- Email: [email protected]
Evolving frameworks for European collaboration in research and technology
Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
Evolving frameworks for European collaboration in research and technology Luke Georghiou∗ Policy Research in Engineering, Science and Technology (PREST), University of Manchester, Oxford Rd, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
Abstract The evolution of the inter-relationship between the European Union’s Framework Programme, the EUREKA initiative and COST is examined. It is concluded that the rationales acquired through their historical origins and development have been overtaken by changing circumstances. In turn this has affected the division of labour and modes of co-existence between the initiatives. Using the conclusions of recent strategic reviews, and in the light of the European research area concept, a framework for European research policy driven by co-ordination is proposed which combines the strengths of the existing schemes but sets them in the context of a broader European innovation policy. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Europe; Research; Innovation; Policy; Co-ordination
1. Introduction In early 2000, the newly incumbent Commissioner for Research in the European Union (EU) launched a challenging policy document, Towards a European research area (CEC, 2000), which called into question Europe’s ability to achieve the transition to a knowledge-based economy and which linked this underachievement to the lack of a coherent European policy on research. In particular, national research policies of the EU’s member states and those at the EU level were said to “overlap without forming a coherent whole” (CEC, 2000 p. 7). With the prospective enlargement of the EU from the present 15 members to between 25 and 30, present structures for collaboration were seen as inoperable under the new conditions. The proposed solution, the creation of a “European research area” has many dimensions.
Among these is a call for closer relations between European organisations for scientific and technological co-operation as a means of making more coherent use of public instruments and resources. For several decades, researchers in Europe have experienced the co-existence of multiple frameworks for international co-operation in science and technology. Some of these are driven by the need to share the cost of large-scale scientific facilities (for example CERN, the European Southern Observatory and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility), while the European Space Agency has a clear mission-orientation in its domain. In this paper, the focus will be upon the three frameworks which provide support for co-operation in research between existing universities, laboratories and firms across a wide range of fields and sectors, these being: the EU’s Framework Programme, the intergovernmental EUREKA Initiative 1 and COST
∗ Tel.: +44-161-275-5921; fax: +44-161-273-1123; URL: http://les.man.ac.uk/PREST/. E-mail address: [email protected] (L. Georghiou).
1 EUREKA is not an acronym but its name was originally related to the concept of a European Research Co-ordination Agency.
0048-7333/01/$ – see front matter © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 0 4 8 - 7 3 3 3 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 1 6 3 - 3
892
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
(European Co-operation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research). In particular it will be concerned with the relationships between them. The principal hypothesis is that, while the schemes were founded with rationales that supported their separate existence, changing conditions in Europe generally, changes in the specific environment for innovation policy, and in the scope of the Framework Programme have combined to create a situation in which their original division of labour and modes of coexistence have become unsustainable. A case is made for a new integrated framework and rationale to take forward this aspect of the European research area. The argument is approached first by reviewing briefly the origins and development of the EU Framework Programme, EUREKA and COST. Recent reviews are used as the main evidence base. Their inter-relationship is then discussed. In the following section some of the key features of the changing landscape in which they operate are sketched out, in particular the consequences of globalisation of industry, of recent trends in national innovation policies, and of the enlargement of European institutions to include Central and Eastern European countries. In the light of these changes, some elements of a new framework for European co-operation are proposed. 2. Establishment of a rationale for European co-operation 2.1. The research and technological development programmes of the European union One reason to re-visit the origins of co-operative research in the European Community (which long pre-dates the Framework Programmes) is that several of the initial policy instruments used have survived to the present. These include the formulation of multi-annual programmes and their execution either ‘directly’ through the Commission’s own laboratories, the Joint Research Centre or ‘indirectly’ through research funding to institutions in Member States. Following from the 1951 Treaty of Paris, the earliest action established the European Coal and Steel Community. Article 55 provided the power to support technical and economic research related to the production of steel and coal and occupational health in those
industries, and to improve contacts among research organisations in pursuit of the above objectives. The Treaty of Rome in 1957 which established the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC) broadened and deepened the Community involvement in research, providing both for promotion and facilitation of nuclear research in Member States and for the Community to carry out its own research and training programme. The lack of success of the EAEC is well-documented. Perceived commercial rivalries in an era of national champions are among the causes of its failure (Williams, 1973). It was not until the 1970s that industrial policy became an area of activity for the Community and the RTD became linked with such policy. In 1967, following the Merger Treaty, a Directorate-General for Industrial Affairs was created within the unified Commission but according to Guzzetti, its aims were not clearly defined (Guzzetti, 1996). However, pressure towards creation of the single market and further economic integration created a new momentum in the 1970s. From a research perspective, a key moment was the adoption by the Council in January 1974 of four resolutions in the field of science and technology. These had been proposed by the Commission following a request made at the summit of Heads of State and Government, 2 years before. These concerned: • The co-ordination of national science and technology policies. • The participation of the Community in the European Science Foundation. • An action programme in the field of science and technology. • An action programme on forecasting, assessment and methodology. By 1977, programmes were underway in nuclear fusion, biology and radiation protection, applied metrology and Community Bureau of Reference, coal and steel, energy conservation, new sources of energy, plutonium recycling and storage of radioactive waste. But, as Kastrinos points out, the high profile links with industrial policy envisaged by the Commission were far from materialising (Kastrinos, 1997). In 1979 Community spending on industrial technologies was 9.7% of its R&D budget, half of which was associated with the long-running support for the coal and steel sectors.
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
The first important step towards the transition to a rationale based upon support for industrial competitiveness followed the appointment of Viscount Davignon (a Belgian with considerable industrial experience) as the Commissioner responsible for the internal market and industrial affairs from 1977 to 1981 and for both industry and science and technology from 1981 to 1985. External pressure provided the catalyst for action. This came in the form of rapid technological and market advances by the Japanese information technology industry which posed a threat to a European electronics sector largely based upon the “national champions” model. In 1980, the Commission convened a meeting of senior managers from 10 companies to discuss the future of the European information technology industry. This in turn led to the establishment of a Round Table, now of 12 large companies, at the end of 1981, supported by a body within the Commission, the Information Technologies Task Force. The Round Table strongly endorsed the Commission’s concerns for their sector and brought pressure upon their national governments to support the launch of the pilot phase of the ESPRIT programme (a collaborative R&D initiative in the field of information technology). This became the archetype for future industrially-oriented programmes 2 of the EU. Several features of the early stage of ESPRIT were replicated for all industrial involvement in the Framework Programmes. These included the basic “pre-competitive” or “pre-normative” rationale whereby companies would co-operate only in research which was sufficiently far from the market that they would be free to compete with their erstwhile partners at a subsequent stage. This rationale derived from a perception (largely inaccurate) of the significance of the participation of Japanese firms in schemes sponsored by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. 3 It had the attraction of satisfying conservatively-minded governments that there was 2 The structure of ESPRIT was almost duplicated in a contemporary national initiative of a comparable scale, the United Kingdom’s Alvey Programme for Advanced Information Technology. However, as a national initiative, this lacked, of course, the European dimension. 3 In fact Japanese firms strongly dislike working with competitors and tend to carry out only non-competitive research within the frame of public initiatives unless there is very strong pressure from government (see Ray and Buisseret, 1995).
