ERA-NETs met a need, but need still exists, finds expert group
Since the European Commission launched the ERA-NET scheme in 2002, intending to coordinate national research programmes, the initiative has 'met a need', according to an expert group charged with reviewing the scheme. The need for ERA-NETs persists, however. The experts' report gives a ringing endorsement to the continuation of ERA-NETs, while proposing ways in which their structure could be bettered. At the end of the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), almost 70 ERA-NETs were up and running. Each individual network is exchanging information and good practice on existing programmes and activities, identifying and analysing common strategic issues, planning and developing joint activities, and implementing trans-national activities, including joint calls and programmes. Some 38 countries are already involved in ERA-NETs, and this number is likely to increase under FP7. So far, the scheme has followed a bottom-up approach, allowing programme owners and managers to suggest programmes to be networked. 'In turn, this has led to a certain diversity in the procedures followed across the scheme, and to a number of overlaps between ERA-NETs in closely related areas,' according to a foreword by the group's chairman, Professor Manfred Horvat of Vienna University of Technology. In FP7, the Commission should seek to ensure consolidation and coherence, says the report. This could be done through the creation of a high level group, by the Competitiveness Council, to review the strategic role of transnational research initiatives and make recommendations on the involvement of EU Member States and Associated States in both ERA-NETs and similar initiatives based on Article 169. The group should also reflect on how best to organise ERA-NET activities in the future. One of the main achievements of ERA-NET has been to overcome barriers to the coordination of national and regional research activities. Evidence of this can be found in coordinated policy responses to shared challenges, the establishment of critical research masses in key areas, and mutual learning. Observers must however wait for the most telling indicator of how successful the scheme has been. In the longer term, success will be judged by whether the research community responds positively to the calls and programmes launched by ERA-NETs, and produces high quality and highly relevant research. The expert group's report has recommendations for politicians, for the Commission, and for programme owners and managers. In addition to setting up a high level group, high-level actors are asked to initiate strategic reviews of their own needs and priorities vis-à-vis trans-national research activities. This should lead to the development of national strategies for involvement in future ERA-NETs and other trans-national activities. The Commission is advised to work on a 'brand name' for ERA-NETs that is easily identifiable by the research community. In addition, a common website should be developed, and a central unit within the Commission services established. In FP7, the Commission should ensure that there is complementarity between ERA-NETs addressing international cooperation and the international cooperation activities funded under the FP7's 'Cooperation' and 'Capacities' programmes. ERA-NET participants should be encouraged to expand their range of activities, moving beyond joint calls for research projects to the establishment of joint doctoral programmes or research laboratories. The expert group's recommendations for programme owners and managers include communicating their views on potential ERA-NETs to national representatives on programme committees in order to influence the contents of FP7 work programmes, and setting a strategic direction for individual ERA-NETs. Under FP7, a new scheme entitled ERA-NET PLUS will complement ERA-NET. The new initiative will permit a Community contribution to the funding of joint calls of 25-33%. The Commission believes that this will facilitate the cross-border flow of the money needed to support trans-national activities without falling back on the concept of 'juste retour'. Current plans will see two ERA-NET PLUS calls per year over the first two years of FP7, each with a minimum budget of €5 million.