ERAWATCH International Monitoring and Analysis

Final Report Summary - ERAWATCH INT (ERAWATCH international monitoring and analysis)

Executive summary:

The project 'ERAWATCH international monitoring and analysis' was conceived to provide strategic intelligence and support to evidence-based policy making in the research field on a selection of non-European Union (EU) countries: four EU neighbourhood countries and nine strategically important third countries with which the European Commission (EC) already has or foresaw formal science and technology (S&T) agreements. The following 13 countries were covered: Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Egypt, Jordan, Mexico, Moldova, Morocco, New Zealand, South Africa and Ukraine.

The project thus aimed to contribute to the realisation of the international dimension of the European Research Area (ERA) by providing a better knowledge and understanding of national research systems of the selected important countries and of the environment in which they operate. Further to complementing the geographical coverage of the ERAWATCH information platform, ERAWATCH INT has extended the scope and analytical depth of the service through the development and maintenance of 'country fiches' and new specific templates representing S&T systems, analytical country reports and investigative policy briefs. The output of ERAWATCH International has been added to the existing online information on the ERAWATCH website hosted on the JRC portal at http://erawatch.jrc.ec.europa.eu/. The improved ERAWATCH information platform using the newly developed Integrated information management system (IIMS) had served for the input of all the information. The project complemented the main ERAWATCH project, a long term cooperative undertaking under directorate-general Research and technological development (DG-RTD) and the Joint research centre Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (JRC-IPTS).

Over its 21 month duration, the project has produced the following main deliverables:
- 13 country fiches (one for each the countries listed above);
- 52 specific templates (four per each country, covering important policy documents, organisations and programmes i.e. specific support measures);
- 5 ERAWATCH analytical country reports (Moldova, Mexico, Republic of Korea, South Africa and Ukraine); and
- 2 policy briefs:
i. report on S&T cooperation between Europe and the United States 9US);
ii. study identifying priority fields for research and innovation cooperation between the EU and India. All these documents are publicly available on the ERAWATCH website. In addition, a number of internal deliverables has been produced.

Project context and objectives:

ERAWATCH was conceived to provide a strategic intelligence service to support evidence-based policy making in the research field in Europe and to contribute to the realisation of the ERA by providing a better knowledge and understanding of national and regional research systems and of the environment in which they operate.

The ERAWATCH online service was opened to the public on Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS) on 9 October 2006 and it is currently hosted on the JRC portal at http://erawatch.jrc.ec.europa.eu/. The project ERAWATCH international monitoring and analysis was conceived as an integral part of the ERAWATCH, a long-term cooperative undertaking under DG RTD and the JRC-IPTS.

ERAWATCH originally covered the 27 Member States of the EU, countries associated to the European Community's Research Framework Programme (FP) and, for comparative purposes, a number of third countries. Country information and analysis is provided through an established network of country experts. ERAWATCH International has significantly extended the coverage of ERAWATCH, increasing the volume of information presented and the scope and depth of its analytical activities. This brings the current country coverage of ERAWATCH to 60 countries. The variety of evidence based and analytical information on countries' research systems and research and innovation environment, horizontal analysis of different aspects of research cooperation and different dimensions of the ERA are available to the general public on the ERAWATCH website.

Project results:

The main outcome of the project was to provide information and analysis on the research and innovation systems of selected third countries on the ERAWATCH information platform. These complement the coverage of the EU Member States, associated countries and other Third countries provided on ERAWATCH by related activities, through the ERAWATCH2 Administrative Arrangement between JRC-IPTS and DG RTD. ERAWATCH International, in particular, provided additional detailed coverage of the following countries: Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Egypt, Jordan, Mexico, Moldova, Morocco, New Zealand, South Africa and Ukraine. Country information was provided in collaboration with the ERAWATCH network of national experts, under a subcontract.

The country-based ERAWATCH research inventory is based on the coordinated collection of a range of information, providing a detailed overview of the policy context, and the structure and evolution of the research system for each country covered. This project covered the production and maintenance of information (country fiches and specific templates) for the following 13 third countries: Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Egypt, Jordan, Mexico, Moldova, Morocco, New Zealand, South Africa and Ukraine.

