
a
s
d

i

t
a
h
w
e
m
o
S

e
e
r
g
a
s
d

i

l

y
g
n
o
r
t

S

e
e
r
g
a

t
a
h
w
e
m
o
S

e
e
r
g
a

l

y
g
n
o
r
t

S

i

d
e
d
c
e
d
n
U

l

a
t
o
T

i

n
o
n
p
o

i

o
N

i

n
o
n
p
o

i

o
N

s
e
Y

94 

0 

0 

1 

1 

19 

78 

0 

1 

2 

2 

22 

73 

0 

0 

1 

3 

10 

85 

53 

Organi-
sation, 
institution, 
company 

1 

1 

98 

0 

0 

1 

0 

19 

80 

0 

0 

1 

4 

27 

68 

1 

0 

1 

1 

16 

81 

47 

Total 

2 

2 

96 

0 

0 

1 

0 

19 

79 

0 

0 

1 

3 

24 

71 

0 

0 

1 

2 

13 

83 

100 

Joint EU-level action is also supported at a more general level: a large majority of European 
citizens  thinks  that  decisions  should  be  made  jointly  at  EU  level  for  scientific  and 
technological research (72%),91 and a greater majority still believes that there should be more 
coordination  of  research  between  the  member  States  of  the  European  Union  (83%).92  This 
view was also supported by the open consultation for the Seventh Framework programme.  

89 
90 

91 
92 

Special Eurobarometer 262, “Energy Technologies: Knowledge, Perception, Measures”, January 2007 
Commission  Staff  Working  Document  Accompanying  document  to  ”A  European  Strategic  Energy 
Technology Plan (SET-Plan) COM(2007) 723 final, full impact assessment, SEC(2007) 1508, Brussels, 
22.11.2007 
Eurobarometer 68 “Public opinion in the European Union", December 2007 
Special Eurobarometer 224, “Europeans, Science and Technology”, June 2005 

EN 

60 

   EN 

 
  
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
Between  30  July  and  15  October  2004,  1730  individuals  and  organisations  including 
universities,  large  companies,  SMEs,  associations  and  government  bodies  responded  to  the 
consultation. 84% considered the improvement of coordination of national programmes as a 
very  important  or  important  objective.93  More  than  80%  of  stakeholders  also  believed  the 
impact of coordination on the efficiency of the overall EU research system would be greater 
or substantially greater. However, there were some differences between different categories of 
stakeholders:  for  example,  the  percentage  of  SMEs,  universities  and  of  public  research 
organisations  considering  the  improving  of  coordination  of  national  programmes  as  very 
important  was  higher  than  the  percentage  of  large  industrial  companies.  These  differences 
may  reflect  their  individual  access  to  research  funding  and  their  ability  to  influence  policy 
making at different governance level. (see Table IX).  

Table IX: FP7 open consultation (percentage distribution of responses). 

important 

How 
the  objective  of 
is 
improving  coordination  of  national 
programmes? 

the  coordination  of  national 

research 
If 
programmes  is  improved,  the  impact  on  the 
efficiency  of  the  overall  EU  research  system 
compared to the current situation will be: 

t
n
a
t
r
o
p
m

i

t
o
N

8 

3 

5 

10 

4 

10 

6 

7 

y
r
a
s
s
e
c
e
n
n
U

4 

5 

t
n
a
t
r
o
p
m

I

40 

47 

t
n
a
t
r
o
p
m

i

y
r
e
V

43 

43 

w
o
n
k

t
'
n
o
D

9 

4 

2 

48 

41 

6 

3 

0 

3 

2 

3 

41 

37 

10 

38 

54 

39 

42 

47 

42 

41 

43 

6 

9 

6 

8 

w
o
n
k

t
'
n
o
D

5 

2 

4 

9 

4 

6 

3 

5 

y

l
l

a
i
t
n
a
t
s
b
u
S

1 

3 

1 

1 

0 

2 

0 

1 

s
s
e

l

r
e
t
a
e
r
g

e
m
a
s

e
h
T

8 

3 

r
e
t
a
e
r
G

47 

50 

s
s
e
L

4 

4 

y

l
l

a
i
t
n
a
t
s
b
u
S

32 

36 

1 

10 

52 

31 

1 

1 

5 

3 

3 

17 

50 

23 

5 

8 

6 

8 

49 

39 

48 

28 

26 

55 

49 

32 

31 

13 

100 

l

a
t
o
T

31 

7 

8 

7 

8 

An  online  consultation  on  the  Commission  Communication  “Science  and  Technology,  the  key  to 
Europe’s future – Guidelines for future European Union policy to support research”, COM(353)2004, 
was  open  to  all  interested  organisations  and  individuals  to  participate  in  between  30  July  and  15 
October  2004.  Over  1700  organisations  and  individuals  from  across  Europe  and  other  countries,  and 
including  universities,  large  companies,  SMEs,  associations  and  government  bodies  responded  to  the 
consultation. 

