Information about the respondent I am answering as: [individual, government body, university/ higher education, Commercial organization (less than 250 employees), commercial organization (more than 250 employees), association, other (please specify)] National Technology Platform Country of location [Austria, Belgium etc., EU level organization] Spain My/ my organization s main activity is [research, higher education, manufacturing, services, public administration, other (please specify)] It is an initiative developed by the Spanish Fisheries Sector, supported by the Science and Innovation Ministry in Spain and the Spanish Ministry of Environment, Rural and Marine issues. The name of my organization is [free text (optional)] Spanish Fisheries and Aquaculture Technology Platform I/ my organization have received funding from: [FP7, CIP, other EC programme (please specify), research/innovation support programme in my country] Spanish Innovation support programme Have you or do you intend to submit a separate written response to this consultation? [yes, no] NO Working together to deliver on Europe 2020 The questions in this section correspond to Section 4.1 of the Green Paper. 1. How should the Common Strategic Framework make EU research and innovation funding more attractive and easy to access for participants? What is needed in addition to a single entry point with common IT tools, a one stop shop for support, a streamlined set of funding instruments covering the full innovation chain and further steps towards administrative simplification? The development of a Common Strategic Framework is a good initiative, in order to overcome the actual situation with the co-existence of various programs that leads to duplicities, inefficiencies and loopholes. In any case what is important is the final result of the reform, and if the future rules allow for a real simplification of all the process, as well as enough flexibility for the different actors and SMEs, when choosing the subject of their research work and Innovation activities. Better coordination with Member State correspondent agency. This agency must systematically and clearly make the potentially interested organizations aware of the different opportunities. In the environment of SME s the level of participation would be more attractive: 1
Clear roadmaps to facilitate proposals submission. Simplification of administrative procedures Transparency criteria and evaluation mechanisms at different stages of the procedure. Unified and simplified set of Specific funding instruments should be available for important target groups, such as SMEs. Besides a distinction between micropymes and pymes should be taken into account due to they have more difficulty in participating, and the support should be higher. The actual system requires a very important structural effort and administrative burden that many SME specially the smaller ones cannot afford. Another aspect that needs to be improved is the excessive time frame to get the granting and to receive the payment of the aids that should be substantially reduced if we want to attract many SMEs that are now reluctant to use the actual instruments. Open calls could help very much on that respect. Simplification should take place in the pre-proposal and proposal stages as well as after project approval also considering the limited human support of SME s. Ex-post evaluations should inform future funding policies. Instruments to support the implementation of research results, including a better overview and measures to promote technology transfer into a wide industrial community. Within the strategic targets, more room shall be given for bottom-up initiatives to set temporary priorities along strategic plans, to define specific topics for periodic calls and to come up with own ideas to achieve the objectives defined in the calls. to very important 2 How should EU funding best cover the full innovation cycle from research to market uptake? - The definition of innovation should include items that do not necessarily have to be focused on the market to meet the full cycle of innovation. It must also consider other aspects, such as promoting the skills of technical and scientific personnel, support of basic research and social aspects to make understand at EU Society (citizens, industries, public sector) the need of increased spending, both public and private, in the research and innovation activities. There are projects involving pre-commercial technologies that just need a little help to make them happen. Others, involving true R&D need a more important support. Following of project results and it implementation in each sector it is key to measure the market implementation and the useful of them. Research, innovation and market all have different patterns and time span and for this reason must be supported through different instruments which are flexible enough and adapted to every situation. An efficient way to transform the basic investigation into innovation and after introduce it into the market should be to promote the transfer of information between the program managers that support the R&Di. Better European programs coordination 2
should enhance that all the innovative ideas come to the market and all the basic investigation could be used as a coherent way by the research centers oriented to the market. - The SME participation should also be promoted and also the creation of consortia between research centers and SMEs to develop all the stages of an idea. The funding should cover all the cycle of the project knowing in advance the total support. Besides it could be necessary to support higher the market oriented projects and those that have strong social impact and solve the current problems. - The technology transfer and the communication among scientific to avoid overleaps and promote synergies should also be promoted. The OPEN INNOVATION could be a good tool to reach those objectives. - On the other hand, not all the research and innovation work is directed to the procurement of new products and services, and even when it does, many individual projects are focused only in one or two of the necessary steps of the innovation cycle. It is important to have that in mind when defining the topics that on some occasions are too vague and others too precisely directed, leaving too much room in the middle. - The process for the definition of the concrete topics should be more transparent and flexible than the actual KBBE's of the FP7 Seventh Framework Program is, and it should be quickly adaptable to sector initiatives and demands, especially when there is a specific support from the relevant Technology Platforms. to very important 3 What are the characteristics of EU funding that maximize the benefit of acting at the EU level? Should there be a