For each of the 13 countries, the country fiches produced describe the main elements of the national research and innovation system:

- key elements of the national research and innovation systems (institutional structure, specialisation structure and performance);
- the governance of research policies: distribution of competences, organisation of the policy cycle, stakeholder participation, policy coordination, role of evaluation and foresight and the role of research in the national policy agenda, in order to evaluate the capacity to adapt the policy mix; and
- the role and nature and dynamics of research and development (R&D) investment (both public and private);
- indicator table, giving key research relevant indicators.

In total, 52 specific templates (four per country) were produced on: key support measures, policy documents and organisations. These built on the consistent coverage hitherto achieved in the ERAWATCH research inventory:

- the research policy ?support measures? covered the most important research support programmes in the national policy mix particularly instruments which foster international S&T cooperation activities in the national policy mix;
- main research organisations, including the major institutional policy actors, including major universities; and
- main policy documents, particularly important reference documents.

Relevant existing information source templates for countries covered under previous research inventory contracts were also updated and maintained.

In addition to this factual and mainly descriptive information, a more analytical assessment for selected countries has been prepared in analytical country reports, initially for five countries, namely: Republic of Korea, Moldova, Mexico, South Africa and Ukraine.

The common structure used to prepare these reports has been based on the analytical framework and guidelines developed and tested by IPTS in 2007 and subsequently refined for all the subsequent annual editions of the ERAWATCH country reports (2008, 2009 and 2010) for EU Member States and countries associated to the FP. While not taking exactly the same approach as for Member State reports, the overall structure is sufficiently similar to enable comparison between EU Member State and third country activities.

These reports comprised two main elements:

- Overview of the national S&T policy and resources, analysing and assessing the performance of the national research and innovation system, as well as presenting recent and ongoing developments in the country's policy mix and governance. The reports include a description of the national research system, and provide an explanation of specificities and other policy drivers affecting the policy mixes in different countries.
- Assessment of the national policies which correspond to the ERA objectives and interactions, impacts and divergences of national policy mixes in each of the selected third countries in relation to the objectives and initiatives of the ERA including coverage of the internationalisation / globalisation of research.

As a part of the project JRC-IPTS produced two analytical policy notes. The general aim of these policy notes was to provide overviews and background information on specific policy-relevant subjects, in line with the main orientations of the ERA axis on the internationalisation of S&T.

The final topics of these two policy notes were decided in the course of the project, in close collaboration with DG RTD, and provided an input to support policy learning and to support specific policy discussions in the Strategic forum for international cooperation (SFIC).

Policy note 1: Report on S&T cooperation between Europe and US

While the US is one of the EU's most important industrial partners, information on the means and extent of S&T cooperation between Europe and the US is neither systematically nor readily available. Countries themselves often re-orientate their strategies and the internationalisation of their S&T policies according to emerging competitiveness and economic challenges. To obtain a better insight into current S&T cooperation between Europe and the US, a questionnaire was circulated to the delegates of the SFIC in 2010. This aimed to provide an overview of their S&T cooperation policies, dynamics, government strategies and related experiences of S&T cooperation with the US. Based on an analysis of the questionnaire responses, this report provides a short assessment of the status of public S&T cooperation. The analysis draws on 26 completed questionnaires covering 22 Member States and 4 countries associated with the FP7 (i.e. SFIC observer countries) and an additional questionnaire regarding the activities of the EC. As agreed by the SFIC Task Force on Priority Setting, this report presents a simple analysis of the data received, without introducing additional elements/analytical processes such as comparative analysis using input-output indicators or benchmarking. The report summarises the main findings with regard to S&T cooperation with the US from a comparative perspective. Where possible, it points to underlying reasons for successful practices in EU-US S&T cooperation in different thematic areas, especially in the field of energy research. Thus good practices, common objectives and open questions were identified, which, in turn, fed more focused discussions and the possible transnational coordination of certain internationalisation policies between SFIC members and observers and the US.

