IRDAC Opinion on Venture Capital
In order to provide follow-up to the IRDAC (the European Commission's Industrial Research and Development Advisory Committee) Opinion on Venture Capital submitted to the Commission in May 1997, a Round Table was held on 12 March 1998. This examined to what extent the IRDAC recommendations had been followed up by specific actions and assessed the different actions undertaken by the specific RTD programmes to ensure a better coupling of venture capital and the Community RTD projects. With regard to improving the overall climate of venture capital in Europe, the IRDAC welcomed initiatives towards the harmonisation of taxation, as well as specific venture capital initiatives such as I-TEC, EUROTECH CAPITAL and the Joint European Venture (JEV) initiatives. They also welcomed the measures set up or envisaged by the Commission in view of the Fifth Framework Programme which are considered to be in line with previous IRDAC opinions. These involve initiatives such as: - The establishment of investment fora, bringing together venture capitalists and RTD projects; - The modification evaluation criteria paying more attention to economic or innovation relevance rather than focusing solely on scientific excellence; - The inclusion of industrial researchers and corporate RTD managers amongst the experts evaluating proposals; - The modification of the rules on intellectual property rights; - The requesting of a Technology Implementation Plan for each RTD project; - Speeding up procedures for evaluation and starting RTD projects.