893
less interference with the market, and for the same reason made clear its compatibility with competition and State Aids provisions of the EEC Treaty. The remaining foundations for the development of EU research policy came with the formation of the Framework Programme. The First Framework Programme (1984–1987) arose in response to a situation where individual R&D activities were uncoordinated and required a large number of Council decisions. The Framework would stress the interaction of the component programme elements. In fact, the First Framework Programme pre-dated the authority to allocate finance, and hence was more a presentational exercise based upon the aggregation of separate budgets, but the mould for the future was cast. Also dating from this period is the formal expression of the policy rationale for the Community action in the field of research and technological co-operation. This was contained within the “Reisenhuber criteria” (named after the then German research minister). In essence these argued that support should come where the scale or cost of co-operation was beyond that affordable by a single country, where complementarily in national work could achieve results for the whole Community, and where research contributes to development of the common market, laws and standards, or to the unification of European science and technology. In 1987 “cohesion”, meaning reduction of regional (or national) disparities in the Community, was added to the initial criteria. These criteria formed the basis for the principle of subsidiary and, at least in principle, mark the delineation between national and the Community level policy. It was with the passing of the Single European Act (SEA) in 1987 that EU policy in research and technological development was fully established. The overall objective was to strengthen the scientific and technological basis of industry and thus lead to increased global competitiveness of European Community countries. In addition, an important provision was that European Community RTD policy should be co-ordinated with all other European Community policies concerned with the general well being of citizens and the overall Community goals of co-operation. The basic tenet of EU RTD policy is the promotion of co-operation. Article 130f of the Single European Act established that the policy would be implemented via a Framework Programme, a set of
894
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
activities in RTD involving specific programmes in certain specified fields running over a few years. The 1992 Treaty on European Union (Maastricht Treaty) continued with the ideas of co-ordination and co-operation, and strengthened the Framework Programmes by making them the umbrella for all RTD actions of the Community. In addition, Community RTD policies could be directed to other areas of the Community interest, such as energy, transport etc. and not be restricted to the overall goal of strengthening the scientific and technological bases of industry. In practice, the Framework Programme has always consisted of a broad range of sub-programmes ranging from support for basic research in all but name through to near-market development-oriented activity. The Amsterdam Treaty of 1997 did not change the rationale for research but its ratification allowed the Framework Programme to be adopted by a qualified majority vote in the Council of Ministers rather than with the previous requirement for unanimity. This last condition has in the past been used as an instrument for single countries to make demands upon the rest in matters going well beyond research. Most recently, without any change in the legal basis, the design of the Fifth Framework Programme has been underpinned by an extended rationale which emphasises social objectives. The criteria by which sub-programmes are defined and projects selected are: • Criteria related to economic development and scientific and technological prospects. • Criteria related to the Community ‘value-added’ and the subsidiary principle. • Criteria related to social objectives. 4 The first of these represents the established domain of activity. The second provides a more explicit statement of the circumstances under which it is appropriate to support research at a European level (as opposed to national or regional). This encompasses the need to establish a critical mass in human or financial terms through combination of resources in Member States, 4 Criteria listed in Annex 1 of the Decision No./98/EC of the European Parliament and the Council concerning to the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Community for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration Activities (1998– 2002) — Joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee provided for in Article 189(b)(4) of the EC Treaty, 25 November 1998.
contribution to the Community policies and addressing problems which arise at the Community level. Social objectives are defined as improving the employment situation, promoting the quality of life and health and preserving the environment “in order to further major social objectives of the Community reflecting the expectations of its citizens”. This has led the Fifth Framework Programme to be described as a social contract. The evaluation Community is already debating how achievement of such objectives could be assessed, for example citing employment objectives may create excessive expectations towards an objective that is affected far more directly by policies other than R&D support (Airaghi et al., 1999). The emergence of this emphasis on social objectives is documented in more detail in a work which is sometimes described as the ideology of the Fifth Framework Programme and bears a title which deliberately paraphrases Vannevar Bush: “Society, the endless frontier” (Caracostas and Muldur, 1997). This book, in common with other analyses from the Commission, endorses the idea of the ‘European Paradox’, whereby European scientific performance in relation to investment in science is excellent but technological and commercial performance has steadily worsened since the mid 1980s. This analysis raises more questions than it answers — does technological success come from ‘conversion’ of scientific results? Is the excellence in science in exploitable areas? Does the same picture hold across different industrial sectors and Member States? These will not be addressed here but the debate highlights a key feature of the EU’s policies, namely that a vastly greater effort in financial and logistic terms is expended in support for collaborative research than for other activities to promote innovation. From 1989 to 1994, the Commission’s Strategic Programme for Innovation and Technology Transfer (SPRINT) was outside the Framework Programme. Its successor, the Innovation Programme, though within the Fourth Framework Programme, was relatively small (the entire budget for dissemination and exploitation of results was 2.7% of the total Framework Programme). Even after allowing for those parts of the Framework Programme which exist to promote science rather than industrially relevant research, the imbalance is striking. This perhaps explains why so much of the innovation policy debate has concerned the means by which research
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
results may be ‘valorised’ (commercialised/exploited) rather than the more fundamental question of what else might be wrong in European innovation systems. The lack of sufficient actions in support of innovation has been recognised, not least by the Commission itself which produced a cogent analysis of the situation in its Green Paper on Innovation (CEC, 1995). Following widespread consultation, this was followed by the First Action Plan for Innovation. The Action Plan is more limited in scope because it concentrates upon actions which could be launched rapidly at the Community level, together with some suggestions for Member States. The disparity between diagnosis and cure illustrates the Commission’s problem — innovation policy remains firmly in the hands of Member States. In many respects this is desirable, in the sense that local delivery is generally thought to be necessary to reach small firms in particular, but there is also a potentially important role for co-ordination at a European level, particularly where regulatory frame conditions are concerned. To some extent, the Commission is experiencing the classic problem of governmental bodies (notably science ministries) which have the dual objective of sponsoring activity and promoting co-ordination: the more active that body is as a sponsor, the more suspicious do other actors (in this case Member States) become that it is pursuing its own agenda rather than acting as a referee (or coach). Furthermore, as Peterson and Sharp point out, the challenge is not only to co-ordinate with Member States but also with other parts of the Commission responsible for regulation and standards (Peterson and Sharp, 1998).
2.2. EUREKA Dissatisfaction with the European Commission’s R&D support and with the failure of earlier mission-oriented intergovernmental high technology projects conditioned the foundation of the EUREKA Initiative (Peterson, 1993). Catalysed by somewhat misplaced fears on the part of the French government of the ability of the US Strategic Defence Initiative to cream off the elite of European researchers and firms, EUREKA eventually emerged as an intergovernmental, ‘industry-led’ initiative with a membership extending well beyond the EC to include the then EFTA states
895
and Turkey. In the1990s, EUREKA has extended further to include Russia and Central and Eastern Europe. The foundation of EUREKA was greeted with fury by some commentators who saw it as a means to thwart the plans of the then research Commissioner Karl Heinz Narjes to extend the Commission’s ambit into the industrial arena through the launch of a ‘European Technological Community’ (Narjes, 1985). A typical expression was: “. . . at best EUREKA will be a distraction from the European Technological Community and a dispersal of effort. And at worst EUREKA will not be a complement to the Community but a substitute for it, spawning cartels of large European companies grown flabby on public money and motivated mainly by malice against IBM and envy of Star Wars” (Duff, 1986 p. 57). The same author then concluded that the European Commission had reluctantly adopted a policy of accommodating EUREKA by dovetailing it as closely as possible to the Community policy. The “Hannover Declaration” by ministers which established EUREKA (and which remains its defining statement of scope and objectives) pledged it to support the competitiveness and productivity of European industry through high technology. The positioning of EUREKA has always been understood to be nearer to the market than the Framework Programme, though there is some overlap. Its style is ‘bottom–up’ and (relatively) non-bureaucratic with a very small secretariat. In principle, EUREKA only ‘labels’ co-operative projects, 5 with any funding being optional on the part of national administrations, 6 and often coming on the back of a variety of national programmes. As it got underway, EUREKA emerged with two, or debatably, three modalities of operation. A suite of large ‘strategic’ projects commanded very large budgets and aimed to structure entire sectors. By contrast, ‘standard’ projects were targeted to the needs only of their participants and 5 ‘Labelling’ describes the process by which projects apply and are given permission to use the EUREKA name. 6 This has led to one of the most criticised features of EUREKA, the lack of synchronisation of funding, whereby one partner may receive the go-ahead from its own government but the project is delayed while other partners go through their own, sometimes tortuous, application processes.