61 

   EN 

Individual person 

Association  

Commercial  organisation 
with 
250 
less 
employees 

than 

Commercial  organisation 
with  more 
250 
employees 

than 

Governmental body 

University/higher 
education 

Other 

Total 

93 

EN 

 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
Similar views on the need to improve the coordination of public R&D in Europe have been 
expressed  by  the  R&D  actors  (mainly  national  research  programme  owners  and  funding 
agencies) that participate in the ERA-NET scheme.94 They provide some striking examples of 
the need for more coordination in specific S&T fields. Virtually all of the 71 networks have 
reported that their specific areas of science and technology are fragmented or sub-optimally 
organised  at  the  European  level  and  that  measures  need  to  be  taken  to  increase  the 
coordination  of  the  national  public  research  efforts.  Table  X  presents  some  of  the  most 
significant quotes extracted from ERA-NET reports. 

94 

Set  up  in  the  sixth  framework  programme  for  research  and  technological  development  to  support  the 
networking of national and regional research programme owners and managers. 

EN 

62 

   EN 

 
                                                 
Table X: Evidence of fragmentation and coordination failure from ERA-NET reports. 

ERA-NET 

Quotes from reports/websites 

HY-CO 

The  study  will  help  to  overcome  the  fragmentation  and  compartmentalisation  of 
research efforts in the EU through better coordination and cooperation. (HY-CO, Co-
ordination Action to Establish a Hydrogen and Fuel Cell ERANET, Hydrogen Co-ordination, 
Report on analysis of data collected Work Package 2, Deliverable D2.2, 10 Feb 2006, p. 11) 
; "The public funding for H&FC programmes varies significantly between countries" (HY-
CO, Report on indicators of hydrogen and fuel cells research, 27 Sep. 2006, p.19), "Overall, 
it  appears  that  the  EU25+  is  spending  too  much  on  research  into  stationary 
applications,  and  not  enough  on  research  into  hydrogen  production,  storage  and 
distribution  and  portable  applications.  [...]  cooperation  between  small  research 
programmes  in  different  countries  can  deliver  benefits  to  the  EU25+  as  a  whole  by 
efficiently  allocating  resources  according  to which  areas  require  further  research"  (HY-CO, 
Report on indicators of hydrogen and fuel cells research, 27 Sep. 2006, p. 35).  

PV-ERA-NET 
SP1 

"national efforts from the European point of view are still relatively fragmented in the way 
that  they  often  lack  transnational  coherence  in  terms  of  mutual  knowledge,  topics, 
approaches  and  cooperation"  (PV-ERA-NET  SP1,  A  Programmers'  Approach 
to 
Strengthen Europe's Position in PV Research and Technology Paper, p. 1) 

"Baltic  Sea  research  is  carried  out  in  all  riparian  countries  in  tens  of  research  institutes 
and  universities  and  through  hundreds  of  projects  and  thousands  of  scientists." 
(BONUS  REPORT  on  Task  2.1  Identification  of  areas  for  cooperation  in  existing 
programmes and gaps, p. 3), "A recent summary (Report of the CREST Working Group on 
the  Mutual  Opening  of  Member  State  Marine  RTD  Programs  (Final  report,  October  2003) 
revealed that the concepts, strategies, and the scientific and technical implementation 
of European marine research programmes vary in general and in the Baltic Sea region 
in  particular.  The  national  research  policies  and  legal  and  administrative  procedures  for 
funding  research  programmes  differ  for  each  country  and,  therefore,  no  coordination 
exists  between  these  disparate  approaches."  BONUS  Publication  n.  1,  Baltic  Sea 
Research  benefits  from  funding  cooperation,  p.  6.)  "The  amount  of  data  and  literature 
concerning  the  chemistry,  hydrography,  and  fauna  and  flora  of  the  Baltic  Sea  is  abundant 
but  often  nationally  scattered  in  numerous  languages.  Thus,  studies  synthesizing  and 
combining  the  data  and  information  sources  across  and  between  sub-regions  of  the  Baltic 
Sea are generally scarce." (BONUS Publication n. 5, BONUS-169 Baltic Sea Science Plan 
and Implementation Strategy p.13 ) 

"There  is  a  high  diversity  of  organisations  that  manage  and  fund  research  in  the  Polar 
Regions in Europe. A key challenge in the overall system is that  management strategies 
are  not  sufficiently  harmonised."p.6,  "The  assessment  indicates  that  direct  financing 
models  for  research  in  Polar  Regions  are  complex.  There  are  a  multitude  of  systems 
operating  in  the  current  polar  RTD  landscape."  p.  10.  "Another  obstacle  [...]  is  a  general 
fragmentation  of  scientific  activities  and  infrastructures  which  may  cause  overlapping  and 
increase of costs of research in European polar regions." (European Polar Consortium, The 
landscape  of  European  Polar  Research  VOLUME  I:  An  assessment  of  current  strategic 
management, polar programme definition and processes) 

