Green Paper “From Challenges to Opportunities: Towards
a Common Strategic Framework for EU Research and
Innovation funding”
Response of the Dutch Government to the questions within the
green paper
With this document, the government of the Netherlands responds to questions of the
Green Paper of the Commission entitled “From Challenges to Opportunities: Towards a
Common Strategic Framework for EU Research and Innovation funding”.
The answers should been seen in the context of the Dutch position on the fut ure financial
framework. The Netherlands is in the position that a restrained EU budget is necessary.
Within a tighter budgetary framework more emphasis should be on investments in,
amongst others, competitiveness and innovation, in order to make the EU budget more
future-proof.

Questions: Working together to deliver on Europe 2020
1. How should the Common strategic Framework make EU research and innovation
funding more attractive and easy to access for participants? What is needed in
addition to a single entry point with common IT tools, a one stop shop for support, a
streamlined set of funding instruments covering the full innovation chain and further
steps towards administrative simplification?
The Netherlands supports the Commission in its goal to make EU research and innovation
funding more attractive and easy to access for participants. A first good step is to present the
different funding programmes within one ‘Common Strategic Framework’. However, this
measure should be more than a cosmetic one. We should harmonize and streamline the
agenda setting, the programmatic research and innovation instruments, and the rules of
participation as much as possible in order to reach a real common framework which goes
beyond polishing of existing things. A single entry point, a one stop shop for support, a
streamlined set of funding instruments and further steps towards administrative simplification
will definitely help in this regard.
Other measures might include:

Agenda setting should be as transparent as possible. In order for stakeholders to plan
research and innovation activities in a strategic way, they should be well informed of the
European agenda. Therefore it should be possible for relevant stakeholders to discuss the
yearly working programmes at an earlier stage with the members of the programme
committees. The Commission should have a more transparent attitude towards this.

National Contact Points (NCPs), such as EG-Liaison in the Netherlands, play a crucial role in
supporting participants with their applications in FP and CIP. Mutual learning between NCPs
is a good way to improve the functioning of NCPs. Actions for training NCPs in their
advisory and supporting role, which are now being funded through various funds, should be
streamlined to become more effective.
2. How should EU research and innovation funding best cover the full innovation cycle
from research to market uptake?
The Framework Programme (FP) and the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP)
should be developed on the basis of a common strategic framework for research and
innovation: from fundamental research, to applied research, to demonstration activities and
measures to enhance innovative entrepreneurship. The activities of the European Institute of
Innovation and Technology (EIT) should logically be aligned with these main core activities.

1

The EIT is a rather new instrument. The added value of EIT will become clearer in the coming
years. Then a better alignment of EIT with CIP and FP will be possible.
Fundamental research, applied research, demonstration projects and policy measures to
increase innovation all interact in various stages of development, and all require a different and
balanced mix of bottom-up and top-down agenda setting and programming by different
stakeholders. The mix of instruments should be designed in such a way that all sta ges of the
research and innovation process can take place and interact, and bottlenecks are addressed at
the right level. All sub programmes should be developed with this integrated approach in mind.
For example, promising findings of an ERC grantee could result in the decision to develop a
cooperation project which is more devoted to application.
European Innovation Partnerships should contribute to achieving this kind of synergy. By
working on the basis of one single agenda on tackling societal challenges, a mixture of
instruments can be picked or developed in parallel that best fit s the bottlenecks in relation to
this challenge. Also this gives the opportunity to create a fluent chain fr om defining and
enhancing demand, to knowledge creation and introducing new products, processes and
services to the market.
Where possible, instruments from FP and CIP could be really integrated within one common
strategic framework for research and innovation. For example, integrating the FP-programme
‘research for the benefit of SME’s’ with CIP-measures might result in a more powerful
instrument aimed at improving research and innovation in, and competitiveness of , SMEs.
3. What are the characteristics of EU funding that maximise the benefit of acting at the
EU level? Should there be a strong emphasis on leveraging other sources of funding ?
EU research and innovation funding has added value in order to bundle resources, to reduce
fragmentation and to stimulate cross border cooperation. It should stimulate competitiveness
between researchers in order to stimulate excellence and it should help in diminishing cross
border bottlenecks for research and innovation.
In this regard, EU funding should have strong emphasis on leveraging other sources of funding.
EU-funding should achieve this through the mechanism of co-financing. By doing so, EUfinancing stimulates national governments, research programming organizations, businesses,
universities and knowledge institutes to align their activities more strategically towards a
common goal. This will reduce fragmentation, will empower our common strengths for example
when tackling societal challenges, and will stimulate smart specialisation within the European
research and innovation landscape.
Co-financing should be primarily aimed at leveraging sources of funding from universities,
knowledge institutes and businesses in order to stimulate cross border cooperation . In
addition, co-financing of national programmes should be possible, but only when Member
States combine efforts and successfully link their national programmes (for example through
joint programming) or in those cases where a successful national instrument is opened up for
participation from other Member States. In general, co-financing schemes which involve a
mixture of cash flows from both the EU-budget as well as national budgets and funding from
industry, knowledge institutes and/or universities (for example in JTI ENIAC and JTI ARTEMIS)
are not preferred. Combining funding from three different levels has proven to provide an
excessive administrative burden, which is not attractive for participants. The conditions under
which co-financing schemes are set up in the future programmes for research and inn ovation
should be further investigated.