896
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
could have budgets as low as a million ECU or less (though some were much larger). Standard projects were sometimes loosely clustered into ‘umbrella’ projects which have their own administration, largely dedicated to generating further projects. EUREKA has generally been reported by its evaluations to have worked well, at least at the project level (Georghiou et al., 1997). While industry has complained about the quantity and delivery of public funding, it has generally expressed approval for the mechanism by which EUREKA operates. Characteristics which are particularly appreciated include the flexibility to change the direction of work, ‘variable geometry’ 7 in choice of partners, strong and controllable IPR and confidentiality protection, a low administrative burden and a clear position with respect to competition law. With the exception of the last of these items, this list could be seen by some as the antithesis of the Framework Programme. This remark should not be seen as reflecting negatively upon the Framework Programme. It is inevitable that a programme with a commitment to workplans based upon a degree of collective ambition, cohesion between its members, promotion of sharing of knowledge among participants in return for higher financial inputs, and a full project appraisal and contracting system, could not also match EUREKA on the above criteria. It also serves to underline the weakness of EUREKA relative to the EU Programme in the delivery of public funding. The single approval mechanism in the latter case has as its counterpart in EUREKA a system in which partners commonly receive decisions on their applications to their respective governments several months apart. The quantity, criteria and terms for any support received will almost certainly be different. The history of EUREKA in the 1990s has been somewhat paradoxical. Despite the positive evaluations mentioned above, the Initiative has seen large and accelerating changes in its composition, mostly of a negative nature. Driven mainly by a decline in the national budgets for R&D support upon which it 7 The term ‘variable geometry’ is in common usage in the realm of European co-operation. It refers euphemistically to a situation in which countries participate in actions on an a` la carte basis with a lack of any obligation to include partners from a particular country for reasons of political or financial equity.
depended and in the personnel in national agencies available to stimulate projects (always a small number, a total of around 150 in all Member States), EUREKA has seen a dramatic fall on several indicators. Between 1993 and 1998, the number of large firms taking part fell by 49%, public funding by 44% and the total cost of the portfolio of projects by 32%. New projects are much shorter and smaller. The only positive indicator is a 69% increase in the number of small firms taking part. In the face of these changes and a recognition that the broader environment for R&D in Europe had also changed since the foundation of EUREKA, the Lisbon Ministerial Conference 8 in 1998 mandated an independent panel to undertake a strategic review of the initiative to present options for the future. The review reported in March 1999 (Georghiou et al., 1999). 2.3. COST COST (European Co-operation in the field of scientific and technical research) is the longest running framework for research co-operation in Europe, having been established in 1971 by a Ministerial Conference attended by Ministers for Science and Technology from 19 countries. It provides only for co-ordination of nationally-based activities in any scientific or technological field which can muster the necessary support. COST has always reached well beyond the membership of the EU, and in 1989 this was extended further by opening participation to non-COST countries on a case-by-case basis. This was particularly aimed at Central and Eastern European countries, several of which have now joined. The intergovernmental nature of COST is rooted in a set of key principles which allow all COST members (and the European Commission) to propose “Actions”, participation in any Action to be voluntary, and for research itself to be funded nationally, with central support only for co-ordination costs (travel, meetings etc.). With the broad aim of co-ordinating national research at European level, COST grew from an initial 7 Actions to 129 across 17 domains by 1997. An international evaluation in 1997 identified the key features 8 EUREKA’s formal decision-making body is an annual conference of ministers or their representatives, hosted by the country which has held the Chair in the preceding 12 months.
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
of COST as being diversity, in terms of the range it encompasses; flexibility both in choice of Actions and in the degree to which they are prescribed by a workplan; and a “bottom–up” character with initiatives emerging from the research Community rather than a higher level research policy (PREST et al., 1997). 2.4. Legacies To summarise these necessarily brief and selective histories, each European programme has carried with it a considerable legacy from its origins. Thus, the European Union’s programme originated as an instrument to support the early policies of the European Community and struggled over a period of time to acquire the legitimacy to support industrial competitiveness. Its main instruments for action (matching funding for research and the actions of the Joint Research Centre) were designed with research support in mind and have delivered a degree of inflexibility in the ability to broaden the scope of support to innovation more generally. In some senses, the Framework Programme, once established, became a victim of its own success. Large and growing budgets created a massive management task for the Commission which has absorbed almost all of its attention, leaving little development of its other long-running main mission, the co-ordination of the research policies of Member States. The creation of this lacuna has not been one-sided. Members have been often been reluctant to cede control to the Commission, as evidenced in the origins of EUREKA. Seen in a historical perspective, the story of EUREKA is essentially one of a ‘big-bang’, with major projects and spending commitments coinciding with its origin but a gradual decline of support since that time, driven in part by its divergence from the direction of the national innovation policies upon whose budgets it depended (see Section 4.3 below) and its lack of a decision-making capability to update its mandate. COST has been more flexible, if only because of its lack of formalisation, but it too has been squeezed by the lack of resources resulting from the declining budget flexibility of the organisations which participate in its actions. If these observations can be made about the evolution of the initiatives in isolation, what consequences have these had for their relationships with each other?
897
3. Inter-relation between the programmes A consideration of the degree to which European R&D needs are met by the current range of programmes must also consider their interactions, especially as they serve many of the same research organisations and firms in largely overlapping memberships. The interactions may be explicit or result from a repositioning caused by changes in one of the other initiatives. These relationships may be considered as falling into three types: • sequential relationships at the project level whereby the outputs from one programme the basis for a nearer-market follow-up in another; • synergy expressed through joint support of projects which meet the objectives of both organisations; • overlaps and changes over time manifested in implicit competition to satisfy a specified market for innovation support. After the initial hostility reported in Section 2.2, the relationship between the Framework Programme and EUREKA has been treated in official publications as an archetypal example of the sequential approach. Most recently, the Davignon Panel, in its 5 year assessment of the Framework Programme, opted strongly for the pipeline model which in its words could allow Framework Programme and EUREKA projects to “dovetail in an enhanced innovation chain propelling Framework Programme RTD into the market place” (Davignon, 1997). To achieve this it recommended strongly that the Commission should build necessary links with EUREKA to achieve this purpose. The evidence from evaluations has always been that industry does not share this view. Traffic from one programme to another is very low and about equal in either direction (Ormala, 1993). Firms continue to see distinct and complementary roles for the two approaches (Georghiou et al., 1999). Synergy through co-funding began on a large scale with the strategic projects, notably JESSI, 9 in which the Commission provided about a quarter of the public funding, the rest coming from EUREKA’s usual sources in national governments. However, despite 9 Joint European Sub-micron Silicon Initiative, a large-scale strategic sub-programme for the development of semiconductors and related technologies.
