Member States should have responsibility in the ERA - Austria
Representatives from the Austrian government and research groups told Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin at a forum on 29 March that they would like to see extra funding for SMEs, less bureaucracy, responsibility at Member State level, research mobility and help for candidate countries in future EU research policy. The Austrian Office for international research and technology cooperation (BIT) event brought together all of Austria's national contact points for all of the EU research and technology programmes along with researchers from industry and universities and government representatives. Delegates discussed the Austrian position on the Commission's proposals for the next framework programme and the European research area (ERA). The president of the Austrian chamber of commerce called for extra funding for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), and praised the Commission's attempts to open up national programmes and reduce bureaucracy and delays. But he was less supportive of the integrated projects initiative. 'From the view of the domestic economy, the concept of 'integrated projects', that is large and larger projects or clusters of projects, should however be discussed again,' said Dr Leitl. 'The Austrian economy, which not only has a high proportion of SMEs like other EU Member States, but also, in contrast to many other EU countries has hardly any multinational companies, would come off relatively badly with such a project structure,' he continued. Continuing with the issue of assisting SMEs, Dr Leitl called for a 10 per cent increase in support for SMEs as well as a budget for smaller projects and transparency concerning EU project results. Austria's Technology Minister Monika Forstinger agreed with Dr Leitl and appealed for customised project types and sizes appropriate to the different themes and research topics, ensuring that smaller research organisations and businesses are not overstretched and that they stay competitive. Austria's Minister for Education, science and culture, Elisabeth Gehrer referred to the Lisbon objectives, set in March 2000. 'This process, together with the creation of a European internal market should awaken Europe's innovative powers,' she said, recognising the dismantling of obstructions to researcher mobility as an important step towards realising these goals. In the context of the ERA, Minister Gehrer called for a strengthening of Member State responsibility. She identified the next framework programme as an instrument to implement the ERA, and also stressed the importance of helping the EU candidate countries to participate in the programme on an equal level, emphasising that Austria is in a position to offer some of that assistance.
Countries
Austria