BONUS 

EUROPOLAR 

BIODIVERSA 

"Both the European Commission and the Research Ministers of the Member States have recognized 
the  need  for  improved  European  co-ordination  specifically  in  Biodiversity  science.  While  the 
diversity of biodiversity funding programmes poses many challenges, many Member States have 
fundamentally  similar  aims  and  objectives,  implementation  and  evaluation  procedures  etc. 
BiodivERsA  will  address  this  and  the  priorities  of  the  ERA,  to  cultivate  and  support  Europe’s 
biodiversity research capacity and capability." 

(http://www.eurobiodiversa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=78&Itemid=91) 

EN 

63 

   EN 

 
CIRCLE 

CRUE 

NETBIOME 

"Before  the  CIRCLE  SSA:  The  EU  has  many  excellent  Climate  Impact  Assessment  and 
Adaptation  related  research  units  in  different  countries  focussing  especially  on  the  topics 
relevant  for  their  distinct  geo-climatic  situation.  Research  projects  are  carried  out  either 
nationally  or  in  European  consortia  within  the  Commission’s  Framework  Programme. 
Cooperation on a regular basis between the national programmes is almost impossible. 
Links  between  the  national  programmes  and  the  Framework  Programme  are  very  weak. 
There  are  almost  no  pertinent  research  funding  activities  in  the  candidate  or  new 
Member States". (CIRCLE, Continuously Open Call Coordination Action (Ca) Proposal, Part 
B, 2005, p. 18) 

"The  collation  of  information  from  CRUE  partners  yielded  a  remarkable  result:  33  FRM-
linked research programmes, about 180 research projects, 57 principal FRM funding bodies, 
92  national  “think-tanks”  regarding  FRM  research,  and  27  national  and  international  FRM 
research networks have been identified." (CRUE, Main Report, 2007, p. 4) "In recent years, 
Europe has suffered a number of severe river and coastal floods [...] National governments 
have  responded  with  research  into  flood  risk  management  and  mitigation,  but  there  has 
been  little  coordination  of  their  programmes."  "Sometimes  within  a  single  country, 
several  organisations,  such  as  agricultural  and  environmental  agencies,  research 
councils and water boards, may carry out uncoordinated programmes. One of the aims 
of  CRUE  ERA-NET  is  to  reduce  this  fragmentation  by  synthesising  information  on 
Europe’s  flood  risk  management  research  programmes  and  enabling  partners  to  share 
insights into flood risk management. Flood processes and mitigation measures often apply 
to similar situations in different countries and a given flooding event can cross a frontier in 
seconds. Co-operation within and between national programmes – on research, prevention 
and mitigation – should therefore greatly increase the effectiveness of flood management." 
http://www.crue-eranet.net/about_CRUE.asp?more=1 

"the  European  Biodiversity  research  is  highly  fragmentised  within  and  between  the 
Member  States.  [..]  This  fragmentised  situation  is  amplified  in  the  overseas  regions  and 
territories. Several critical barriers hinder cooperation of the overseas regions and territories 
between  themselves,  with  continental  Europe  and  with  third  countries,  among  which  very 
long distances, isolation and time differences between these regions spread over the world, 
deficiency  of  resources  and  critical  mass,  lack  of  timely  access  to  facilities,  lack  of 
awareness and difficult access to information. 

Thus, both cooperation and coordination of research programmes on these issues are 
poorly  done,  between  the  regions  themselves  and  between  them  and  continental  EU 
countries and funding is scattered. […] There is a specific need of better coordination at 
regional  levels  of  these  different  tropical  and  subtropical  regions  and  to  improve 
relationships within different levels of R&D governance: EU, national, territorial/regional. 
This  would  avoid  this  fragmentation  and  dispersion  of  resources  and  would  allow 
implementing  a  durable  co-operation  between  the  different  regional  funding  agencies  and 
those  acting  at  the  national  and  EU  levels,  and  even  international."  (Source:  NETBIOME, 
Annex I – « Description of Work », 30 11 2006) 

EN 

64 

   EN 

 
 
 
 
SNOWMAN 

"more  than  half  of  Europe  has  no  special  funding  programme  related  to  contaminated  soil 
and  groundwater  and  those  countries  which  have,  have  no  coordination  what  so  ever 
among them" ("A SNOWMAN´s Navigator through Research Funding Programmes across 
Europe”; http://www.snowman-era.net/downloads/Navigator.pdf.p.3) 

ERA-AGE 

NEURON 

"Ageing research in all ERA-AGE partner countries seems to be well established though 
not nationally coordinated. [...] Ageing research on the European landscape is fragmented 
and there is an urgent need to plan and coordinate it strategically at the national as well as 
the  European  level."  (Summary  Recommendations  From  The  Report  Of  The  First  Meeting 
Of The European Forum, 16th and 17th February 2005, p. 2) 