898
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
being a member of EUREKA, with the same rights as national members, the Commission has rarely taken the lead in projects. In recent years, as national funding sources for EUREKA have declined, increased funding from the Commission has been seen as a route to salvation. This reached its peak at the London Ministerial Conference in June 1997 when a declaration on synergy suggested that the Fifth Framework Programme should maintain a reserve of funds to allow scope for funding EUREKA projects. A new mechanism emerged to launch strategic projects. These ‘cluster projects’ were established in a way that allowed members a year in which to provide funding commitments. At the time of writing it appears that the scope for the Commission to contribute to these was exaggerated. Apparently substantial contributions by the Commission to the first of these projects, MEDEA, were achieved by the simple device of adding the EUREKA label to projects already being funded by the Commission. As far as new projects are concerned, the Framework Programme operates according to strictly defined procedures including calls for proposals against a workplan. Only at the margins could ‘bottom–up’ EUREKA projects expect any favourable treatment in this system, and they would still have to conform to all normal EC contractual requirements to the point that they would cease to exhibit the characteristics of EUREKA projects described above in any respect other than carrying a dual label. This led the Strategic Review to conclude that far too much effort had been expended on seeking to use the Framework Programme as a funding source for the present EUREKA activities. As already noted, COST from its inception had an institutionalised relationship with the Commission which provided its main secretariat. In terms of the research itself, the sequential model has operated relatively successfully. Since, COST is only able to build networks it historically provided a basis for creating a critical mass from which constituencies for new funded programmes could emerge. COST initiated several collaborations on themes such as new materials, telecommunications and meteorology which, prior to 1984, were not supported by the EC. According to the evaluation of COST these Actions helped to lay the foundation for the larger EC programmes including ESPRIT, BRITE-EURAM (in the domain of industrial
technology and materials), Environment, FLAIR (food and agriculture) and the European Centre for MediumRange Weather Forecasting (PREST et al., 1997). Other COST Actions are seen as complementary to, or extending the scope of, EC programmes, examples being found in telecommunications. Both COST and EUREKA have been affected by expansion of the scale and scope of the Framework Programme. Each began with a larger membership than the Framework Programme and expanded to include Central and Eastern Europe at a faster pace than the EU programme. Hence, one source of projects has been to involve countries which were outside the Framework Programme. This rationale has diminished sharply with the accession of most EFTA members to the EU and association with the Framework Programme for many other European countries. A second dimension of change has been an expansion of the scale and scope of the Framework Programme through the inclusion of new areas (transport policy) and the significant growth of others (for example life sciences). The key question at present is whether the explicit emphasis of the Fifth Framework Programme on socio-economic objectives marks a clear step towards the market and hence into EUREKA’s territory. The main constraint upon the Commission is not one of intent but is inherent in its mechanisms. The flexibility required for truly near market work is not often compatible with the lengthy procedures and contractual obligations involved in agreeing upon and implementing the Framework Programme. The EUREKA Strategic Review has proposed a new form of synergy in which the interface is as much with the regulatory and policy-making DirectoratesGeneral of the Commission as it is with those which sponsor research. In the context of EUREKA projects which seek to provide a public–private interface for innovation, the argument is that European regulators as well as national ones need to brought into closer contact with innovating firms.
4. A changing landscape for R&D in Europe 4.1. The larger picture The landscape for R&D in Europe has seen some major changes in its framing conditions since the mid
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
1980s. Most notable is the end of the Cold War, with its implications for enlargement of previously West European institutions and for defence cutbacks and re-structuring. European Monetary Union put great pressure on public expenditure as countries sought to conform to membership criteria. Ecological and new technological themes have also manifested themselves in the priorities which have emerged for research. However, within this section, three changes are briefly outlined, as a prelude to considering their implications for the present infrastructure for support of research and innovation in Europe.
4.2. Globalisation of industry While debate continues upon the true extent of globalisation, or internationalisation as some prefer to term it (Meyer Krahmer et al., 1998), there is little doubt that it has increased competitive pressure upon European firms. Along with the development of the European single market, globalisation has made it no longer possible to seek shelter from competition in national markets. For larger firms, the principal challenge in the 1980s was to move from a national to a European scale. This process is now being repeated on a global scale in which firms seek to establish a limited number of centres of competence in different geographical locations (Meyer Krahmer et al., 1998) driven by the need to interact with different national innovation systems and markets (OECD, 1998). The increased competitive pressure has had both indirect and direct consequences for industrial R&D. Mergers and industrial restructuring more generally have heralded cost-cutting, while trends in R&D structures have seen the decline of major corporate laboratories, with budgets given to business units with shorter term R&D goals. Strategic research is more often out-source from third parties, including the academic sector (Howells, 1999). Such broad generalisations mask a range of circumstances. However, even in sectors with apparent large growth in spending, notably the life sciences, this has been accompanied by major efforts to increase R&D efficiency-witness in the pharmaceutical sector, the acquisition of Wellcome by Glaxo and the rapid rationalisation of laboratories which followed.
899
4.3. New innovation policies and the network economy In the first part of the 1980s, the distinction between innovation and technology policy was less clear than it is today. Following Dodgson and Bessant (1996), for this paper technology policy is taken to mean support for creation of strategic or generic technologies, while innovation policy goes beyond a purely technological remit to include facilitation of the diffusion of technology, encouragement of knowledge transfer and promotion of small firms. Certainly at the level of implementation, the pre-eminent theme was large-scale state-funding for industrial R&D, mainly in large firms. Today, this remains the dominant approach only in European-level programmes. At a national level, a far wider range of instruments are employed and new foci have emerged. Small and medium-sized firms are supported partly because they are seen as a dynamic sector of the economy with job-creating potential and partly because they are more clearly constrained by inadequate access to resources and capabilities. Provision of an infrastructure for innovation is the central feature of the new policies, usually in the context of providing incentives or institutions which support better networking in the economy (Metcalfe and Georghiou, 1998). Linkages with science performed in universities and public sector research institutions provide a second focus for such policies. However, such policies also seek to build linkages beyond the R&D sector to encompass potential sources of finance, regulators and other stakeholders who are likely to influence the broader environment for innovation. Foresight programmes are one manifestation of attempts to build a common vision of the future as a means to co-ordinate innovative activities across organisations while avoiding any centralised direction. 4.4. Enlargement and problems of decision-making The consequences of enlargement of the membership of the three European initiatives have already been touched upon several times above, notably in the discussion of the changing relationships between the initiatives. However, enlargement may also be considered in broader terms. Ultimately, the membership of all of these initiatives is likely to converge with one or two obvious exceptions. Hence, the difficulties
900
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
already being experienced by EUREKA and COST in meeting the needs of their more diverse constituencies and in taking decisions herald the future for the EU itself. There is no doubt that strains have been created: “. . . COST is under stress. Already the management structures are overloaded: leaving the system unchanged is a recipe for disaster. Continual increase in membership and Actions is liable to render COST unmanageable . . . The system requires revitalisation — and would do so even if it were to be frozen in terms of Actions and membership” (PREST et al., 1997). “In the Panel’s view, the Framework Programme is not fulfilling its promise. It lacks focus and is underachieving. This is not the fault of individuals but of a structure which inhibits the formulation of real strategy and makes effective implementation difficult” (Davignon, 1997). “Looking at the (EUREKA) network as a whole, despite recent reforms and improvements, there remains a lack of clear definition of roles and responsibilities and a feeling that top-heavy (and expensive) decision-making procedures are being invoked for routine matters. Enlargement, whatever its broader political or economic advantages, has exacerbated this problem” (Georghiou et al., 1999). Various decision-making procedures are in operation but none seem satisfactory. The Fifth Framework Programme formally proceeded through the Commission’s proposals being subject to co-decision by the Council of Ministers and European Parliament but in reality also encompassed a wide range of “bottom–up” informal consultations with various stakeholder groups. The main problem is that the process takes between 2 and 3 years and is subject along the way to pressures from sectional interests which are more easily resolved by inclusion of activities than by a focus of resources. The process is also liable to delay for political reasons with no connection to research or innovation (Grande, 1995). Despite the hugely reduced need for decisions in the “bottom–up” EUREKA, the initiative has been characterised by an inability to take strategic decisions when they are needed. A weak secretariat has not had the resources (nor arguably the mandate)
to initiate policies. Decision-making is officially by consensus but this has frequently been treated as a requirement for unanimity, resulting in an avoidance of key decisions and an excessive voice for countries with a minimum level of engagement. The effects of enlargement are manifested not only in barriers to decision-making, but also in an increasingly diverse set of needs and demands from widely disparate national innovation systems. Within EUREKA, the increasing number of small firms and small projects does tend to meet the needs of its newer members more than it does those of its founders. For most of these new member countries large-scale projects of the type which characterised EUREKA’s initial strategic projects are not an option for public or private funding. Their current participation is largely by research organisations rather than by firms capable of exploiting the results. For a period this will be sufficient for countries seeking mainly to compensate for years of exclusion from technological development in the West, but as with the “cohesion countries” of the European Union, there must come a point when more direct benefits are demanded by representatives of taxpayers.