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4. How should EU research and innovation funding best be used to pool Member State
resources? How should Joint Programming Initiatives between groups of Member
States be supported?
EU research and innovation funding should be primarily aimed at cross border cooperation
between universities, knowledge institutes and/or companies.
Pooling of member state resources should be done bottom-up and on a voluntary basis. This
process can be supported by providing additional EU funding. EU funding should however only
be provided if Member States successfully set up a research programme, combine resources
and minimize cross border obstacles for joint programming. Also, the EU funding should only
support measures that have added value at EU-level and that Member States do not already
support themselves, like for example cooperation projects, common databases and facilitating
in the implementation of research infrastructures.
The European Metrological Research programme (EMRP) can be taken as an example. This
programme integrates the national metrology research programmes of 22 European states into
one collective European research programme. In doing so it achieves a critical mass of
resources to meet large scale metrological challenges in the area of for instance environment,
energy and health which exceed the capacity and interest of the individual Member States.
5. What should be the balance between smaller, targeted projects and larger strategic
ones?
Larger strategic projects provide the opportunity to have long term commitment from
stakeholders to work together on the basis of a common approach on tackling societal
challenges and on strengthening competitiveness. This for instance applies for the Knowledge
and Innovation Communities (KICs) of the EIT and the Joint Technology Initiatives, in which
participants work together in a consortium on basis of long term commitment.
However, larger strategic projects also make it difficult for newcomers to get actively involved.
Especially SMEs face difficulties in participating in long term strategic research and innovation
programmes. The research and innovation activities of SMEs are mostly aimed at a 2 to 3 year
horizon. In general there should be more opportunities in the future re search and innovation
programmes for short (2 to 3 years) and small scale public-private and private-private
cooperation. Also within the larger strategic research projects flexibility should be increased so
that companies, universities and knowledge institutes can in a later stage join the consortium
of a project.
These disadvantages of large strategic projects not only effect SMEs but they also apply for
other new players, for instance from Member States in central and Eastern Europe, which are
currently developing excellence in research and should have enough chances to apply for
participation in EU projects. Also in this case, flexibility for others to join should be a
prerequisite.
6. How could the Commission ensure balance between a unique set of rules allowing for
radical simplification and the necessity to keep a certain degree of flexibility and
diversity to achieve objectives of different instruments, and respond to the need of
different beneficiaries, in particular SMEs?
Due to new instruments, each with their own specific rules and regulations, that keep being
introduced the administrative burden caused by the FP rules is still jeopardizing the
attractiveness of the Framework Programme. In view of FP8, there could be a one -to-oneprinciple by which a new measure can be launched only if an equivalent one is removed from
the portfolio.
EC officers who are connected to FP7 projects have a high degree of personal responsibility.
This has a high impact on the way officers deal with legal and financial aspects of a project:

3

their approach is based on ‘zero risk’. Due to this approach the project officers demand a level
of detail that is higher than the official reporting guidelines prescribe. Furthermore the criteria
for eligibility of costs in projects are ambiguous and complex. This causes long negotiations,
and risk-free behaviour with the project coordinator and the partners with regard to the
amount of project partners, geographical spreading and SME participation. As a result,
coordinators spend more time on administrative issues rather than necessary. A more ‘high
trust approach’ is necessary and would heighten the attractiveness of the FP for potential
beneficiaries. The personal liability of European Commission officers for the correct execution o f
projects should be reconsidered.
Although important improvements have already been made within FP7 simplification of the
Framework Programme is still strongly needed. Regarding various simplification -measures the
following have priority for the Netherlands:

General acceptance of usual accounting practices. This should be introduced during FP7.

The European Commission should vary more between available forms of grants in the FP.
This can be done by introducing financing by lump sums as a choice for parti cipants
resulting in grants being better adapted to the accounting systems of specific organisations
like SMEs and universities.

Another important aspect of simplification is to avoid the introduction of new instruments
and to reduce the complexity by setting up a uniform set of rules and definitions across
instruments and programmes (FP7, CIP, relevant parts of Structural funds) .

Too many projects take too much time to start; time to grant and time to pay should be
shortened.

Trust-based approach: beneficiaries should not be subject to EU monitoring and control
beyond the minimum necessary to safeguard public funds.

The Small Business Act can serve as a good example for reducing the administrative
burden for SME’s.