"while  the cooperation  level  among research  institutions  in  the  various  European countries 
appears  satisfactory,  clear  deficiencies  are  present with  regard  to  the  coordination  of 
respective  research  funding.  Funding  activities are  fragmented  and scattered  at  national 
and regional levels, and only few approaches have been undertaken to phase them. Thus, 
the coordination of national and regional funding programs can improve efficient use 
of  high  but  still  limited  resources,  and  increase  their  impact.  Coordinated  funding 
activities  can  avoid  redundancy,  fill  gaps,  and  use  synergies."  (source:  http://www.neuron-
eranet.eu/en/118.php) 

CoCanCPG  Life 
Science 

PathoGenoMics 

E-RARE 

HESCULAEP 

"The  analysis  of  this  survey  shows  that  the  management  and  funding  of  Cancer  CPG 
research is very fragmented. In some countries and regions, such as France, Netherlands 
and  Spain,  there  are  specific  organisations  responsible  for  these  programmes.  In  other 
countries,  the  cancer  clinical  practice  guidelines  research  programmes  are  integrated  in 
programmes  that  cover  other  medical  specialties,  in  some  cases,  and  in  programmes  that 
have  a  much  wider  scope  than  clinical  practice  guidelines  in  other  cases.  This  research 
domain  is  at  the  intersection  between  health  services  research  (e.g.  quality  of  care, 
accreditation,  evaluation)  and  medical  specialities  research.  There  are  also  spectacular 
differences  in  the  level  of  funding  available  for  these  research  programmes." 
CoCanCPG, Final report on survey of organisations, 2004, p. 7) 

"In  contrast  to  human  or  plant  genome  research  with  long-lasting  and  well-cooperating 
national  programmes  in  several  European  countries,  the  present  programmatic  situation 
concerning  genome  research  on  human-pathogenic  micro-organisms  (in  the  following 
termed  as  “pathogenomics“)  is  rather  dispersed  and  non  transparent.  Specifically 
matching  programmes are  rare (at  present  only  in  DE,  formerly  in  the  UK), whereas  the 
most  funding  activities  are  spread  into  more  general  programmes  for  biotechnology, 
genomics,  or  general  microbiology  (as  e.g.  specific  action  lines,  priority  thematic  areas,  or 
sub-programmes).” (COORDINATION ACTION (CA) PROPOSAL PART B “PathoGenoMics 
p.7) 

Research  needed  to  tackle  rare  diseases  is  "hampered  due  to  their  special  idiosyncrasy: 
complex  phenotypes,  thin  distribution  of  patients  (which  impairs  gathering  of  enough 
subjects for suitable studies), isolation and low number of specialized research groups 
for each specific disease, fragmentation and lack of standardisation of available data 
and 
http://asso.orpha.net/ERANET/cgi-
bin/articles.php?lng=en&pg=17 

collections." 

material 

 "the  overall  objective  of  HESCULAEP  is  to  coordinate  the  National/Regional  Research 
Programmes  in  the  field  of  the  management  of  medical  emergencies,  thus  overcoming 
their current fragmentation, and creating a sustainable long term cooperation, in order 
to  improve  their  overall  management,  and  improve  the  overall  European  EMS.p.7  [...] 
Research  programmes  are  scattered,  inhomogeneous,  very  often  not  related  to  a  EMS 
specialty, but linked with other transversal topics, such as cardiology or traumatology." p. 10 
(HESCULAEP,  Speakers  Presentations,  European  EMS:  the  HESCULAEP  project,  March 
2005) 

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Annex 3 

Main inter-governmental and Community actions for trans-national R&D 
cooperation 

A variety of schemes and institutions have evolved in Europe over the last fifty years which 
involve trans-national research cooperation. 

The  first  important  steps  in  European  scientific  cooperation  were  made  in  the  1950s  in  the 
form  of  CERN  and  Euratom,  which  emerged  from  the  post-war  political  environment  of 
cooperation-building  Europe.  During  the  1960s  and  1970s  more  institutions  were  created  – 
including  the  European  Southern  Observatory  (ESO,  funded  in  1962),  the  European 
Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO, funded in 1964), the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL, 
funded in 1967), the European Space Agency (ESA, funded in 1974), the European Molecular 
Biology Laboratory (EMBL, funded in 1974) and, more recently, the European Synchrotron 
Radiation  Facility  (ESRF,  funded  in  1988).  The  70s  also  witnessed  the  creation  of  the 
European  Science  Foundation  –  and  a  multi-sector  cooperation  scheme  COST  was 
established. By the 1980s Europe was increasingly concerned with a growing technology gap 
vis-à-vis its global competitors, and this period saw the arrival of two important multi-sector 
programmes:  the  EU  RTD  Framework  Programme  and  EUREKA,  which  became  major 
elements of the European cooperative research landscape.  