5. Conclusions The history of programmes for European co-operation has created a division of labour which has not been stable over time. However, each programme has acquired institutional rigidities which have inhibited its adaptation to changing circumstances. The successes of each of the European frameworks are well-documented. However, there is a sense in recent reviews that it is a time for change. “We agree with the Commission that it is time for a major change, for a leap forward as qualitative and fundamental as the creation of the Framework Programme itself” (Davignon, 1997). “The value of the (EUREKA) Initiative has been undermined by declining political and financial commitment on the part of governments. The data lead us clearly to the conclusion that decline will be terminal if action is not taken now” (Georghiou et al., 1999).
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
These concluding remarks consider what direction such change might take in the light of the changing landscape and rationales for European co-operation. Each of the changes outlined in Section 3 has direct implications for R&D policy at a European level. Globalisation raises serious questions for the rationale of schemes to support the competitiveness of European companies when (after Reich) it is not clear what sort of company that might be. Technological and market reasoning suggest that linkages with other parts of the Triad may be equally necessary and that a framework established by policymakers is needed to guarantee the conditions for collaboration. 10 Competitive pressures have reduced the appetite of some firms for longer-term high risk R&D. Rather than address such risks through finance to compensate for market failure, governments may be able to reduce that risk by producing a more conducive environment for innovation through correction of “government failure” in non-R&D domains and system failure more generally (Metcalfe, 1995). The emergence of new innovation policies at a national level also poses questions for the European-level initiatives. Why do they continue to place such a large emphasis upon collaborative R&D when others have moved on? There are several alternative explanations: at one end of the scale this may result simply from institutional inertia being far greater at a European level; on the other hand, national governments may have recognised that collaborative R&D is better performed and supported at a European level and proceeded to build complementary policies (with the added bonus that infrastructural policies are generally cheaper). Perhaps the most telling question is not why R&D is supported but rather, why European collaboration has not developed to the same degree in innovation policy. The fact that innovation policies are often better delivered locally does not mean that they would not benefit from co-ordination at a higher level. The EUREKA Strategic Review concluded that there is a need for a bottom–up, self-organising framework for national governments and the Commission to work with firms to this end. In the meantime, where does the solution lie to the increasingly cumbersome and paralysed decision10
This was already a conclusion of a study of the impact of the Framework Programme on Germany (Reger and Kuhlmann, 1995).
901
making structures which are emerging. The answer almost certainly lies in making as few decisions as possible which involve all parties, and restricting those which are made to issues of principle and broad strategy. All other aspects are best left devolved to a lower level in which participation is optional but dependent upon real commitment. The EUREKA Strategic Review has presented this future as being one of a “network of networks”. The key to this lies in the concept of variable geometry mentioned earlier. The idea of variable geometry is treated with deep suspicion by the less advanced European countries, which see it as a device for the elite to exclude them from the cutting edge. Advanced countries may reply that policies for the leading edge and for greater equality are rarely if ever satisfactorily addressed by a single instrument. Among the European institutions, it is most difficult for the Commission to deliver variable geometry. Sharp (1998) has argued that while cohesion is primarily addressed through infrastructure paid for by the Community Structural Funds, there is a role also for building human capital and capabilities through the networking opportunities offered by the Framework Programme. This is perhaps a viable position in that Programme where subsidy levels are relatively high but it is less clear what incentives are available to advanced firms when funding is lower as in EUREKA. 11 In a bottom–up network there must be explicit benefits for all participants. Here, a different kind of bargain needs to be put on offer whereby learning about the market of the less advanced country is traded for access to leading edge technology. What conclusion may be drawn for the relative positions occupied by the various European initiatives? Put another way, how can the large but disparate scientific and technological capability of Europe best be leveraged to support socio-economic goals? As the European research area document suggests, the answer almost certainly lies in achieving more effective co-ordination of the 95% of public funding for research which lies outside the Framework Programme. This requires the Commission and Member States to engage in the more challenging task of 11 Lar´ edo (1998) goes further by challenging the assumption that the fixed procedures of the Commission should be maintained, arguing instead for facilitation of bottom–up networks.
902
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
achieving co-ordination between institutions rather than research actors. In many ways co-ordination presents a greater management challenge than operating R&D support programmes, requiring a light touch, flexibility and a feeling of ownership among those being co-ordinated. However, this is no more than the Commission achieves in some of its non-research domains in the harmonisation of regulation and legislation. Given the focus of this paper on the relationships between the three initiatives, it is not surprising that one conclusion is that use should be made of the two main existing co-ordination frameworks, COST and EUREKA as a means of achieving a rapid start to the policy of co-ordinating European institutions. Nonetheless, each requires substantial rejuvenation and restructuring. The financial and managerial resources of the Framework Programme can contribute to achieving this but there is also a need to review and update their missions. EUREKA in particular offers the potential to be redefined as an instrument for the co-ordination of innovation policy which could be combined with the Commission’s existing efforts in that field. This could fill an important gap in the European innovation landscape. By emphasising that research support is only one instrument for innovation support, and that socio-economic goals can only be achieved through innovation, it could have the additional benefit of allowing research support to proceed without the need to attach a socio-economic justification to each individual project. For the Commission itself, the price of achieving a new central role would be to accelerate its own process of internal reform but in the direction of efficiency and flexibility rather than the present drive towards sclerosis by accountability which has followed the shortcomings of the Santer Commissioners. To summarise, the essential elements of the proposed framework are: 1. Set research policy in the context of a broader European innovation policy which brings together those responsible for the framing conditions for innovation. 2. Shift the main emphasis of European policy to co-ordination but back this with a large share of the Framework Programme to be deployed in the support of co-ordination.
3. Ensure that the remaining parts of the Framework Programme are well-connected to meeting the Commission’s own policy needs in its regulatory and other functions. 4. Integrate and use the existing policy instruments of EUREKA and COST as a means of achieving a rapid start to the co-ordination-driven policy. 5. Recognising their shortcomings, ensure that a mechanism exists to continually review and update policy needs and instruments in the light of changing circumstances. 6. Prevent decisional inertia through enlargement of membership by institutionalising the concept of variable geometry and bottom–up participation at all except the very highest policy levels. 7. Prevent variable geometry from creating a technologically-excluded group of nations by placing a strong emphasis on policies which encourage true cohesion, in particular the large-scale and bi-directional mobility of scientists and technologists at all stages of their careers.
Acknowledgements The author would like to acknowledge his fellow panellists in the EUREKA Strategic Review from where much of the thinking in this paper originated and Pol van den Bergen, former Head of the EUREKA Secretariat for helpful comments on an earlier draft. He would also like to acknowledge colleagues in PREST and its partner organisations which carried out the review of COST, particularly Maria Nedeva, and Katharine Barker for helpful comments and criticism. All errors and omissions remain the responsibility of the author. References Airaghi, A., Baptista, J.V., Busch, N.E., Georghiou, L., Ledoux, M., van Raan, A.F.J., Kuhlmann, S., 1999. Options and limits for assessing the socio-economic impact of European RTD programmes. Report to the European Commission DGXII. Evaluation Unit. Caracostas, P., Muldur, U., 1997. Society, the endless frontier — a European vision of research and innovation policies for the 21st century. European Commission EUR 17655. Commission of the European Communities, 1995. Green Paper on Innovation. Luxembourg.