strong emphasis on leveraging other sources of funding? - If you put too much emphasis on the use of other sources of funding, it may disadvantage those countries that have no national or regional funds for research and comparative grievances would arise because of different national policies to fund the research and innovation. To count with additional national founds, or coincidence with national R&D programs, can be considered in the evaluation. In this case the timetable of the calls may coincide. On the other hand we agree on the positive influence to encourage international collaboration projects, that it is an excellent tool to promote knowledge transfer, avoiding repetition of works, increasing efficiency and lowering costs of research and innovation activities. - Mostly the SMEs could dedicate to research and innovation with the help of public subsidies, without them the framework would be difficult. It is important to underline the associations, and organizations who represent those SMEs that the directly do not receive any benefit of promoting R&Di, will be the partners who take advantage of the R&D developments promoted by those associations. 3
- It is contradictory to speak, as the green book does, of the necessity to extend and promote research innovation and implementation work in the EU, and at the same time suggest that the European funds should be restricted, owning to the constrained budgets, and therefore be linked only to specific EU's policy objectives. - The idea of having a strong emphasis on leveraging other sources of funding, goes on the same direction, and even it could be suitable in specific circumstances, must be kept as optional, and taking into account the eventual added administrative complexity that it may imply. - It is very important to Increase opportunities for cooperation between Member States, taking advantage of previous structures such as ERA-NET s. to very important 4 How should EU research and innovation funding be used to pool Member States' research and innovation resources? Should Joint Programming Initiatives between groups of Member States be supported? - Enhance the cooperation of excellence research centers that hire the most relevant scientist of each sector of each member state. On the other hand, to coordinate the regional and national research programs with the EU ones could improve the coherence among them. - As before it is very important to increase opportunities for cooperation between Member States, taking advantage of previous structures such as ERA-NET s. In this case, cooperation projects (as in the EUROSTAR projects) can be funded by EU and National funding. - Budget for JPI consortium should be limited and conditioned to open the participation of others researchers that no belong to this consortium, in the evaluation of its first steps results. On the other hand in our opinion the industry may drive the investigation, so if JPI are supported the industry should have an important role on them. - Yes, but only in specific circumstances. to very important 5 What should be the balance between smaller, targeted projects and larger, strategic ones? - The size is not a critical factor in determining the interest and their impact of a project and although all types of project have their advantages and disadvantages. 4
- Small and medium scale targeted projects have the advantage of involving more small organizations, especially SMEs and public and private research entities than large project. SMEs often have difficulty to take part in large projects as there are no skilled personnel to meet the sometimes arduous paperwork required for larger projects. Tools to help these organizations to participate in large projects and simple administrative procedures must be provided. Large project as have management difficulties and involve more entities should have more close following of the EU to ensure that the resources are properly executed. - In most of cases SMEs cannot assume the economic risk of big consortia and too large projects. Small projects are more accessible In general the Project depends on the program, if this is well defined and the objectives could be obtained in short term, the project could get success. But if is not possible to obtain short term results, obviously the project should be defined as long term. - Both programs that support big or small projects are necessary, the first ones for strong impact issues and the second ones for specific sectorial problems that also must be solved. -There should be room enough for all. A more real flexibility is needed in respect to the number of countries participating in a specific project, especially for small and medium sized projects. Most of the projects have to be small (up to 5 million ). Only in very justified cases, large projects have to be approved. It does not make sense that in many calls 50 % of funds go to 10% of projects. In addition, the core entities in these large projects come from a very limited number of participants. to very important 6 How could the Commission ensure the balance between a unique set of rules allowing for radical simplification and the necessity to keep a certain degree of flexibility and diversity to achieve objectives of different instruments, and respond to the needs of different beneficiaries, in particular SMEs? - The simplification of the rules should not impair the flexibility of them, as long as they are clear and easily legibly. The possibility of different interpretations of standards, terminology, ambiguous or unclear definitions should be avoided. - We support simplification and flexibility of management but strong revision of the project issues implementation. - A unique set of rules is always desirable, but simplification of the system and flexibility is still more important and should not be sacrificed to that end. 5