CERN,  in  particular,  is  the  world's  largest  particle  physics  centre.  Its  main  mission  is  to 
perform fundamental research in particle physics and provide the necessary infrastructure and 
facilities. It also defines, coordinates and follows up the strategy for development of Europe-
wide programme in particle physics. 

EMBL  is  one  of  the  leading  research  organizations  in  molecular  biology  in  Europe.  Its 
missions  are  to  perform  basic  research  in  molecular  biology,  scientific  service  provision, 
advanced  training,  development  of  new  technologies  and  instrumentation  and  technology 
transfer. 

ESA  promotes  cooperation  among  European  States  in  space  research  and  technology  for 
scientific  purposes  and  for  operational  space  applications  systems  in  terms  of  national  and 
European space policy, elaboration and implementation of space activities and programmes, 
coordination  of  European  and  national  space  programmes,  and  by  elaboration  and 
implementation of a coherent industrial policy. The MS funding channelled through ESA is 
predominantly based on the principle of geographic juste-retour. The domain of space stands 
out in that the area is highly coordinated at European level through ESA (representing some 
65%  of  the  total  funding  in  Europe)  whilst  the  R&D  is  carried  out  individually  at  national 
level. The area is also somewhat apart in that the funding is predominantly industry oriented 
and passed via procurements. 

These inter-governmental organisations – along with the others – have become world leaders 
in  their  fields.  Moreover,  they  offer  benefits  of  pooling  resources  to  share  the  costs  of 
developing large-scale and expansive research facilities, and they promote a greater coherence 
and effectiveness of research activity 

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However, inter-governmental organisations have certain limitations. For example, it has been 
remarked that the time taken to establish and raise funding is frequently very long; that they have a 
certain  conservatism  resulting  from  their  fixed  orientation  towards  specific  disciplines 
(although over time, many are able to evolve to meet the needs of different sets of users or are 
upgraded to meet the evolving needs of the original scientific community); and that they have 
difficulty  in  growing  sufficiently  in  areas  of  extremely  rapid  scientific  or  technological 
development  (requirement  for  additional  resources  which  cannot  be  generated  easily  by 
shifting  priorities  amongst  compartmentalised  institutions).95  The  main  complementary 
funding  schemes  which  exist  which  encourage  trans-national  R&D  cooperation  are  the  EU 
Framework Programme, COST and EUREKA.  

The  EU  Framework  Programme  for  Research  and  Technological  Development  is  a 
Community  instrument.  It  has  proven  to  be  a  very  effective  mechanism  over  the  last  two 
decades  for  promoting  trans-national  cooperative  R&D  in  Europe,  and  has  been  able  to 
provide an increasing source of funding in recent years. Because it operates as a fixed-length 
multi-annual programme, it has been able to re-shape itself and innovate over the years. The 
7th  Framework  Programme  launched  in  2007  introduced  two  major  new  cooperative 
initiatives:  the  European  Research  Council  –  a  competitive  funding  scheme  at  a  European 
level  for  investigator-driven  frontier  research  –  and  the  ITER  project  a  world-leading 
international  collaborative  project  with  the  goal  of  taking  the  next  major  step  in  the 
development of fusion energy. 

COST  is  an  inter-governmental  scheme  which  facilitates  and  funds  coordination  and 
exchanges  between  nationally  funded  researchers  across  Europe,  in  a  variety  of  research 
fields. It is bottom-up and wholly financed by the FP. COST has received strong support from 
stakeholders, and is more open to new areas and has wider geographical coverage than the FP. 
However,  its  complicated  governance  structure  is  not  well  embedded  in  the  national  and 
European research policy strategy processes.96  

EUREKA  promotes  collaborative  industrially  and  market  oriented  research  projects.  It 
generates bottom-up “innovative” projects, as well as "Clusters" and "Umbrellas". EUREKA 
has a strong networking capability, a flexible bottom-up approach particularly geared towards 
SMEs. However, some shortcomings of EUREKA have also been the subject of debate, 97 for 
example  the  lack  of  central  evaluation,  project  monitoring  and  decision-making  capacity, 
leading  to  asychronic  funding  of  different  partners  in  a  given  project.  It  has  also  been 
suggested  that  the  predominantly  bottom-up  character  of  EUREKA  leads  to  a  lack  in  focus 

