EU Framework Programme for European research and technological development : evidence / Select Committee on Science and Technology.
- Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords. Science and Technology Committee.
- Date:
- 1997
Licence: Open Government Licence
Credit: EU Framework Programme for European research and technological development : evidence / Select Committee on Science and Technology. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![6 November 1996 ] [ Continued process. It is then for the relevant Secretary of State to reallocate resources from elsewhere in his or her area of control, or to argue for net increases, to replace any portion of the baseline budget which has been attributed in this way. 8. Attribution is a budgetary discipline not a mechanical process. It does not lead automatically or necessarily to an equivalent reduction in domestic expenditure on RTD. The Science Budget, for example has grown continuously over the past 10 years, notwithstanding the substantial increase in the UK’s contribution to the EU’s RTD budget over the same period (see Appendix D, p.210). LESSONS TO BE LEARNED FROM THE FOURTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME (FP4) 9. FP4 and its specific programmes derive from a series of decisions taken by the Council (in co-decision or consultation with the Parliament) in the course of 1994. The first contracts under FP4 were let in 1995. As a result, although departments have a good deal of broadbrush experience of FP4 in its first 18 months, only limited conclusions can be drawn about the programme’s overall effectiveness at this stage. It is in the nature of these programmes that the process of evaluation is both iterative and long term. In forming a view on FPS, therefore, the Government needs to take into account evidence from a wide range of sources, including evaluations of earlier framework programmes and their components, emerging information on the progress of FP4, the Commission’s annual reports on European RTD, and feedback from participants and other interested parties. 10. In response to pressure from member States, particularly the UK, the Commission has put in place in FP4 a much more comprehensive range of procedures designed both to monitor the programme as it progresses and from time to time more explicitly to evaluate its outcomes as they emerge. 1996 monitoring reports 11. The first monitoring reports, written by independent monitoring panels, were completed in Spring 1996. A separate report was compiled for each of FP4’s specific programmes. An overview report was written to draw together the threads for the programme as a whole. Inevitably, given that they were looking only at the first year of the programme, the monitoring panels concentrated primarily on management issues such as the efficiency of the application and selection process and contract negotiation. They examined in particular the numbers and types of applications and projects selected. As FP4 progresses, the Government expects the monitoring panels to be able to focus more directly on results and their exploitation. 12. The 1996 monitoring reports showed that FP4 has got under way successfully and that it is being managed reasonably efficiently. Significant aspects of the management process were however felt to need improvement. In particular, panels commented on delays in processing applications, where the time between the closure of calls and the signing of contracts can be 12 months or more; insufficient transparency in the project evaluation process, including poor feedback to applicants; a very high rate of oversubscription, leading to a waste of resources, and the imposition by the Commission of excessive changes to successful proposals at the contract negotiation stage. Recommendations were made to address these. Partly in response to these conclusions, the Commission has recently set in hand a review of programme management processes to tackle these and similar problems. 13. The monitoring reports deal with the programme at a European level. They,do not seek to assess its impact on individual member States. Nor does the Commission make available statistical data on the participation of individual member States’ research teams in the programme as a whole. The UK is pressing the Commission to be more open in this respect but, as yet, without result. Departments, Research Councils and bodies such as the Commission’s Relay Centres and UKRHEEO (the United Kingdom Research and Higher Education European Office in Brussels) both promote the programmes and help UK researchers bid to participate. Departments, through these activities and through their involvement in programme management committees, are able to develop a broad impression of the UK’s involvement in FP4. This suggests that there is a high level of interest in the programme from UK researchers, who are keen to strengthen collaboration with academia and industry elsewhere in the EU, and a high level of UK participation. Estimates based on departments’ informal monitoring of their programmes suggest that in the main areas of the programme (the “first activity”), UK research teams are involved in over 75 per cent of all FP4 projects. And UK led projects are achieving consistently higher than average success rates overall—in some programmes they account for over 30 per cent of those selected—against very high levels of competition: on average only 20 per cent of all applications get funded. The UK appears to be participating particularly strongly in communications technologies, agriculture, medicine, biotechnology, marine science and technology, standards and measurement technology and targeted economic and social research.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32218734_0010.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
