Call for tenders: scale and scope as drivers of the European Research Area

The European Commission's Research Directorate General has published a call for tenders for a study into scale and scope as drivers of the European Research Area (ERA). One of the core assumptions underlying the idea of the ERA appears to be that economies of scale and scope ...

The European Commission's Research Directorate General has published a call for tenders for a study into scale and scope as drivers of the European Research Area (ERA).

One of the core assumptions underlying the idea of the ERA appears to be that economies of scale and scope matter in research funding and execution, and that therefore coordination and collaboration in research funding and execution are beneficial, and fragmentation and dispersal are pernicious.

Because of gaps in the relevant literature, this assumption remains largely to be validated. The purpose of this call for tenders is to start filling those gaps and to obtain a much better insight into when and where in research, economies of scale and scope matter.

The call consists of three lots:

1) economies of scale and scope in the provision of public support for public and private research and development (R&D);
2) economies of scale at the research project level;
3) economies of scale and scope in research financed at the level of the firm.For further information, please contact:

European Commission
Directorate-General Research Directorate General
Directorate C
Attn: Mr I. Saragossi
Rue de la Loi 200
B-1049 Bruxelles
Tel. [phone]
Fax [phone]

Specifications and additional documents can be obtained from:

European Commission
Directorate-General Research
Attn: Mr Belmiro Martins
Rue de la Loi 200
B-1049 Bruxelles
Tel. [phone]
Fax [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]

To see the full details of the call, please consult the following web address:
http://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:2007129997:TEXT:EN:HTML