In order to quantify the effective or potential administrative burden caused by the FP rules
there should for a baseline scenario on the basis of which the advancement of reducing the
administrative burden can be monitored.
The Netherlands has doubts on the benefits of moving towards more flex ibility via result-based
funding. This approach suggests results of research are always predictable and could
disadvantage research with uncertainty of possible outcomes. It also could lead to shift of the
workload from managers and controllers to the researchers who have to determine in peer
reviews whether the project led to the expected results. The Netherlands are of the opinion
that the (dis)advantages of this funding-principle should be further examined, before further
steps are taken.
7. What should be the measures of success for EU research and innovation funding?
Which performance indicators could be used?
The measure of success of EU research and innovation funding can be deducted from the legal
basis which is determined in the Lisbon Treaty and can be deducted from the level of
contribution to the Europe 2020 strategy. Although these are very broad goals and therefore
very difficult to measure the Netherlands is not in favour of creating new indicators and targets
for EU research and innovation funding. General evaluation methods as are currently being
used provide sufficient information on the effective operation of EU research and innovation
funding.
8. How should EU research and innovation funding relate to regional and national
funding? How should this funding complement funds from future Cohesion policy,
designed to help less developed regions of the EU, and the rural development
programmes?
The Netherlands supports the aim to achieve synergy between EU research and innovation
funding and regional and national funding. Within the Common Agricultural Policy and Cohesion
Policy funds should be more targeted towards the Europa 2020 -goals. Specific goals of the

4

different programmes should however always be maintained and not be mixed. Cohesion policy
is designed for capacity building in regions where this is necessary. FP and CIP are aimed at
stimulating research and innovation to bring forward science and technology, to develop
innovative solutions for the large societal challenges of the EU and for the benefit of European
competitiveness. This is best done by maintaing the principle of excellence as one of the
evaluation criteria for EU research funding. For applied research aimed at societal impact and
competitiveness impact should be a criterium as well for EU research funding.
Synergies between EU research and innovation funding and regional and national funding can
best be achieved through co-financing schemes, for example by co-financing Joint
Programming Initiatives. Co financing stimulates that stakeholders make strategic choices
regarding their research and innovation activities.
Also, synergy can be achieved by streamlining governance and administrative rules between
EU funding for research and innovation and cohesion policies.

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Questions: Tackling societal challenges
9. How should a stronger focus on societal challenges affect the balance between
curiosity-driven research and agenda-driven activities?
With a stronger focus on societal challenges the careful balance between curiosity -driven and
agenda-driven activities should be maintained. In order to contribute to finding solutions for
societal challenges, we need action from the entire research and innovation system, from
curiosity-driven research towards measures to improve market introdu ction of products and
services. An interdisciplinary approach is needed, involving both the natural sciences and
technology, as well as the social sciences, humanities, public innovation, creative industry and
services. In general, all science and technology efforts should increasingly contribute to
generating new products, services and processes in order to tackle societal challenges and to
strengthen competitiveness. Each part of the research and innovation system needs to be
addressed with the appropriate instrument. Agenda-driven activities offer the opportunity to
create a fluent movement from defining needs by and enhancing demand of stakeholders, to
knowledge creation and introducing new products, processes and services to the market.
Curiosity-driven research forms the base for innovation and is therefore an essential part of
this integrated approach.
Both curiosity driven research (ERC) and agenda-driven activities (themes with large impact on
society and economy) are important and thus need to be strengthened. The latter should
remain the largest component of the future research and innovation programmes. Agenda
driven activities should include large societal challenges and key enabling technologies. Ageing,
energy, climate change and scarcity of vital natural resources are amongst those grand societal
challenges that can not be effectively resolved by Member States individually. Societal
challenges and competitiveness go hand in hand. Therefore, a genda driven activities should
match future oriented renewal of the European and national economies. For the Netherlands
the Dutch economical top sectors are central in this approach.
10. Should there be more room for bottom-up activities?
Top-down approaches and bottom-up activities should be combined in the right manner. For
the top-down approaches, the Competitiveness Council, the European Parliament and the
European Commission should together decide upon the grand societal challenges and upon the
themes that enhance competitiveness. This decision should be based on a broad consultation.
Within these challenges, EU funding instruments should stimulate that industry, universities
and knowledge institutes join forces in a bottom-up manner. In the mean time, the value of
already existing bottom-up activities should be acknowledged, and promising results that stem
from these approaches should also be incorporated in top -down approaches if relevant.
The budget for the Seventh Framework Programme also provides for the administration and
coordination activities of European Coordination in Science and Technology (COST). We think
that this intergovernmental structure is a good practice of bringing together national research
funds for research projects which consist of excellent research and which are aimed at
innovation. It can serve as an example for national and international programmatic
cooperation. Cost is an example of coordination over and exchange between nationally funded
research, which has been proven highly useful, efficient and effective for increasing c apacity
building, the impact of research on policy for societal challenges and defragmentation of
funding efforts. COST is valued by researchers for its balanced bottom -up approach. Based on
this conclusion, we think that COST should get a similar position in the new research funding
landscape.
11. How should EU research and innovation funding best support policy making and
forward looking activities?
The EU can best support policy making and forward looking activities by developing a policy
learning research agenda to which the Member States can contribute their ideas.

