Finland's participation in FP4 - report
Finland benefited greatly from its participation in the European Union's Fourth Framework programme (FP4), but more can still be done, concludes a recently report released. The first major improvement in FP4 was that, unlike in the previous programmes, Finland had become a full member. This also meant that research in a common European project became less of a rarity for Finnish researchers. Whereas in the previous two programmes, FP2 and FP3, Finland has been involved in a combined total of 504 projects (77 and 427 projects respectively), in FP4 the number rose to 1,850. The member status of Finland meant that restrictions on Finnish researchers' participation were dropped and it became easier to integrate into, and even lead and coordinate, research projects. The feedback from the surveys and interviews, which helped form the basis for the report, indicate that different interest groups had different experiences. Larger companies' main interest clearly was not so much EU-funding, but even so they found that they could carry out their research projects faster and on a larger scale than normal in the FP4 environment. SMEs, universities and research centres reported that they used the EU-projects more for financing of strategically important projects. Interestingly, non-profit organisations reported the most negative experiences, one of the unexpected elements in the report. These non-profit groups had focused mainly on telecommunications projects and the report warns 'their smaller success in utilising EU framework programmes should be a concern for Finnish authorities responsible for promoting EU research collaboration.' Collaboration in the context of the FP4 was good overall. Feedback suggested that, with companies, it had been better in vertical collaboration (i.e. with other companies further up or down the product chain). Horizontal collaboration (i.e. with competitor firms) had been rare. The 'additionality' of framework programmes was highest in industries that had the lowest R&D intensities. In other words, FP4 provided an outlet to R&D activities for sectors which otherwise would not have exploited their full R&D potential. Finally, the report concludes that, regardless of the individual circumstances, the overall impression from the feedback is that little key R&D activity is now expected outside of the EU collaborative environment. 'One of the more general impacts of EU collaboration is thus [enhancement of the internationalisation of Finnish research both in universities and research centres and companies. Few Finnish organisations and companies included have substantial international collaboration activities outside the EU framework,' it says.