Council adopts specific programme on competitive and sustainable growth
The Council of the European Union has decided to adopt the specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration on "Competitive and sustainable growth" for the period of 1998 to 2002. The Decision was adopted on the 25 January 1999. The amount for carrying out the specific programme will be 2,705 million euro, including a maximum of 6.5% for the Commission's administrative expenditure. The amount for the period 1998 to 1999 will be 646m euro and 2,056m euro for the period 2000 to 2002 (see below for breakdown of total budget). According to Article 5 of the Decision, the Commission is to draw up a work programme specifying the objectives and RTD priorities which is "to support research activities contributing to competitiveness and sustainability, particularly where these two objectives interact." In this context, industry's role will be not only to identify areas for collaboration but also to bring together and integrate projects, especially cross-sectoral projects along the value chain, so that technology uptake and innovation are more efficiently ensured across Europe. The development of new concepts such as eco-industry, intermodality, new generations of aircraft and other means of transport, and innovative approaches to the integration of new technologies, will help to prepare industrial sectors for the challenges of the new millennium. Research, technological development and demonstration activities will focus on clearly identified needs and on improving the information available to policy-makers about the implications of technological and organisational change. The approach to all these activities will also pay particular attention to the "innovation" dimension and to stimulating and supporting the involvement of SMEs so as to reduce the gap between the achievement of the research results and their effective use by the economy and society. Certain aspects of this programme are related to the horizontal programmes: - Full use will be made of the possibilities offered by COST and EUREKA and by cooperation with international organisations to foster synergy between actions and projects in this programme and nationally-funded research activities; - Specific activities will aim to facilitate the involvement of entities in third countries and maintaining links with specialists from third countries trained in Europe and will contribute to the international dimension of the programme; - In view of the increasing need to bridge the gap between research results and their potential applications, and of the large number of companies which could be interested in the potential results, particular attention should be paid to activities related to innovation and the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); - Training and socio-economic research will form an integral part of this programme complemented by appropriate links with the horizontal programme "Improving the human research potential and the socio-economic knowledge base". The breakdown of the total budget of 2,075m euro for "Competitive and sustainable growth": - Key actions: -- Innovative products, processes and organisation - 731m; -- Sustainable mobility and intermodality - 371m; -- Land transport and marine technologies - 320m; -- New perspectives for aeronautics - 700m; - Research and technological development activities of a generic nature - 546m; - Support for research infrastructures - 37m