Ministry of Education and Science
Appendix 1: Special efforts for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Fifth Framework Programme: A new action "SME Innovation"
Appendix 2: Production of eco-friendly products and materials from renewable sources
Appendix 3: A Europe with a Human Face - Humanities and Social Sciences in the 5th RTD Framework Programme
As a basis for the Swedish government's preliminary views regarding the Fifth Framework Programme (5FP), extensive consultations have taken place with government agencies, universities, industry, commerce and other organizations.
At this early stage in the preparation of the 5FP, the Swedish government would like to put forward comments concerning selection criteria for the research efforts, areas of priority, modes of cooperation and administration. The views mainly relate to the EU part of the Framework Programme. The Euratom part is covered to a much lesser extent. The Swedish government relies on the possibility to present additional ideas in the discussions with the European Commission and Member States in the process of reaching a consensus on the 5FP during the coming year.
Background
Swedish researchers and industry have taken part in the Framework Programmes mainly since the 2FP started in 1986. Analysis and impact studies on Swedish participation in the Second and Third Framework Programmes have been carried out.
The experiences gained by participants are mostly positive. There is a high motivation to take part in new projects. Most Swedish participants take part in areas where they have high skills rather than in areas where they would like to gain strength. Universities and research institutes take part in order to develop new scientific and technical knowledge, to establish new contacts and to receive funding. The main reason for both large enterprises and SMEs is to use results in products and processes. The threshold for new participants is high, however this is especially true for SMEs, and their experiences are also more mixed.
The Objectives of the Framework Programme
Ever since the 1FP, budgets for new framework programmes have been increased. The Swedish government believes that the budget for the Fifth Framework Programme should not be greater than the present one. As there are more applications of high quality than can be granted, the 5FP will require a much higher degree of focusing. To achieve such a focus, the subsidiarity principle has to be combined with other criteria.
The research efforts within the Framework Programme should contribute to:
- fostering the development of European business and industry, thereby promoting increased employment and competitiveness;
- promoting research of importance to the global development in crucial sectors, such as food, environment and health;
- solving the social problems of Europe.
The modes of cooperation should be guided by the principles of transparency, openness and flexibility.
Areas of priority
Activities supporting industrial competitiveness and growth
SMEs have a vital role for the future growth of the European economy. A more extensive participation of SMEs in the Framework Programme is important in order to increase competitiveness and growth. Participation in Community R&D collaboration will also stimulate SMEs to become more international and thereby more able to utilize the single market. The administrative complexities and the time and costs needed to prepare proposals are obstacles to the participation of SMEs. The size and duration of projects do not suit SMEs. These obstacles have to be reduced. Sweden proposes that existing mechanisms in the present INNOVATION programme and the Technology Stimulation Measures within Activity 1 in the 4FP, are coordinated and merged into a central management unit; SME INNOVATION. A proposal to strengthen the involvement of SMEs in the FP is presented in appendix 1.
The Commission has already given priority to Transport, by proposing several Task Forces related to this field. Future research activities in transport should be closely linked and coordinated with other activities in the transport area in order to achieve a sustainable transport system.
The 5FP should concentrate on the efficient use of IT (e.g. multimedia, distance learning) both in the private and public sectors. A merger of the three Specific Programmes (SPs) in this area (Esprit, ACTS and Telematics) should be considered in order to achieve synergies. There are many areas where the use of IT could improve competitiveness. One is the use of IT in the service sector. Between 2/3 and 3/4 of production and manufacturing in Member states consists of services, and this area is becoming increasingly important for the productivity of the European industry. The FP should also support the use of IT in the work place in order to achieve higher skills and productivity.
Activities in the area of Industrial Materials Technologies should focus more on sustainable production, forestry and materials based on renewable sources. Another important research field is complex technical systems (e.g. embedded systems).
Activities supporting environment and sustainable development
Environmental research is important both as a means to develop a sustainable society and to enhance Europe's industrial competitiveness. Coordinated action, based on R&D, is a necessary condition in order to control transboundary environmental problems.
It is thus important that environmental policy and research interact. Mechanisms for a dialogue between research planners, scientists and politicians should be developed. Increased resources should be allocated in the 5FP for processing and dissemination of research results and for facilitating and encouraging their use.
In the coming Framework Programme, the environmental sector should be given a Specific Programme. The focus should be on urban environment (traffic and noise), agricultural activities (biological diversity) and ecocycles (chemicals and material flows), energy supply and use. Parallel to this, environmental aspects should be integrated and considered in other activities of the 5FP as well.