Policy Note 2: Study Identifying Priority Fields for Research and Innovation Cooperation between the EU and India

While India is one of the most important emerging research and innovation (R&I) cooperation partners of the EU, information on the means and extent of the S&T collaboration between the EU and India is neither systematically nor readily available. To obtain better insights into current practices and future potentials in collaborative R&I activities vis-à-vis India the JRC-IPTS was asked to provide an evidence based strategic analysis in order to consistently reflect the dynamics of recent collaborative R&I activities of the EU with India. Based on bibliometric analysis and investigation of the scattered related information, this report aims to provide a short assessment of the current status of collaborative research and innovation activities of the EU with India. As agreed this report presents a simple straight forward analysis of bibiliometric information including co-publication and co-patenting data along with the analysis of some mapping and assessment exercises, but without introducing any input-output indicators for particular MS or their benchmarking. The main findings regarding research and innovation cooperation with India are summarised in a comparative perspective. Where possible, the main partners in the EU and India, as well as in the US were identified as well as the key modalities and instruments of their bilateral collaborative activities. The underlying reasons for successful practices in the competitor US-India cooperation in the selected priority fields were also pursued. Current report thus aims at providing a strategic scientific analysis in order to support and facilitate a sustained progress of the European collaborative undertakings in the evidence based identified priority fields for research and innovation cooperation with India. Furthermore, it aims to identify good practices in cooperation with India, which may serve as incentives for a better targeted transnational coordination of certain internationalisation policies of the EU vis-à-vis India.

All country information and analytical reports are available on the ERAWATCH website at http://erawatch.jrc.ec.europa.eu/

In addition to these deliverables, a number of internal deliverables were produced under WP3 'Management'. These were centred on progress reporting, resource consumption and quality assurance issues. These were available only to DG RTD.

Potential impact:

Section A

ERAWATCH has been conceived to provide a comprehensive monitoring and analysis service for research policymakers at European, Member State and regional levels. Since its inception, ERAWATCH has been considered by DG RTD as a key instrument to enable the Commission to monitor and analyse research policy developments in the Member States. ERAWATCH International significantly extended the coverage of ERAWATCH, increasing the volume of information presented and the scope and depth of its analytical activities. In so doing, it has increased its audience, both strengthening the interest of the main target audience, and broadening its wider user community.

This section briefly describes the dissemination measures undertaken in the project demonstrating the added-value and positive impact of the project on the EU. The originally foreseen dissemination of deliverables in the project was a web-based dissemination. The updated ERAWATCH website includes not only the additional country pages (country fiches, specific templates, links and highlights) covering 13 additional third countries in its research inventory section, but also contains the five new analytical country reports and two analytical policy notes. The webpage format supports easy access via internet searches from outside. The reports are indexed using keywords to allow better information retrieval and for signposting the relevant sections on the website. The website contains short abstracts explaining the scope of each publication, which analytical and policy questions have been treated, and the main results of each report. Links to information provided by other related web services are provided and displayed regularly. Similarly, regular website visits statistics were monitored and the ways to increase the involvement of stakeholders has been further explored.

Section B:

This section briefly presents the basis for the exploitable foreground and the possibilities for exploitation of deliverables for the policy making.

Policy makers at European and at national levels remain the primary targeted users of ERAWATCH, including ERAWATCH International. The data and analyses provided by ERAWATCH International provide direct support to the activities of DG RTD in its cooperation with Third countries. ERAWATCH International also supported relevant ERAC and SFIC activities. The JRC-IPTS actively participated in the meetings of the SFIC and its task force priority setting and task force information sharing meetings. In addition to the analytical policy notes, the topics of which were proposed by DG RTD, which contributed to policy making vis-à-vis the US and India, the project also produced analytical country reports on selected third countries. Eventually and if agreed with DG RTD and SFIC, the international cooperation section of ERAWATCH country fiches for Member States and Associated States could be included in an information platform for the dissemination and sharing of information on cooperation between ERA countries and third countries as foreseen by the SFIC task force information sharing.

Project website: http://erawatch.jrc.ec.europa.eu

Final Report Summary - ERAWATCH INT (ERAWATCH international monitoring and analysis)

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