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903 Commission of the European Communities, 2000. Towards a European research area, communication from the commission to the council, the European parliament, the economic and social committee and the committee of the Regions. COM 6. Davignon, E., et al., 1997. 5 Year assessment of the European Community RTD Framework Programmes. Commission of the European Communities. Dodgson, M., Bessant, J., 1996. Effective Innovation Policy: A New Approach. Thomson Business Press London. Duff, A.N., 1986. EUREKA and the new technology policy of the European community. Policy Studies 6 (4), 44–61. Georghiou, L., Van Batenburg, O., Chevillot, J.-P., Kuhlmann, S., Oral, M., Reeve, N., 1999. Strategic Review of EUREKA. Building Europe’s Innovation Network, EUREKA Secretariat. Georghiou, L., Bross, U., Molero, J., Monjaret, B., Spaey, D., Finch, H., Nedeva, M., Sand, F., 1997. EUREKA Annual Impact Report 1997. EUREKA Secretariat, Brussels. Grande, E., 1995. Research policy in the joint decision trap — institutional structures, conflict dimensions and logics of bargaining in European research and technology politics. Politische Vierteljahresschrift 36 (3), 460. Guzzetti, L., 1996. A Brief History of European Union Research Policy. Commission of the European Communities, p. 71. Howells, J., 1999. Research and technology outsourcing. Technology Analysis and Strategic Management 11 (1), 17–29. Kastrinos, N., 1997. The European Community Framework Programme as Technology Policy: Towards an Assessment, PhD Thesis, University of Manchester, Manchester. Larédo, P., 1998. The networks promoted by the Framework Programme and the questions they raise about its formulation and implementation. Research Policy 27 (6), 589–598.
903
Metcalfe, J.S., Georghiou, L., 1998. Equilibrium and evolutionary foundations of technology policy. STI Review No. 22, OECD. Metcalfe, J.S., 1995. The economic foundations of technology policy: equilibrium and evolutionary perspectives. In: Stoneman, P. (Ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation and Technical Change. Blackwell, London. Meyer Krahmer, F., et al., 1998. Internationalisation of research and technology: trends, issues and implications for science and technology policies in Europe. Commission of the European Communities, ETAN Working Paper, EUR 18762. Narjes, K.H., 1985. Towards a European Technological Community CEC, p. 6. OECD, 1998. Internationalisation of Industrial R&D — Patterns and Trends. OECD, Paris. Ormala, et al., 1993. Evaluation of EUREKA Industrial and Economic Effects. EUREKA Secretariat. Peterson, J., 1993. High Technology and the Competition State: An Analysis of the EUREKA Initiative. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London. Peterson, J., Sharp, M., 1998. Technology Policy in the European Union. MacMillan, Basingstoke. PREST, CSIC/IESA, ESSOR-Europe, ISI and NUTEK/TEKPOL 1997. COST Evaluation — Main Report. COST Secretariat. Ray, T., Buisseret, T., 1995. Japan’s use of collaborative research to build a computer industry: lessons for the UK. Prometheus Vol. 13. No. 1. Reger, G., Kuhlmann, S., 1995. European technology policy in Germany. Physica. Verlag, Heidelberg. Sharp, M., 1998. Competitiveness and cohesion — are the two compatible? Research Policy 27 (6), 569–588. Williams, R., 1973. European Technology: The Politics of Collaboration. Croom Helm, London.
Evolving frameworks for European collaboration in research and technology Luke Georghiou∗ Policy Research in Engineering, Science and Technology (PREST), University of Manchester, Oxford Rd, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
Abstract The evolution of the inter-relationship between the European Union’s Framework Programme, the EUREKA initiative and COST is examined. It is concluded that the rationales acquired through their historical origins and development have been overtaken by changing circumstances. In turn this has affected the division of labour and modes of co-existence between the initiatives. Using the conclusions of recent strategic reviews, and in the light of the European research area concept, a framework for European research policy driven by co-ordination is proposed which combines the strengths of the existing schemes but sets them in the context of a broader European innovation policy. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Europe; Research; Innovation; Policy; Co-ordination
1. Introduction In early 2000, the newly incumbent Commissioner for Research in the European Union (EU) launched a challenging policy document, Towards a European research area (CEC, 2000), which called into question Europe’s ability to achieve the transition to a knowledge-based economy and which linked this underachievement to the lack of a coherent European policy on research. In particular, national research policies of the EU’s member states and those at the EU level were said to “overlap without forming a coherent whole” (CEC, 2000 p. 7). With the prospective enlargement of the EU from the present 15 members to between 25 and 30, present structures for collaboration were seen as inoperable under the new conditions. The proposed solution, the creation of a “European research area” has many dimensions.
Among these is a call for closer relations between European organisations for scientific and technological co-operation as a means of making more coherent use of public instruments and resources. For several decades, researchers in Europe have experienced the co-existence of multiple frameworks for international co-operation in science and technology. Some of these are driven by the need to share the cost of large-scale scientific facilities (for example CERN, the European Southern Observatory and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility), while the European Space Agency has a clear mission-orientation in its domain. In this paper, the focus will be upon the three frameworks which provide support for co-operation in research between existing universities, laboratories and firms across a wide range of fields and sectors, these being: the EU’s Framework Programme, the intergovernmental EUREKA Initiative 1 and COST
∗ Tel.: +44-161-275-5921; fax: +44-161-273-1123; URL: http://les.man.ac.uk/PREST/. E-mail address: [email protected] (L. Georghiou).
1 EUREKA is not an acronym but its name was originally related to the concept of a European Research Co-ordination Agency.
0048-7333/01/$ – see front matter © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 0 4 8 - 7 3 3 3 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 1 6 3 - 3
892
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
(European Co-operation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research). In particular it will be concerned with the relationships between them. The principal hypothesis is that, while the schemes were founded with rationales that supported their separate existence, changing conditions in Europe generally, changes in the specific environment for innovation policy, and in the scope of the Framework Programme have combined to create a situation in which their original division of labour and modes of coexistence have become unsustainable. A case is made for a new integrated framework and rationale to take forward this aspect of the European research area. The argument is approached first by reviewing briefly the origins and development of the EU Framework Programme, EUREKA and COST. Recent reviews are used as the main evidence base. Their inter-relationship is then discussed. In the following section some of the key features of the changing landscape in which they operate are sketched out, in particular the consequences of globalisation of industry, of recent trends in national innovation policies, and of the enlargement of European institutions to include Central and Eastern European countries. In the light of these changes, some elements of a new framework for European co-operation are proposed. 2. Establishment of a rationale for European co-operation 2.1. The research and technological development programmes of the European union One reason to re-visit the origins of co-operative research in the European Community (which long pre-dates the Framework Programmes) is that several of the initial policy instruments used have survived to the present. These include the formulation of multi-annual programmes and their execution either ‘directly’ through the Commission’s own laboratories, the Joint Research Centre or ‘indirectly’ through research funding to institutions in Member States. Following from the 1951 Treaty of Paris, the earliest action established the European Coal and Steel Community. Article 55 provided the power to support technical and economic research related to the production of steel and coal and occupational health in those
industries, and to improve contacts among research organisations in pursuit of the above objectives. The Treaty of Rome in 1957 which established the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC) broadened and deepened the Community involvement in research, providing both for promotion and facilitation of nuclear research in Member States and for the Community to carry out its own research and training programme. The lack of success of the EAEC is well-documented. Perceived commercial rivalries in an era of national champions are among the causes of its failure (Williams, 1973). It was not until the 1970s that industrial policy became an area of activity for the Community and the RTD became linked with such policy. In 1967, following the Merger Treaty, a Directorate-General for Industrial Affairs was created within the unified Commission but according to Guzzetti, its aims were not clearly defined (Guzzetti, 1996). However, pressure towards creation of the single market and further economic integration created a new momentum in the 1970s. From a research perspective, a key moment was the adoption by the Council in January 1974 of four resolutions in the field of science and technology. These had been proposed by the Commission following a request made at the summit of Heads of State and Government, 2 years before. These concerned: • The co-ordination of national science and technology policies. • The participation of the Community in the European Science Foundation. • An action programme in the field of science and technology. • An action programme on forecasting, assessment and methodology. By 1977, programmes were underway in nuclear fusion, biology and radiation protection, applied metrology and Community Bureau of Reference, coal and steel, energy conservation, new sources of energy, plutonium recycling and storage of radioactive waste. But, as Kastrinos points out, the high profile links with industrial policy envisaged by the Commission were far from materialising (Kastrinos, 1997). In 1979 Community spending on industrial technologies was 9.7% of its R&D budget, half of which was associated with the long-running support for the coal and steel sectors.