- Consistent implementation of the rules is vital. Issues of variations in interpretation should be addressed, as well as genuine differences in procedures, rules, terminology and definitions. 7. What should be the measures of success for EU research and innovation funding? Which performance indicators could be used? - It is not easy to have a single measurement of a project success given the different nature and variety of them. The Commission could meet an expert team to make a definition of the different standards and set their indicators in accordance with the characteristics of the projects. But, depending on the nature of the project, indicators should be different. A project involving pre-commercial technologies could be measured in function of number of items deployed; a pure R&D project should be measured by the technical functionality of the solution. A clear way is to define in the calls the targets of each topic, to evaluate projects accordingly, and to release subvention accordingly to fulfilment of targets. - The premise should be that the Project results should come to the market and have a social and economic impact. After that the number of entities involved, the technology transfer efficiency and the patents generation should be considered. Specific technology transfer programs should enhance the synergies and avoid funding overleaping. - In R&I works success is almost newer granted, so it seems difficult to have an unique success measuring tool for the different cases. Having new groups entering in the future programs and specially attracting the SMEs to use them, that would be a good measure of success and performance. - Indicators for measuring scientific excellence shall be focused on basic and frontier research - Indicators for innovation or technology transfer projects shall focus more on the market impact. 8. How should EU research and innovation funding relate to regional and national funding? How should this funding complement funds from the future Cohesion policy, designed to help the less developed regions of the EU, and the rural development funds? 6
- By adding positive evaluation when national or regional founds are supporting too to participants. Or at less, by adding positive evaluation when projects are matching with EU and national / regional programs. A good coordination is desirable. - Due to the large amount of available funding instruments, they should be rationalized to avoid unnecessary duplication in terms of strategic objectives, scope and target group. - Encourage fiscal incentives policies. Of some importance Tackling Societal Challenges The questions in this section correspond to Section 4.2 of the Green Paper. 9. How should a stronger focus on societal challenges affect the balance between curiosity-driven research and agenda-driven activities? - The activities which carry the most weight should be those based on the agenda, but without forgetting the curiosity driven activities, which often are an excellent source of creativity and innovation. A good way to explore would be to link both concepts. Priority should be given to the advantage of the European industry and a better competitiveness. As much freedom as possible to select the concrete matter for a project is something desirable. 10. Should there be more room for bottom-up activities? -It always will be positive, since they are the most objective way to know the impact and the influence on civil society and other institutions involved or not in research and innovation activities. -Yes, the role of Regional, National and European Technology Platforms (ETPs), should be enhanced and reckoned in such a way that they can help in the definition in the relevant priorities for each sector industrial sector. -Bottom-up activities allow new Member States, SMEs and countries with smaller or lessdeveloped research bases to engage in and benefit from trans-national co-operative research, in a manner complementary to top-down, programmatic approaches which will build capacity in specific areas of importance. 7
Of some importance 11. How should EU research and innovation funding best support policy-making and forward-looking activities? -The research and innovation activities supported by the EU should have as the principal objective the development of a smart and sustainable society, and competitive at the same time. With an education and employment policy in the environment of a modern society this could be possible. -It is of great interest that the review of the obtained results at the different projects, as well as their impact, would be one more tool to design and formulate the politics and prospective activities. 12. How should the role of the Commission's Joint Research Centre be improved in supporting policy-making and forward-looking activities? -By consolidating feed-back and results. -In this case, Technologic Platforms play a very important role, as they recollect in some way the corporate interests as well as the ones of scientific community. However, it is necessary a proper coordination between national and European platforms, in order to collect all interest to reflect it in a proper way. 13. How could EU research and innovation activities attract greater interest and involvement of citizens and civil society? -Information and dissemination activities are essential to achieve this goal and they should be financed and provided as an integral part of research and innovation projects. Furthermore, these dissemination activities should not only address the scientific and technological world but also to the whole civil society. Additional actions might be necessary, such as translating the results of the projects into several languages using comprehensible expressions and vocabulary and a wider variety of media (TV, press), even exposing the more relevant results in University subjets and educational programs, etc. -The communication of EU research results and their impact could be explicitly included in the work programme of any activities which are benefiting from EU funding, such as ERA-NETs, InterReg programmes etc 8
Strengthening competitiveness The questions in this section correspond to Section 4.3 of the Green Paper. 14. How should EU funding best take account of the broad nature of innovation, including non-technological innovation, eco-innovation and social innovation? -By a proper classification and identification of such features in each case. -Technology oriented research projects, especially smaller targeted research projects often focus very much on technical aspects in a certain sector, although it is well known that synergies may be exploited in the cooperation with other sectors and that non-technological factors may very well play a decisive role in market and customer acceptance. 15. How should industrial participation in EU research and innovation programmes be strengthened? How should Joint Technology Initiatives (such as those launched in the current Framework Programmes) or different forms of 'public private partnership' be supported? What should be the role of European Technology Platforms? -Gathering of proposals directly from private entities and consolidating them into specific projects. -In our opinion the European Technology Platform should collect the industrial point of view and transmit together in a clear and with one voice to the EU. They play a very important role into the industry in order to gather opinions, solutions, ideas that can be implemented in the entire sector. They also may be used to improve and promote the technology transfer that comes from RID projects. -To strengthen the participation of industry is undoubtedly necessary to simplify the process and promote the mandatory inclusion of business partners in the consortia, forcing that all the research programs of SME participation should be compulsory, establishing and setting a minimum of participation for this specific instruments Programs that follow the current model (as Capacities) are desirable, as it seeks to strengthen the innovation capacity of SMEs in Europe and facilitate their contribution to the development of technology associated with new products and markets. The program provides an opportunity for SMEs to outsource research and thus increase their research efforts, extends their networks, better exploits research results and to acquire technological knowhow, bridging the gap between research and innovation. The platforms should strengthen its role to combine research with the real needs of the companies. to very important 9