With a goal to increase competitiveness of the European industry, research should be encouraged to promote environmental technologies. Production adapted to ecocycles, refinement, and recirculation of products and materials constitutes a very important material flow system within the EU. This sector is important for economic growth, job opportunities and environmental protection both in the Union as a whole and in individual countries. It should be noted that certain segments of this sector have a large proportion of SMEs. A Swedish proposal is attached as appendix 2.
Research is needed to examine the core issues of traffic policy at a general level. There is a tension between the focus on a sustainable and safe transport system on the one hand, and on socio-economic development on the other. Therefore, there is a need to analyze and discuss the applicability of the concept of "sustainable mobility". Activities within the transport sector should include improving the efficiency and reducing the volume and risk of transport, reducing fuel consumption and emissions (including noise), testing the design of different transport systems for sustainable economic, social and ecological development.
In order to preserve a sustainable production capacity and diversity of land, a number of key problems have to be solved. There is a need to establish the effects on the sustainable production capacity of land and on biological diversity, of changes in land use, and the effects of pollutants and climate change. Agricultural productivity development gradually makes it possible to use an increasing share of land for the growth of raw materials for other products than food and for forestry. An increasing industrial demand for fibre and agricultural raw materials for non-food industrial usage may also increase the profitability for farmers and other landowners in the EU Member states. (cf. Appendix 2.)
Furthermore, there is an important need for environmentally oriented socio-economic and behavioural research. A comprehensive perspective, comparative risk assessment and risk management as well as developing legal instruments, financial mechanisms and incentives are important aspects of environmental research.
Humanities and social sciences
The 5FP should include a specific humanities and social sciences programme, focused on the European integration process. This programme or Task Force should comprise micro-level as well as macro-level analyses, individuals as well as collectives and structures. The principal mode of research should be targeted basic research. A more detailed description of a Swedish proposal in this area is presented in appendix 3.
Global issues
The EU, with relatively rich and advanced Member states, has a special responsibility to promote research and technology that could be of importance to attack common global problems, which certainly also will affect the Members of the Union. Important sectors are environment, health, water, energy and food. The development of vaccines is one among many examples. Another is the study of socio-economic consequences of climate change. It is proposed that a special group within the Commission is established to analyze the needs and possibilities in this context.
Other priorities and activities
Global disarmament means that the competence developed within the defence industry can increasingly be applied in other areas. This development is also enhanced by convergent requirements on defence and civil systems. The FP should stimulate "Dual use"- technologies. Examples of such technologies are environment surveillance systems, unmanned vehicles for the handling of dangerous waste, new energy systems and embedded systems.
Co-operation with the Central and Eastern European Counties (CEE) should mainly be carried out within the specific programmes. Other R&D activities should be supported by Phare. The same applies to the NIS-countries where Tacis could be used. But it is also important that a separate budget is allocated for the participation of CEEs and NISs and that the participation is funded in accordance with agreed priorities. Environment, food and health are examples of priority areas of cooperation.
In the 4FP, a large emphasis is put on exploitation of R&D results. In fact, many proposals seem to fail on this point. The 5FP should continue to improve these efforts, i.e. more resources are needed to make sure that results from EU-supported projects are disseminated and utilized. This is also true of non-industrial oriented programmes.
The present fourth activity, Training and Mobility of Researchers (TMR), is a good example of a community activity with high added value and should therefore be continued. Training and mobility in the humanities and social sciences should be given increased attention. It is also important that information about these activities is disseminated in industry.
A larger part of the Joint Research Centres (JRCs) activities in the 4FP depends on contract research. This trend should be continued in the 5FP. To this end the JRCs should be given more flexible staff structures and more flexibility within a given budget. JRCs should be able to contribute to sustainable production and development.
Projects and modes of cooperation
The most common form of projects within the FP are Shared Cost (SC) where normally 5-6 participants from 3-4 countries take part in 3-year long projects. The Commission funds 50% of the costs. A typical funding would be 1 MECU or sometimes even more in large industrial projects. The planning of such a project usually starts 1-2 years before the actual project. After completion, further exploitation is needed. This means that the total time from "idea" to "product" could be well over 5 years. This has hardly changed since the first FP when it was dominated by a few large firms ( the large 12). Since the 1FP, both priorities and goals have changed. It is therefore imperative to adapt the modes of cooperation to the needs of the organizations which are expected to take part in the programme. More flexibility should be introduced, particularly allowing for fewer participants in each project.
