Tender: critical mass of public R&D programmes
The European Commission's Directorate-General for Research has issued a call for tenders for a study on the critical mass of public R&D (research and development) programmes - a potential driver of joint programming. One of the core assumptions underlying the ERA (European Research Area) is 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 for, and fragmentation and dispersal have a negative impact on, Europe's S&T (science and technology) performance. Because of gaps in the relevant research, this assumption remains largely to be validated. The purpose of this call for tender is to start filling those gaps and obtain a much better insight into when and where in research, economies of scale and scope matter. Its specific objective is to achieve a better understanding of the conditions under which it might be beneficial for Member States to engage in the joint programming of research activities. The focus of this study is on the critical mass of European public R&D programmes.For further information, please contact: European Commission Directorate-General for Research SDME 9/05 Attn: Mr Christian Svanfeldt B-1049 Brussels Contact: Directorate B, Unit B2 Fax: +32 2 296 2840 E-mail: rtd-call-critical-mass-2007@ec.europa.eu URL: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/research/tenders/open_en.html(opens in new window) To see the full details of the call, please consult the following web address: http://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:000061-2008:TEXT:EN:HTML(opens in new window)