6

Currently there is a wealth of analytical and policy learning tools available such as
Innobarometer, Inno Policy Trendchart, Inno Grips, Innovation Union scoreboard as well as the
work done by many expert groups (for example see http://www.proinno-europe.eu/,
http://ec.europa.eu/invest-in-research/monitoring/knowledge_en.htm, and
http://iri.jrc.ec.europa.eu/papers.htm). No additional measures are needed. The abundance of
information would however benefit from better governance (e.g. managing the quantity and
quality of studies), more focus on priority setting, better alignment and more transparency.
Also, the Netherlands believes that the JRC scientific work should be used more for policy
making at EU level. This can can be obtained to some extend by stimulating policy-relevant
research also within the framework programme. When it comes to science and innovation
policy making, it is useful that EU funding programmes contain some actions devoted to
forward looking activities. This research should be as open as possible and based on excellence
and competition.
12. How should the role of the Commission’s Joint Research Centre be improved in
supporting policy making and addressing societal challenges?
The Netherlands wants to emphasize that the JRCs mission must remain to provide customer driven scientific and technological support in close cooperation with the ’customer dg’s, acting
as an in-house think tank. The main objective of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) for the
coming years is to place itself at the heart of European policy priorities - in particular the EU
2020 Strategy, the Citizens Agenda en Europe in the World. This involves the alignment of all
thematic areas of the JRC with the goals associated with the European policy priorities,
including the EU 2020 Flagship Initiatives. In the near future this will mean a reinforcement of
its forward looking capacity, which includes foresight, forecasting, technology assessment and
modelling.
JRC has to continue working in close cooperation with research organizations and industry in
Member States and associated Member States, exchanging information and accommodating
visiting scientist and students. In order to benchmark its scientific achievements t he JRC
should keep focussing on an open structure, be stimulated to engage in competition with other
researchers, and make choices on basis of proven strengths. Hereby JRC should focus on its
European added value.
13. How could EU research and innovation activities attract greater interest and
involvement of citizens and civil society?
Innovative technologies such as nanotechnology, molecular biology, the neurosciences and
information technology can have large implications for society. Developments in these
technologies and many other fields of science and technology are so rapid that society has
difficulties in keeping up. Nevertheless, it is important that politicians, policy -makers, industry,
societal organizations and the general public do indeed follow th e developments and are able to
offer a timely response. This can be done by underlining the responsibility of universities ,
research institutes and industry for communication and outreach, and to stimulate technology
and science system assessment. We also think that the focus for European research on societal
challenges will improve the interest and involvement of citizens and civil society. Especially
when technological research is being accompanied by social scientific research about if, how
and under which conditions technology is taken up by the society.

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Questions: Strengthening Competitiveness
14. How should EU funding best take account of the broad nature of innovation including
non technological innovation, eco-innovation and social innovation?
The Netherlands welcomes the increased attention within the EU for non-technological
innovation, such as organisational or workplace innovation, service innovation, design,
creativity and marketing. Care should be taken in determining how and if a European approach
could complement national policies. An EU role can be envisaged in developing common
understanding of the needs of the European economy and sustainability, joint development of
new effective policies, coordination of activities and facilitating the exchange of best practices.
The EU also plays an important role in improving framework conditions for innovation (access
to finance, EU patent etc.) and supporting so-called soft measures to stimulate innovation,
such as the creation of an environment favourable to SME (cross-border) cooperation.
Eco-innovation is important in addressing grand societal challenges. EU funding can buil d on
experiences with the newly chosen bottom-up approach in FP and the eco innovation
programme that is currently part of CIP. Furthermore, it is vital for successful development of
eco-innovative approaches that new developments are promoted for market uptake.
Regarding social innovation an EU role should only be envisaged if this social innovation is
related to sustainability and life style, labour and economic growth. However, the
implementation of social innovation, for example regarding sustainability, is primarily the
responsibility of Member States.
Though the definition of organisational innovation is still under development, the OECDs Oslo
Manual refers to various elements of organisational innovation. The Oslo Manual also sees a
role for government in facilitating linkages between national, regional and international
innovation systems and should be taken into account when developing new EU

innovation policies.
15. How should industrial participation in EU research and innovation programmes be
strengthened? How should Joint Technology Initiatives (such as those launched in
the current Framework Programme) or different forms of public-private partnerships
be supported? What should be the role of the European Technology platforms?
The percentage of industrial participation has been declining steadily since FP4. This trend
should be reversed in order for the research and innovation programmes to better contribute to
innovation and European competitiveness. To strengthen the industrial participation in the
European research and innovation programmes, amongst others, the following measures can
be taken:
•

Programmes for cross border research projects with consortia formed of public-public and
public-private partners (currently cooperation part of FP7) should be strenghtened
financially. Cross border public private cooperation should remain the largest component of
the Framework Programme.