16. How and what types of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) should be supported at EU level; how should this complement national and regional level schemes? What kind of measures should be taken to decisively facilitate the participation of SMEs in EU research and innovation programmes? -Those proposing forward-oriented projects on pre-commercial technologies. -The support to SMEs at European level should be focused on those that present requirements such as participation in research projects with public funding or not (not just participation in European projects, which find it difficult to access or large projects, to which certainly could not stand), they have improved their economic and social situation because of this dedication, and those newly formed companies with a primary goal-oriented research and innovation issues in their sector. - There should be an urgent need to reduce the time between research and practical application. 17 How should open, light and fast implementation schemes (e.g. building on the current FET actions and CIP eco-innovation market replication projects) be designed to allow flexible exploration and commercialization of novel ideas, in particular by SMEs? -There should be the possibility of an easily accessible amount of project funding to facilitate commercialization of activities from EU projects. This should be a supplementary support with a rolling deadline and a short evaluation time to allow for a fast reaction to the exploitation of novel ideas from research. 18. How should EU-level financial instruments (equity and debt based) be used more extensively? Depending of the nature of the project 19. Should new approaches to supporting research and innovation be introduced, in particular through public procurement, including through rules on pre-commercial procurement, and/or inducement prizes? -Specific support to commercialization and to implement the result obtained if they are relevant. -Public procurement can help significantly to demonstrate the feasibility and benefits of new technologies and to create confidence in the market. 10
20. How should intellectual property rules governing EU funding strike the right balance between competitiveness aspects and the need for access to and dissemination of scientific results? -Dissemination activities are a key. Each scientific result must have a clear owner before disclosure. The figure of owner must be clearly defined. -The Access to Project results should be total and simple (not only to summaries) without creating a conflict with the intellectual property protection. Strengthening Europe's science base and the European Research Area The questions in this section correspond to Section 4.4 of the Green Paper. 21 How should the role of the European Research Council be strengthened in supporting world class excellence? For example, through a labelling scheme Of some importance 22 How should EU support assist Member States in building up excellence? By establishing a set of recommended practices and a labelling scheme Of some importance 23. How should the role of Marie Curie Actions be strengthened in promoting researcher mobility and developing attractive careers? Reasonable compensation, clear missions & objectives, adequate assignment of centers, establishment of a kind of research career ladder 24. What actions should be taken at EU level to further strengthen the role of women in science and innovation? 11
Same as for other jobs Doc.: Consultation: Green Paper on a Common Strategic 25. How should research infrastructures (including EU-wide e-infrastructures) be supported at EU level? -By a clear, upfront definition of objectives. -The provision of infrastructure, its maintenance and access to it are all keys to building research excellence in Europe research. -The creation and publication of European research facilities and resources, which allow an easy and transparent access by the industry. 26. How should international cooperation with non-eu countries be supported e.g. in terms of priority areas of strategic interest, instruments, reciprocity (including on IPR aspects) or cooperation with Member States? -Clear identification of what strategic interests we have. Depends on the issue but the gross of the funding should go to the EU Member States. -Already the current FP7 is opting for cooperation with countries outside the EU, and in many programs it is a requirement to submit a proposal. However, this cooperation is complicated, because the policies and programs in these countries are very different, including they have a different philosophy to tackle the challenges of research and innovation. In this respect it would be essential to take some specific cooperation programs consistent with the policies of each country, but also consistent with a common policy. It would be interesting to establish programs of cooperation with different countries in accordance with strategic interests. In this sense it may be of interest to promote specific programs with countries like the United States to supplement resources in certain areas, achieving excellence for a common purpose. -In all cases, there must be a clear rationale for the engagement, especially when a portion of the funding for research activities will come from a third country. 27 Which key issues and obstacles concerning the ERA should EU funding instruments seek to overcome, and which should be addressed by other (e.g. legislative) measures? 12
Compensation, recognition, technical means should be a matter of EU funding. Facilitation of mobility should be a matter of common EU legislation Closing questions Are there any other ideas of comments which you believe are important for future EU research and innovation funding and are not covered in the Green Paper? In case of innovative developments come, for example in fishing boat, the regulation to implement that should be lively and quick, in other case there is no incentive and possibility to commercialize the developments or project results. 13