95 
96 

97 

Note of panel F of the Conference on research infrastructures of 19-20 September 2000 in Strasbourg. 
The  COST  Final  Review  in  FP6  concludes  "Of  great  concern  to  the  Panel  is  that  despite  several 
improvements, the governance structure of COST remains extremely complicated. The review panel’s 
main  concern  is  that  there  is  little  clarity  on  the  roles  and  decision-making  powers  of  each  of  the 
different actors, in the overall governance picture and for the final responsibilities for COST activities 
in  particular.  The  current  governance  arrangement  does  not  provide  sufficient  impetus  particularly 
concerning the strategy formulation and positioning of COST…. The Panel makes the observation that 
overall the Committee of Senior Officials is not well embedded in the research policy strategy process 
in their member States nor in wider EU research policies. The strategic development of COST remains 
relatively  isolated  from  research  policy  in  their  Member  States,  which  hampers  the  visibility  and 
leverage effect of COST." Final review of COST in the Sixth Framework programme, High Level Panel 
Chaired  by  Mrs  Monfret,  31  May  2007.  As  follow  up  to  the  recommendations  of  the  Final  Review, 
COST has set up a small group to identify solutions to the governance issue. As a further step, COST 
legal status and governance is expected to be discussed at the COST Ministerial Conference in 2009. 
Impact Assessment of the Artemis Joint Technology Initiative (2007). 

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and impact of national efforts. In the Eurostars programme (a joint initiative by the EC and 
EUREKA,  based  on  Article  169)  these  shortcomings  have  largely  been  addressed,  with, 
amongst other things, a central evaluation mechanism and pre-defined financial commitments. 

Scale  of  inter-governmental  and  Community  actions  for  trans-national 
R&D cooperation – methodological note 

As discussed in section 2.2.2, according to our estimates, the share of inter-governmental and 
Community  actions  for  trans-national  R&D  cooperation  in  total  government  financed  civil 
Gross  Expenditures  in  R&D  (GERD)  has  remained  relatively  stable  over  the  past  15  years, 
oscillating between 16 and 14%.  

This  ratio  was  derived  by  several  statistical  sources.  Total  government  financed  GERD  for 
EU27,  EFTA  countries,  Switzerland,  Turkey  and  Croatia  comes  from  EUROSTAT.  The 
disaggregation between civil and defence GERD is estimated by applying the percentage of 
civil and military Government Budget Outlays or Appropriations of R&D (GBOARD) in the 
total R&D appropriations.  

The  government  funded  R&D  expenditures  of  intergovernmental  organisations  are  obtained 
by  summing  up  national  contributions  to  the  budget  of  CERN,  ESO,  EMBO,  ILL,  ESA, 
EMBL and ERSF. These data were kindly provided by the organisations themselves.  

Estimates for the intergovernmental scheme EUREKA were obtained by adding up the total 
budget of Clusters and Umbrellas. Roughly 99% of these expenditures are originated within 
the ERA. The yearly amounts were then subtracted from the industry financed GERD (50%) 
and  from  the  government  financed  GERD  (50%)  to  correct  for  double  counting.  Public 
funding schemes within EUREKA differ significantly across member states and the 50% key 
was a rough estimate.  

Finally the R&D expenditures financed through the FP programmes were obtained from the 
EU  budget.  6%  of  the  total  amounts  were  subtracted  to  take  into  account  the  non  R&D 
administrative costs necessary to manage the FPs. Consistently with the FRASCATI manual 
only the administrative costs of the indirect actions within the FP were deducted. The share of 
6%  is  also  consistent  with  the  Parliament  and  Council  decisions  fixing  the  Commission's 
administrative  expenditure  for  the  management  of  FP7  programmes  at  less  than  6%  -  apart 
from the ERC whose administrative expenses will be less than 5%. 

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Annex 4 

An  assessment  of  recent  attempts  to  enhance  coordination  of  public 
R&D through the Community Research Framework Programme (FP6) 

ERA-NETs  

ERA-NETs were conceived under the 6th Framework Programme as a bottom up approach for 
bringing  together  managers  and  owners  of  national  research  programmes  in  fields  they 
identified  as  needing  more  coordination.  71  ERA-NETs  were  launched  under  FP6,  which 
have resulted to end 2007 in more than 80 joint calls totalling over 800 million euros. ERA-
NETs have been widely welcomed by the research community who appreciate their bottom-
up nature, and their variable geometry. The mid-term review found that they fulfilled a real 
need  and  helped  to  overcome  barriers  to  coordination,  by  creating  a  European  networked 
"community" of programme owners and managers. 