•

More investments within the EU research and innovation funding for demonstration projects
and the development of prototypes

•

Industry should be better involved in the agenda setting of the research and innovation
programmes. The European Technology Platforms (ETPs) provide a good forum for industry
to identify research agendas and to develop a strategy to implement these agendas
through the European framework programme, national programmes and private research
budgets. The continuation of ETPs should be encouraged but also be challenged to address
the large societal challenges and key enabling technologies by priority . However ETPs
should be able to finance their own activities after the start up phase that is supported with
the help of EU-funds. ETPs that can’t survive without EU-funding could be clustered or
merged with well functioning ETPs. The ETPs should be transparent about their policy
making and open for interested parties to join.

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•
.
•

More non-academic peers should be involved in project evaluations in order to put more
emphasis on innovation and economic impact of research activities.
Increase flexibility in the duration and the size of the consortium and the scope of projects.
Within long term research projects it should be stimulated that budget is reserved for
applied research so other parties can join consortia at a later stage. Offer more
opportunities for short term (maximum of two to three years) and small scale public private and private-private cooperation.

•

Attention should be given to inter operability and standardisation already in an early stage
of research and development. Where possible consortia should be asked to develop a plan
on how knowledge and prototypes, possibly by using CIP measures, can be brought to the
market.

•

The evaluation of project proposals in the framework programme that are aimed at
adressing grand societal challenges and increasing European competitiveness, should
continue to be based on the three criteria: Excellence, impact and quality of
implementation of the project proposal. To be able to properly evaluate the proposals it
could be suggested to assign a different weighting to each of the criteria, for every
instrument and every phase of research. For example, when evaluating a proposal for
fundamental research, a heavier weighting could be given to excellence. When evaluating a
proposal for research that is more application-oriented (possibly including demonstration
projects) a heavier weighting could be given given to impact. Quality of implementation of
the project proposal could always be of equal importance. Instead of changing the
weighting the treshold could also be adjusted to give more emphasis on a specific
criterium.

Joint Technology Initiatives (JTI’s)
The following issues should be adressed when setting up future public private arrangements.


Joint Undertaking as a Community/EU body (art 171). A JTI has to be based on a Joint
Undertaking (JU). As Community/EU funding was involved it was concluded that JU’s had to
have the status of Community/EU body. This implies that all EC/EU-rules on financial issues
(the Financial Regulation), accounting and appointment of personnel (the Staff Regulation)
have to be followed. This resulted in complex and time-consuming procedures. Therefore
the Financial Regulation should allow the set up of public-private partnerships in which all
the participants have a position equal to their commitment and which leaves room for a
flexible, efficient approach with low managerial burdens.



Delay in the set-up of the JU and the execution of calls. All JTIs were confronted with
problems while setting up the new structure. These regarded staffing of the JU, the
operational costs of the JU and the question who has to bear these costs. In some of the
JTI’s changing rules for participation, differences in interpretations and changing grant
percentages also played a role. For future JTIs it might be worthwhile to have a template
for the structure to start the negotiations. Such a template should build upon the efforts
made and the lessons learned during the set-up of the current JTIs. It should adapt and
not reinvent, taking into account that each JTI may need specific features. Also in some
cases consistency in cost calculation methods between FP7 and JTIs should be e nsured. At
the same time JU’s should have the flexibility to apply for loans / instruments e.g. from EIB
to improve their efficiency further.



Matching EU and national funding. Project participants in the two ICT JTIs (Eniac and
Artemis) are also funded by their national governments. This national funding is based on
national rules. Thereby there is a difference between subscription levels of Member States.
This leads to differences in funding levels for participants. While part of the funding comes
from national budgets, independent experts are responsible for the selection of projects.
Sometimes projects are selected that do not optimally match with the policy aims of

9

participating member states. These aspects, lead to another problem, i.e. the generally low
budget allocations from member states for the ICT JTI’s so far.


New public private partnerships and JTIs: In light of the experiences with setting up the
current JTIs, the Netherlands prefers using the bipartite industry -EU model for new PPP’s
where possible.

16. How and what types of Small and Medium-sized enterprises (SME) should be
supported at EU level; how should this complement national and regional level
schemes? What kind of measures should be taken to decisively facilitate the
participation of SMEs in EU research and innovation programmes?
Framework conditions
For stimulating the innovative culture of SMEs the overall entrepreneurial climate should be
fostered and the basic framework conditions should be facilitated. For instance through
intellectual property policy, quality systems and education. The Netherlands sees added value
in a European approach for improving SMEs’ access to risk capital for investment in
innovation through the creation of a real internal European venture capital / business angels
market, where investors are able to invest freely across borders. We also see added value in
ensuring SMEs’ access to ideas and information throughout Member States.
SME participation in EU programmes
SME participation is essential to increase dissemination and exploitation of research results.
The future programmes should take into account the Small Business Act and make sure SMEs
can more easily participate in and make use of the results of the programmes. This can be
stimulated by the following measures:


Simplification (see question 6).