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
The first important step towards the transition to a rationale based upon support for industrial competitiveness followed the appointment of Viscount Davignon (a Belgian with considerable industrial experience) as the Commissioner responsible for the internal market and industrial affairs from 1977 to 1981 and for both industry and science and technology from 1981 to 1985. External pressure provided the catalyst for action. This came in the form of rapid technological and market advances by the Japanese information technology industry which posed a threat to a European electronics sector largely based upon the “national champions” model. In 1980, the Commission convened a meeting of senior managers from 10 companies to discuss the future of the European information technology industry. This in turn led to the establishment of a Round Table, now of 12 large companies, at the end of 1981, supported by a body within the Commission, the Information Technologies Task Force. The Round Table strongly endorsed the Commission’s concerns for their sector and brought pressure upon their national governments to support the launch of the pilot phase of the ESPRIT programme (a collaborative R&D initiative in the field of information technology). This became the archetype for future industrially-oriented programmes 2 of the EU. Several features of the early stage of ESPRIT were replicated for all industrial involvement in the Framework Programmes. These included the basic “pre-competitive” or “pre-normative” rationale whereby companies would co-operate only in research which was sufficiently far from the market that they would be free to compete with their erstwhile partners at a subsequent stage. This rationale derived from a perception (largely inaccurate) of the significance of the participation of Japanese firms in schemes sponsored by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. 3 It had the attraction of satisfying conservatively-minded governments that there was 2 The structure of ESPRIT was almost duplicated in a contemporary national initiative of a comparable scale, the United Kingdom’s Alvey Programme for Advanced Information Technology. However, as a national initiative, this lacked, of course, the European dimension. 3 In fact Japanese firms strongly dislike working with competitors and tend to carry out only non-competitive research within the frame of public initiatives unless there is very strong pressure from government (see Ray and Buisseret, 1995).
893
less interference with the market, and for the same reason made clear its compatibility with competition and State Aids provisions of the EEC Treaty. The remaining foundations for the development of EU research policy came with the formation of the Framework Programme. The First Framework Programme (1984–1987) arose in response to a situation where individual R&D activities were uncoordinated and required a large number of Council decisions. The Framework would stress the interaction of the component programme elements. In fact, the First Framework Programme pre-dated the authority to allocate finance, and hence was more a presentational exercise based upon the aggregation of separate budgets, but the mould for the future was cast. Also dating from this period is the formal expression of the policy rationale for the Community action in the field of research and technological co-operation. This was contained within the “Reisenhuber criteria” (named after the then German research minister). In essence these argued that support should come where the scale or cost of co-operation was beyond that affordable by a single country, where complementarily in national work could achieve results for the whole Community, and where research contributes to development of the common market, laws and standards, or to the unification of European science and technology. In 1987 “cohesion”, meaning reduction of regional (or national) disparities in the Community, was added to the initial criteria. These criteria formed the basis for the principle of subsidiary and, at least in principle, mark the delineation between national and the Community level policy. It was with the passing of the Single European Act (SEA) in 1987 that EU policy in research and technological development was fully established. The overall objective was to strengthen the scientific and technological basis of industry and thus lead to increased global competitiveness of European Community countries. In addition, an important provision was that European Community RTD policy should be co-ordinated with all other European Community policies concerned with the general well being of citizens and the overall Community goals of co-operation. The basic tenet of EU RTD policy is the promotion of co-operation. Article 130f of the Single European Act established that the policy would be implemented via a Framework Programme, a set of
894
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
activities in RTD involving specific programmes in certain specified fields running over a few years. The 1992 Treaty on European Union (Maastricht Treaty) continued with the ideas of co-ordination and co-operation, and strengthened the Framework Programmes by making them the umbrella for all RTD actions of the Community. In addition, Community RTD policies could be directed to other areas of the Community interest, such as energy, transport etc. and not be restricted to the overall goal of strengthening the scientific and technological bases of industry. In practice, the Framework Programme has always consisted of a broad range of sub-programmes ranging from support for basic research in all but name through to near-market development-oriented activity. The Amsterdam Treaty of 1997 did not change the rationale for research but its ratification allowed the Framework Programme to be adopted by a qualified majority vote in the Council of Ministers rather than with the previous requirement for unanimity. This last condition has in the past been used as an instrument for single countries to make demands upon the rest in matters going well beyond research. Most recently, without any change in the legal basis, the design of the Fifth Framework Programme has been underpinned by an extended rationale which emphasises social objectives. The criteria by which sub-programmes are defined and projects selected are: • Criteria related to economic development and scientific and technological prospects. • Criteria related to the Community ‘value-added’ and the subsidiary principle. • Criteria related to social objectives. 4 The first of these represents the established domain of activity. The second provides a more explicit statement of the circumstances under which it is appropriate to support research at a European level (as opposed to national or regional). This encompasses the need to establish a critical mass in human or financial terms through combination of resources in Member States, 4 Criteria listed in Annex 1 of the Decision No./98/EC of the European Parliament and the Council concerning to the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Community for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration Activities (1998– 2002) — Joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee provided for in Article 189(b)(4) of the EC Treaty, 25 November 1998.
contribution to the Community policies and addressing problems which arise at the Community level. Social objectives are defined as improving the employment situation, promoting the quality of life and health and preserving the environment “in order to further major social objectives of the Community reflecting the expectations of its citizens”. This has led the Fifth Framework Programme to be described as a social contract. The evaluation Community is already debating how achievement of such objectives could be assessed, for example citing employment objectives may create excessive expectations towards an objective that is affected far more directly by policies other than R&D support (Airaghi et al., 1999). The emergence of this emphasis on social objectives is documented in more detail in a work which is sometimes described as the ideology of the Fifth Framework Programme and bears a title which deliberately paraphrases Vannevar Bush: “Society, the endless frontier” (Caracostas and Muldur, 1997). This book, in common with other analyses from the Commission, endorses the idea of the ‘European Paradox’, whereby European scientific performance in relation to investment in science is excellent but technological and commercial performance has steadily worsened since the mid 1980s. This analysis raises more questions than it answers — does technological success come from ‘conversion’ of scientific results? Is the excellence in science in exploitable areas? Does the same picture hold across different industrial sectors and Member States? These will not be addressed here but the debate highlights a key feature of the EU’s policies, namely that a vastly greater effort in financial and logistic terms is expended in support for collaborative research than for other activities to promote innovation. From 1989 to 1994, the Commission’s Strategic Programme for Innovation and Technology Transfer (SPRINT) was outside the Framework Programme. Its successor, the Innovation Programme, though within the Fourth Framework Programme, was relatively small (the entire budget for dissemination and exploitation of results was 2.7% of the total Framework Programme). Even after allowing for those parts of the Framework Programme which exist to promote science rather than industrially relevant research, the imbalance is striking. This perhaps explains why so much of the innovation policy debate has concerned the means by which research
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
results may be ‘valorised’ (commercialised/exploited) rather than the more fundamental question of what else might be wrong in European innovation systems. The lack of sufficient actions in support of innovation has been recognised, not least by the Commission itself which produced a cogent analysis of the situation in its Green Paper on Innovation (CEC, 1995). Following widespread consultation, this was followed by the First Action Plan for Innovation. The Action Plan is more limited in scope because it concentrates upon actions which could be launched rapidly at the Community level, together with some suggestions for Member States. The disparity between diagnosis and cure illustrates the Commission’s problem — innovation policy remains firmly in the hands of Member States. In many respects this is desirable, in the sense that local delivery is generally thought to be necessary to reach small firms in particular, but there is also a potentially important role for co-ordination at a European level, particularly where regulatory frame conditions are concerned. To some extent, the Commission is experiencing the classic problem of governmental bodies (notably science ministries) which have the dual objective of sponsoring activity and promoting co-ordination: the more active that body is as a sponsor, the more suspicious do other actors (in this case Member States) become that it is pursuing its own agenda rather than acting as a referee (or coach). Furthermore, as Peterson and Sharp point out, the challenge is not only to co-ordinate with Member States but also with other parts of the Commission responsible for regulation and standards (Peterson and Sharp, 1998).