The ERA-NETs' inclusion of ‘programme owners’ as well as ‘programme managers’ has been 
an  important  aspect  of  their  success,  given  the  longer-term  aim  of  altering  perceptions  in 
ministerial  circles  about  the  importance  of  trans-national  research  activities.  Extending  the 
invitation to participate to regional ‘owners’ and ‘managers’ was also seen as astute given the 
importance of regional R&D governance systems in some national settings and the growing 
importance of the regional level in European RTD and innovation policies.98 

A  report  by  OPTIMAT99  concluded  in  2005  that  the  bottom-up  ERA-NET  Coordination 
Actions have significantly increased networking activity across all types of programmes, but 
there is still a lack of high-level, strategic action to increase the alignment and coordination of 
national  programmes.  ERA-NETs  suffer  indeed  from  certain  structural  weaknesses: 
administrative and legal barriers to cross-border funding have hindered the setting up of joint 
programmes  and  there  is  still  a  reluctance  to  open  up  programmes  and  funding  to  foreign 
participants.  More  specifically,  ERA-NETs  have  been  initiated  in  a  bottom-up  way,  but 
without being embedded in national research strategies. Also, the bottom up nature sometimes 
resulted  in  fragmented  coordination  of  a  given  research  field,  where  a  "larger  topic"  might 
have resulted in more critical mass, strategic focus or national commitment. Whilst the ERA-
NET scheme is only 4 years old, only in a few cases have national programmes been modified 
as a result of ERA-NET actions.100 

More in detail, the mid-term review of ERA-NET concluded that:  

(1) 

The ERA-NET experience was positive for networks of national/regional programmes 
willing to set up a central monitoring facility and information resource, as far as the 
programme owners were sufficiently involved and committed, and where a long-term 
approach was taken and intelligence shared. 

(2) 

The  experience  was  less  positive  in  cases  where  the  levels  of  decision-making  were 
not  well  connected,  where  ring-fenced  budgets  to  support  joint  activities  were  not 

98 
99 

100 

ERA-NET Review 2006 (2006). 
Examining  the  Design  of  National  Research  Programmes  -  Optimat  Ltd  and  VDI/VDE-IT  GmbH 
(European Commission, DG Research, Directorate M2) - December 2005 
Report of the ERA Expert Group on Optimising Research Programmes and Priorities, 2008 

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available, where the strategic positioning was insufficient with respect to both home-
based activities and Framework Programme activities, and where efforts to build case 
history were not strong enough. 

(3) 

(4) 

A  major  drawback  was  the  lack  of  information  on  respective  programmes,  activities 
and  governance  modes.  Implementation  of  common,  transparent  information  and 
learning platform is urgently needed.  

The success of integrated programmes managed jointly requires the prior commitment 
of participating countries, the common understanding with regard to expectations, and 
a  more  accurate  design  phase  to  ensure  that  joint  activities  and  pre-existing  national 
assets enhance each other. 

In ERA-NETs full programme integration is not obligatory (although it is a target in the later 
steps  in  the  process),  and  has  not  really  been  achieved  so  far.  Through  ERANET,  some 
progress has been made towards cross-border programme integration. The Optimat report101 
concluded  that  "bottom-up  ERA-NET  Coordination  Actions  had  significantly  increased 
networking activity across all types of programme". There have been examples of systematic 
exchange  of  information  and  good  practices  on  existing  programmes,  as  well  as  the 
development  of  joint  activities  between  national  or  regional  programmes  and  the 
implementation of joint transnational research activities.102  

Yet  ERA-NETs  are  unable  to  fully  overcome  the  many  persisting  Member  State  domestic 
barriers  to  cross-border  programme  integration  and  achieve  full  programme  integration.  In 
some cases countries, do not have clearly identified pre-existing national programmes which 
can be integrated into a cross-border programme. In certain cases, national legislation makes 
it impossible to contribute to a multi-annual common pot financing joint calls. And sometimes 
there is a lack of political commitment to cross-border programme integration (because of fear 
of loss of control, loss of visibility, etc.). 

In conclusion, despite the increasing number of joint calls it appears that there still is a lack of 
high-level,  strategic  action  to  increase  the  alignment  and  coordination  of  national 
programmes, and that anecdotal evidence suggested that a lack of political will was holding 
back  progress  towards  Joint  Programming  in  many  ERA-NET  projects.  The  report  also 
detected  a  high  degree  of  resistance  within  the  ERA-NET  community  to  contributions  to 
multilateral programmes with a central budget because of the loss of financial control that it 
would entail, and the Optimat report concluded that ERA-NETs could create more alignment 
if they could influence policy at the critical design or evaluation milestones in programme life 
cycles.  

101 

102 

Examining  the  Design  of  National  Research  Programmes  -  Optimat  Ltd  and  VDI/VDE-IT  GmbH 
(European Commission, DG Research, Directorate M2) - December 2005. 
Including the adoption of standard operation procedures (ERASYSBIO); the development of common 
evaluation  procedures  (Safefoodera);  the  development  of  an  electronic  project  proposal  submission 
system  and  project  management  web  tool  (Acenet);  the  exchange  of  evaluators  between  programmes 
(MATERA);  the  exchange  of  programme  managers  (Norface);  and  the  development  of  multinational 
evaluation  procedures, common  programme  monitoring  and  evaluation,  personnel  exchange  at 
programme manager level (Bioenergy). 