The current effort in some of the programme committees for the Cooperation themes to
adjust specific calls to meet SME needs should be continued and broadened to all themes.
Some measures that were mentioned in the SME impact study of FP5 and FP6 by Avedas
should also be exploited to increase SME participation. These are: SME dedicated calls and
SME relevant topics, more opportunities for SMEs to join on-going projects and preallocated budget for take-up measures by SMEs. Smaller projects with a shorter time span
are more interesting for SMEs and should be part of future research and innovation
programmes.



Besides doing research and development, high, low and mid tech SMEs should be involved
as a stakeholder in agenda setting since these companies should also be able to use the
knowledge that is being developed by other researchers.

•

Increase flexibility in the duration and the size of the consortium and the scope of projects.
This will be beneficial for industry as a whole, especially SME’s. Within long term research
projects it should be stimulated that budget is reserved for applied research so other
parties can join consortia at a later stage. Offer more opportunities for short term
(maximum of two to three years) and small scale public-private and private-private
cooperation. Facilitate that SME’s are better involved in the preparation of project
proposals.

•

The Think Small first principle of the Small Bussiness Act should be leading to improve the
accessibility of SMEs to EU research and innovation programmes.



Instruments aimed at stimulating R&D-activities for and by SME’s could be combined into
one bigger and more efficient instrument for high tech, mid tech and low tech SME. The
Eurostars programme could be used as an example. It’s procedures are faster and the
program has a low administrative burden.



Finally, the new programmes should take into account that the linear model of innovation is
no longer adequate and policies should be designed accordingly.

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17. How should open, light and fast implementation schemes (e.g. building on the
current FET actions and CIP eco-innovation market replication projects) be designed
to allow flexible exploration and commercialization of novel ideas, in particular by
SMEs?
Open, light and fast schemes require transparency, accessibility and short decision -making
periods. For accessibility we refer to questions 1 and 6. The period from call to contract for
eco-innovation projects is still a considerable amount of time; a two-step approach – whereby
a first selection is made based on a summary sheet of information before launching into a more
extensive proposal phase – can be considered. In this way, proposals that are not suitable or
eligible are filtered out at an early stage, so that fewer full blown proposals are submitted and
the evaluation process takes less time.
18. How should EU level financial instruments (equity a debt based) be used more
extensively?
A well functioning capital market is essential for a competitive economy. In particular for the
development and market introduction of new and improved products and services there is a
great need for (risk) capital. The European capital market is, in particular for venture capital,
underdeveloped compared for example to competitive markets such as the US. This puts fast
growing SMEs in the EU at a disadvantage. The Netherlands supports further growth and a
more competitive capital market through two measures.
First of all the capital market in Europe needs to be improved to benefit from economies of
scale and expertise. Bottlenecks that hinder a properly functioning capital market should be
removed.
Secondly the European financial instruments should be better focused and increased in volume.
Existing instruments in FP and CIP for loans and risk capital such as the Risk Sharing Finance
Facility (RSFF) and the High Growth and Innovative SME Facility (GIF) address existing market
failures and could even more than currently be aimed at innovative enterprises.
The Netherlands acknowledges the potential advantages of European (innovative) financial
instruments. They can form an efficient use of public money, since they will give a faster
leverage on private investments. The Netherlands is in favour of an additional European
approach to improve the functioning of the European financial market through policies aimed at
upscaling the market as well as through better targetting and intensifying existing instruments
in FP and CIP.
However, financial instruments should not displace the market by competing with the financial
sector. EU level financial instruments should meet strict criteria: limited size, European added
value, no overlap with existing instruments, no market disruption, strict requirements for the
financial administration, transparence, no replacement of national cofinancing schemes and
restricted administrative burdens..
19. Should new approaches to supporting research and innovation be introduced, in
particular through public procurement, including through rul es on pre-commercial
procurement, and/or inducement prizes?
The Netherlands is in favour of further applying demand-side measures in the future
programmes where relevant to address societal challenges and to achieve Europe -wide
acceleration of innovative solutions to reach the market. Demand-side measures should
complement research and development measures forming an integrated approach.
Such measures can include standardisation, assessment of needs; market consultation;
specification development; setting up cooperation; public procurement of innovation and
addressing the risks of public procurement of innovation. Public procurement can contribute to
research and innovation and government, as potential user of innovative products, processes
and services, can play an active role. An EU approach can have added value for cross -border