At the level of Framework and Specific Programmes there should be a clear focus on priority areas. At Work Programme level, however, there should be flexibility to allow for changes in direction due to changes in technological development. Therefore, work Programmes should not be too detailed. This does not exclude focused calls to avoid too many applications. A combination of concentration and flexibility would also meet many other needs, such as the possibility to include new ideas, the participation of SMEs and newcomers to the programmes.
Concerted actions are modes of cooperation which could be used more frequently. In order to improve efficiency, it is necessary to change the application procedure and to get a concerted action approved. Today the application procedure is as complex as in the Specific Programmes, and many organizations do not find it meaningful to apply.
The Task Force model could be used as one out of several potential ways of organizing the 5FP. The Task Forces should have clear and specific objectives so as to distinguish them from the Specific Programmes. The identification of Task Forces should be made in cooperation with Member countries and the process should be transparent. The idea with a Task Force should be the promotion of R&D, not subsidizing industrial projects.
Administration
The Swedish experiences of the administration of the research programmes have been both positive and negative. The evaluation and selection procedure seems to be carried out with great competence, and the initiatives taken in some Specific Programme Committees to invite Member states to discuss the outcome of the evaluation before the short-list is presented are appreciated. It is particularly important, however, to openly discuss additional selection criteria not used in the evaluation.
Contract negotiations are often delayed. The applicants of an approved project should be notified immediately of the outcome and informed about the expected budget. The process can be speeded up if the Commission would start the procedure earlier by asking for basic relevant data on participants. If such preparation is made in advance, the negotiations could be concentrated on the Technical Annexes. The Commission officials should also, at least at the end of the negotiations, be given a wider mandate to conclude the negotiations.
It takes a lot of time and effort to be a project coordinator. The Commission should consider some kind of compensation for coordinators.
A more complicated issue is the work of Programme Committees. Depending on the Specific Programme, committees meet between 4 -10 times per year. In addition, there are usually different types of ad-hoc meetings. Many meetings are taken up by discussions of shortlists and sometimes even single projects. As pointed out earlier, the guiding principle in project selection should be the outcome of the evaluation. Additional criteria should be applied only in exceptional cases. An overview of the committee work could lead to more efficient meetings where discussion is concentrated on policy, strategic issues and assessment. This could also pave the way for including more experts in the committee meetings.
One major administrative problem for participants and SMEs in particular is how to write an application in a way which complies with all the criteria. It is not sufficient to have a technically/scientifically high quality proposal. Applicants with personal contacts, time and money have the possibility to discuss proposals with officials within national agencies or in the Commission. This gives a clear advantage to such applicants. Sometimes initiatives such as pre-screening, two stage-procedures and co-ordination between programmes/calls, which are introduced in some of the Specific Programmes, make it easier to prepare a "good proposal". Evaluation of these more recent procedures will hopefully lead to even better and more coherent procedures in the 5FP. The application procedures should be made as simple as possible and evaluation criteria should be clear. The pre-screening procedure could also, at least to some extent, be decentralized to Member states.
There is an increasing awareness about the importance of equal representation of men and women in the decision making process in the Member states and within the different EU institutions. The Council for labour and social affairs is in the process of finalizing a recommendation on "a balanced distribution of women and men in the decision making process". The draft recommendation takes up the issue of sex segregated statistics. It is important that this work starts without delay and that a balanced distribution of women and men is also achieved in the area of research. In the 5FP, this matter should be given priority.
More openness and transparency
It is not always possible to fund all projects even if they are of very high quality. It is extremely important, however, that the Commission improves information to applicants and to committee delegates on the motives for not funding projects with very high quality and for funding projects of lesser quality. Open information and increased transparency would make discussions in the committees easier and help applicants to accept the outcome. The Commission should also make the names of the evaluators known. Openness is generally better than secrecy. Today the identity of experts are known only to certain powerful organizations. A combination of pre-screening and precise criteria should decrease the need for "lobbying". Simpler procedures will also reduce the need for feasibility awards.
Assessment/monitoring
A weakness of earlier FPs has been the lack of assessment results when a decision on a new FP is taken. It is important that decisions on new FPs are based on experiences and assessments of earlier programmes. The monitoring and assessment procedures which started under the 4FP should therefore be continued.
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