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European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP)  

Article 169 is another instrument of coordinated programming launched under FP6 and FP7. 
The  main  objective  of  an  Article  169  initiative  is  to  go  beyond  the  mere  coordination  of 
national  programmes  to  achieve  the  real  integration  of  different  national  and  regional 
programmes into a single joint programme. An Article 169 initiative is implemented jointly, 
and funded through integrated financial support. 

Unlike an ERA-NET, in an Article 169 initiative the Union does not just support the simple 
coordination of the national programmes undertaken by Member States but rather participates 
actively including a Community financial contribution for research. While some new 169s are 
currently  being  launched,  so  far  experience  has  been  limited  to  the  first  one  EDCDP.  The 
main drawback found has been the difficulty in identifying the relevant national programmes 
and in achieving a full integration of these programmes through a "common pot" of funding. 
The Article 169 instrument is also limited to the themes of the Framework Programme. It also 
arguably lacks a higher level strategic focus. 

Experience from the first Article 169 initiative, EDCTP, has been useful in learning lessons 
for  the  future.  Full  programme  integration  remains  a  long-term  objective.  Indeed,  most 
Member  States  signing  up  to  EDCTP  were  not  aware  of  the  implications  of  Article  169  in 
terms of fresh funding, joint ownership and sharing of expertise.103 In most countries, research 
activities were not integrated into a credible national programme, which made it difficult to 
integrate  national  programmes  into  a  Community  programme.104  In  some  Member  States, 
legislation  does  not  allow  for  providing  public  financial  support  to  foreign  institutions.  In 
others, annual parliamentary approval is required for such support. Some did not really wish 
to  abandon  their  national  programme.  For  instance,  Member  States  with  a  high  political 
profile  in  Africa  did  not  want  to  lose  control  over  or  the  visibility  of  their  own  national 
flagship projects. Several Member States were not yet ready to accept that their money could 
be  spent  on  foreign  research  teams.  As  a  result  of  all  this,  programme  integration,  while 
progressing, remained limited.  

National  activities  were  labelled  'EDCTP'  when  adjusted  to  EDCTP  goals.  "The  so-called 
"integrated  activities"  referred  to  national  activities  related  to  EDCTP  (clinical  trials  on  the 
three  main  poverty-related  diseases  in  sub-Saharan  Africa).  The  concerned  Member  States 
certified  the  activity  as  of  potential  interest  for  the  EDCTP  and,  in  the  case  of  including  a 
minimum of 2 EDCTP participating countries (fulfilling the "European Integration" objective 
of Art. 169), included it as a budget contribution to the Joint Programme".105 Most national 
agencies  were  not  yet  able  or  prepared  to  finance  EDCTP  activities  directly.  They  often 
required  separate  calls  and  evaluations  and  insisted  on  a  systematic  “juste  retour”  for  their 
own researchers. Such legal and administrative limitations proved an obstacle to programme 
integration  and  made  the  EDCTP  coordination  complex,  bureaucratic  and  unattractive  for 
industry  as  well  as  for  African  researchers.106  The  Independent  External  Review  panel  felt 
that  Member  States  should  accept  that  programme  integration  takes  place  through  a  single 
EDCTP  procedure  for  planning,  launching  and  evaluating  calls,  with  no  national  strings 

103 

104 
105 
106 

Van  Velzen  et  al.  (2007),  Independent  External  Review  Report,  European  and  Developing  Countries 
Clinical Trials Partnership, p. 21. 
Ibid., p. 22. 
Ibid., p. 23. 
Ibid., p. 21. 

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attached,  and  should  agree  to  contribute  to  a  “common  funding  pot”  according  to  a 
predetermined allocation key.107 

On overall, although EDCTP encountered many difficulties from 2003 to 2006, in part due to 
its  ambitious  goals,  the  last  year  has  brought to  EDCTP  clear  and  promising  progress,  with 
renewed administrative structures, additional calls for proposals in all main scientific topics, 
and new budget contributions and commitments from participating Member States. 

The  lessons  learned  from  these  first  experiences  have  been  crucial  in  developing  and 
improving the next generation of ERA-NETs and Article 169s .  

In  particular,  a  pre-requisite  for  Article  169  Initiatives  under  FP7  is  that  they  should 
demonstrate a high level of integration at three levels: scientific, management and financial. 
Reflecting the EDCTP experience, financial integration is considered particularly important.  

The scientific, management and financial integration represent essential boundary conditions 
which  must  be  met  satisfactorily  before  bringing  forward  a  proposal  for  an  Article  169 
Initiative  under  FP7.  These  boundary  conditions  have  been  applied  in  the  case  of  the  four 
Article  169  initiatives  relating  to  programmes  for  research  performing  SMEs  ("Eurostars"), 
use  of  information  technology  for  assisted  living  for  the  elderly  ("AAL"),  metrology 
("EMRP") and research in the Baltic Sea area ("BONUS-169"). 

107 

Ibid., pp 28-29. 

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