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challenges (air quality, transport systems) or those that are common to most or all Member
States (sustainable energy, mitigation and adaptation measures to climate change, dealing
with an ageing population). In these cases Europe can stimulate the joint search for a shared
solution, whereby a European approach results in lower development and purchasing costs for
Member States. Using the EU research and innovation, Europe can itsel f also stimulate marketoriented solutions through precommercial procurement. The precommercial procurement
approach currently piloted in FP ICT and CIP could be explored for wider application in other
areas.
20. How should intellectual property rules governing EU funding strike the right balance
between competitiveness aspects and the need for access to and dissemination of
scientific results?
In general, access to and dissemination of scientific results should be stimulated as much as
possible. This should however not hinder the cooperation between research institutes and
businesses. When businesses and research institutes cooperate it should be up to the partners
in the consortium to find agreement on how to deal with the question of open access of
scientific results.
Open access of peer reviewed articles in international journals can only be welcomed and
should be the general principle for projects funded under the framework programme. In
general, open access business models should be sustainable and viable models, and continuity
and quality should be guaranteed.

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Questions: Strenghtening Europe’s science base and the European
Research Area
21. How should the role of the European Research Council be strengthened in supporting
world class excellence?
The ERC promotes excellent independent research. Its competition attracts the best and
brightest from across the EU. The ERC should be strengthened financially. The number of
rejected proposals due to a lack of budget, but scored “above threshold”, indicate ample
absorbing capacity within the existing research community. Proposals that are scored above
threshold by the ERC-standards indicate excellent research.
The screening of the researchers applying for an ERC grant is prominently based on past
results. In order to create a level playing field, researchers that work in part -time should be
given a balanced screening. The proof of concept scheme could be valuable in linking
fundamental research to commercial success. It should however not be limited to the ERC, but
applied everywhere where it is possible within the Framework Programme. It should not be
financed from the ERC-budget.
22. How should EU support assist Member States in building up excellence?
For building excellence within the EU we need talented researchers throughout the Union. For a
strong European science base we need to educate, keep and attract top class researchers and
we need excellent research facilities.
The following elements are essential for building up excellence:


Within the evaluation process of research projects excellence of research should remain
one of the criteria. By funding world-class research, researchers are stimulated to perform
at their best effort and the results will have a higher impact on society and
competitiveness. The current core of the Framework Programme is the cooperation sub
programme. Through this sub programme, the EU directly funds excellent projects with
high impact.

 Besides funding excellent research projects, excellent research facilities are also needed to
educate, keep and attract top-class researchers to build up excellence and for increasing
Europe’s innovation potential and competitiveness.
 Mobility programmes such as COST, the Marie Curie programme and the ERC enable
researchers by offering international experience, the ability to cooperate with other
talented researchers and working with high level facilities. This is especially important for
education of young researchers. An important advantage to distribute a part of the
research funding as grants for the mobility of individual researchers is the opportunity for
the researcher to choose an employer. Researchers will in majority choose supervisors and
institutions that provide the best research environment. In this way, knowledge institutes
and companies throughout the EU are being stimulated to create a world class research
environment to be able to attract the best researchers.
 Building up excellence benefits from openness. Broad dissemination of findings and
publications increases the scientific discourse and thus quality and excellence. For the
stance of the Netherlands regarding open access, please consult the answer on question
20.
23. How should the role of Marie Curie Actions be strengthened in promoting researcher
mobility and developing attractive careers?
In general we favour to continue the Marie Curie Actions in the future. The rationale for the
Actions is systematic investment in people. The focus of the Programme should continue to be
research-based training and should be part of the research and innovation programmes.
We would prefer a flexible approach to have less restrictive, 'one -size-fits-all' rules, and more
flexibility to implement the actions, as long as the general goals are respected. In this respect,
we stress the importance of intersectoral mobility. Here not only the relation between research

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and industry is relevant, but also the relation between research and government and the non profit sector. The low success rate of applications especially in the Initial Training Networks (for
PhD’s) could justify raising the proportional budget for this scheme by reallocating budgets
within the Mobility Programme.
We stress the importance of simplification and more stability of the Marie Curie programme and
streamlining of mobility efforts. The time to contract should be speed up. Also, we favour the
development into one PhD-programme instead of the two separate programmes of Erasmus
Mundus and the Marie Curie-programmes. If these separate programmes could merge, the new
programme should have the same conditions for financial contribution as is being implemented
under the Marie Curie scheme.
24. What actions should be taken at EU level to further strengthen the role of women in
science and innovation?
We strongly believe that the quality of research benefits from an increased diversity of human
resources. Therefore, it is desirable that all projects should have a balanced participation of
women and men. We should fight against gender prejudices while maintaining the principle of
excellence. At an EU-level, the Helsinki Group remains an important expert working group in
developing EU-policies on gender-issues.
It is important that in the future statistical information about the beneficiaries of research
funding continues to note gender differences. Analysis of the Framework Programme, notably
the ERC, still shows an underrepresentation of women. In peer review it is important to brief
the peers that the gender dimension has to be taken into account in order to avoid that female
researchers receive lower grades from the referees and that female researchers score lower on
past performance indicators.
Next to gender balance, the gender dimension of the research content is an important aspect
to be taken into account. Sex and gender methodology potentia lly open up new fields of
research and brings innovation by asking new questions.
25. How should research infrastructures (including EU-wide e-Infrastructures) be
supported at EU level?
Most economic benefits of research infrastructures are regional or nati onal. Therefore,
construction of research infrastructures should be done by Member States or regions.
Structural funds could be used if research infrastructures indeed lead to regional economical
strengthening and if they can be used by industry. Facilitating access to research
infrastructures and transition phase of a research infrastructure from the design to construction
of the projects on the roadmap of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures
(ESFRI) should be part of the European research and innovation programmes. In the future
European research and innovation programmes the following instruments should be
incorporated:







Instruments for funding of the Design Phase and the Preparatory Phase of research
infrastructures of the ESFRI roadmap are part of FP7. These instruments are very useful in
the phase before the construction of a research infrastructure and should be maintained.
To facilitate the construction of research infrastructures that have been prioritized on the
ESFRI roadmap an extra instrument should be considered. This instrument should fund
projects in the transition phase of a research infrastructure from the design to
construction. These could also be projects concerning several research infrastructures
developing answers to problems these infrastructure may have in common. This
instrument could be funded by reallocating budget within the research infrastructures
programme.
The Risk Sharing Finance Facility (RSFF) to support the construction of research
infrastructure is not functioning as well as was foreseen This instrument should therefore
only be maintained after developing a clear strategy how to separate the RSFF into two
parts (where the infrastructure part is only used for infrastructures), and only when there
is more certainty that their is more real interest to make use of the RSFF for the
construction of research infrastructures.
The needs of companies as exploiters and users of research infrastructures should be
better observed even early on, in the planning stages. A role for the Commission could be
to bring industry and science together not only to discuss the early stages of planning, but

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

also to stimulate companies to look for opportunities to get involved in building and
collaborating with research infrastructures to incorporate experience and advanced
technologies in their portfolio that can be developed through their experience with
research infrastructures and that can be used in other sectors.
Concerning global infrastructural research projects European cooperation is of added
value. However, in global infrastructural research project the allocated budget are often
exceeded. When this is the case, the additional needed budget should in principle be
found within the expenditure category in which these projects are budgeted. The
Netherlands believes that in the context of the multiannual financial framework from 2014
measures should be examined to adequately manage these cost overruns within the EU
budget.

26. How should international cooperation with non-EU countries be supported e.g. in
terms of priority areas of strategic interest, instruments, reciprocity (including on
IPR aspects) or cooperation with Member States?
The following elements should be considered for the support of international cooperation with
non-EU countries in the future EU research and innovation programmes:


Better coordination and cooperation between the various EU activities is needed. For
example for India an INCO-NET, international ERA-net and an SFIC initiative have been
set up. Overlap should be avoided and cooperation is needed for example concerning the
mapping activities. Besides better coordination en cooperation, a reduction of the number
of international cooperation instruments in the INCO programme is needed, in which too
many small instruments have been set up. This is not transparent for participants, brings
with it unnecessarily high administrative costs and the budget of the calls might become
too small to be effective.



The principle of reciprocity should rule the funding of cooperation with non-EU partners.
This principle may in special cases be handled flexibly, e.g. in development relationships.



However, also in development relationships reciprocity remains an important condition for
cooperation. Research and innovation cooperation with non-EU countries with the
objective of capacity building in the partner country should be financed from Development
budget of the EU.



Especially in the case of global societal challenges and/or economic fields for which
cooperation with non-EU countries is important coordination between Member States,
associated countries and the European Commission can have an added value, for example
for obtaining the EU2020 objectives. This coordination should however always be on a
voluntary base, for example through an ERA-net instrument. It is important to note that
international cooperation on EU-level and worldwide is for a large part taking place on
researchers’ level, bottom-up. EU programmes should take such developmental stages
into account by taking a modest yet facilitating approach where initiatives already start to
come up.

27. Which key issues and obstacles concerning the ERA should EU funding instruments
seek to overcome, and which should be addressed by other (e.g. legislative)
measures?
To reach to goal set by the European Council for the European Research Area an action plan
should be set up by the Council and the Commission. The ERAC should take the necessary steps
for preparing this action plan.
In principle, key issues and obstacles concerning the ERA should be dealt with within the EU
funding instruments themselves by optimal specification of the instruments to contribute to the
ERA. Should any obstacles persist, they should be solved as much as possible at the national
level by other measures including legislative measures in accordance with the principle of
subsidiarity. Legislative measures at the EU level should only be considered if there is clear
added value at the EU level and on the condition that these measures do not lead to extra
administrative burden for the participants.

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