Design and Industrial Production

The new Ministry for Science and Technology (born in 2000) brings together units and directorates for Research and Innovation management that previously were in five different Ministries (Industry, Education, Public Works, Agriculture and Environment). Also five Public Centers of Research, formerly depending from different sectorial ministries are also given the same dependence( CSIC, CIEMAT, INIA, IGME, IEO).
There is a national specific programme on materials within the IV I+D National Plan (2000-2003).

The materials national programme is managed by the Ministry for Science and Technology.
The materials National Programme funds about 60 Meuro per year in projects.
The final goals of the programme are to promote the generation of scientific and tecnological knowledge that contribute to the development of productive system, to improve industrial competitivity and the efficiency of services and public administration, to stimulate the interaction and the transfer of knowledge and technology from public research centres and universities to the industry and to promote multidisciplinary collaborations and the coordination of research groups.
The main priorities are: New concepts in manufacturing and production. Product design for easy assembly (robots and automation) and recycling. Clean processes. Modelling and simulation of production processes. Control Systems. Development of new concepts for components and subsystems. Sensors integration. New products. New machine tools. Automatic inspection systems. Quality control.

The main instruments to implement the programme are the R+D+I projects. There are two major types of projects: projects carried out by Universities and non profit Research Institutions and projects carried out by companies. There is one call per year, usually in November.

The evaluation procedure is made by la Agencia Nacional de Evaluacion y prospectiva (ANEP). The evaluacion process has two phases: an external one and a internal in the organization responsible for the call. The external phase is a peer review process caried out by ANEP. This agency sends each project to two experts for anonymous review.
The experts evaluate the scientific and technical quality of the proposal mainly. The second part of the evaluation is carried out by a panel composed of experts (most of them are external). The panel takes into account the previous evaluation and other factors such as number of projects to be funded in each project, the strategic value of the proposals, etc. The selection of proposals is made at this panel. In the case of the Innovation projects, the evaluation is carried out by a panels coordinated by the CDTI.