2.2. EUREKA Dissatisfaction with the European Commission’s R&D support and with the failure of earlier mission-oriented intergovernmental high technology projects conditioned the foundation of the EUREKA Initiative (Peterson, 1993). Catalysed by somewhat misplaced fears on the part of the French government of the ability of the US Strategic Defence Initiative to cream off the elite of European researchers and firms, EUREKA eventually emerged as an intergovernmental, ‘industry-led’ initiative with a membership extending well beyond the EC to include the then EFTA states
895
and Turkey. In the1990s, EUREKA has extended further to include Russia and Central and Eastern Europe. The foundation of EUREKA was greeted with fury by some commentators who saw it as a means to thwart the plans of the then research Commissioner Karl Heinz Narjes to extend the Commission’s ambit into the industrial arena through the launch of a ‘European Technological Community’ (Narjes, 1985). A typical expression was: “. . . at best EUREKA will be a distraction from the European Technological Community and a dispersal of effort. And at worst EUREKA will not be a complement to the Community but a substitute for it, spawning cartels of large European companies grown flabby on public money and motivated mainly by malice against IBM and envy of Star Wars” (Duff, 1986 p. 57). The same author then concluded that the European Commission had reluctantly adopted a policy of accommodating EUREKA by dovetailing it as closely as possible to the Community policy. The “Hannover Declaration” by ministers which established EUREKA (and which remains its defining statement of scope and objectives) pledged it to support the competitiveness and productivity of European industry through high technology. The positioning of EUREKA has always been understood to be nearer to the market than the Framework Programme, though there is some overlap. Its style is ‘bottom–up’ and (relatively) non-bureaucratic with a very small secretariat. In principle, EUREKA only ‘labels’ co-operative projects, 5 with any funding being optional on the part of national administrations, 6 and often coming on the back of a variety of national programmes. As it got underway, EUREKA emerged with two, or debatably, three modalities of operation. A suite of large ‘strategic’ projects commanded very large budgets and aimed to structure entire sectors. By contrast, ‘standard’ projects were targeted to the needs only of their participants and 5 ‘Labelling’ describes the process by which projects apply and are given permission to use the EUREKA name. 6 This has led to one of the most criticised features of EUREKA, the lack of synchronisation of funding, whereby one partner may receive the go-ahead from its own government but the project is delayed while other partners go through their own, sometimes tortuous, application processes.
896
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
could have budgets as low as a million ECU or less (though some were much larger). Standard projects were sometimes loosely clustered into ‘umbrella’ projects which have their own administration, largely dedicated to generating further projects. EUREKA has generally been reported by its evaluations to have worked well, at least at the project level (Georghiou et al., 1997). While industry has complained about the quantity and delivery of public funding, it has generally expressed approval for the mechanism by which EUREKA operates. Characteristics which are particularly appreciated include the flexibility to change the direction of work, ‘variable geometry’ 7 in choice of partners, strong and controllable IPR and confidentiality protection, a low administrative burden and a clear position with respect to competition law. With the exception of the last of these items, this list could be seen by some as the antithesis of the Framework Programme. This remark should not be seen as reflecting negatively upon the Framework Programme. It is inevitable that a programme with a commitment to workplans based upon a degree of collective ambition, cohesion between its members, promotion of sharing of knowledge among participants in return for higher financial inputs, and a full project appraisal and contracting system, could not also match EUREKA on the above criteria. It also serves to underline the weakness of EUREKA relative to the EU Programme in the delivery of public funding. The single approval mechanism in the latter case has as its counterpart in EUREKA a system in which partners commonly receive decisions on their applications to their respective governments several months apart. The quantity, criteria and terms for any support received will almost certainly be different. The history of EUREKA in the 1990s has been somewhat paradoxical. Despite the positive evaluations mentioned above, the Initiative has seen large and accelerating changes in its composition, mostly of a negative nature. Driven mainly by a decline in the national budgets for R&D support upon which it 7 The term ‘variable geometry’ is in common usage in the realm of European co-operation. It refers euphemistically to a situation in which countries participate in actions on an a` la carte basis with a lack of any obligation to include partners from a particular country for reasons of political or financial equity.
depended and in the personnel in national agencies available to stimulate projects (always a small number, a total of around 150 in all Member States), EUREKA has seen a dramatic fall on several indicators. Between 1993 and 1998, the number of large firms taking part fell by 49%, public funding by 44% and the total cost of the portfolio of projects by 32%. New projects are much shorter and smaller. The only positive indicator is a 69% increase in the number of small firms taking part. In the face of these changes and a recognition that the broader environment for R&D in Europe had also changed since the foundation of EUREKA, the Lisbon Ministerial Conference 8 in 1998 mandated an independent panel to undertake a strategic review of the initiative to present options for the future. The review reported in March 1999 (Georghiou et al., 1999). 2.3. COST COST (European Co-operation in the field of scientific and technical research) is the longest running framework for research co-operation in Europe, having been established in 1971 by a Ministerial Conference attended by Ministers for Science and Technology from 19 countries. It provides only for co-ordination of nationally-based activities in any scientific or technological field which can muster the necessary support. COST has always reached well beyond the membership of the EU, and in 1989 this was extended further by opening participation to non-COST countries on a case-by-case basis. This was particularly aimed at Central and Eastern European countries, several of which have now joined. The intergovernmental nature of COST is rooted in a set of key principles which allow all COST members (and the European Commission) to propose “Actions”, participation in any Action to be voluntary, and for research itself to be funded nationally, with central support only for co-ordination costs (travel, meetings etc.). With the broad aim of co-ordinating national research at European level, COST grew from an initial 7 Actions to 129 across 17 domains by 1997. An international evaluation in 1997 identified the key features 8 EUREKA’s formal decision-making body is an annual conference of ministers or their representatives, hosted by the country which has held the Chair in the preceding 12 months.
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
of COST as being diversity, in terms of the range it encompasses; flexibility both in choice of Actions and in the degree to which they are prescribed by a workplan; and a “bottom–up” character with initiatives emerging from the research Community rather than a higher level research policy (PREST et al., 1997). 2.4. Legacies To summarise these necessarily brief and selective histories, each European programme has carried with it a considerable legacy from its origins. Thus, the European Union’s programme originated as an instrument to support the early policies of the European Community and struggled over a period of time to acquire the legitimacy to support industrial competitiveness. Its main instruments for action (matching funding for research and the actions of the Joint Research Centre) were designed with research support in mind and have delivered a degree of inflexibility in the ability to broaden the scope of support to innovation more generally. In some senses, the Framework Programme, once established, became a victim of its own success. Large and growing budgets created a massive management task for the Commission which has absorbed almost all of its attention, leaving little development of its other long-running main mission, the co-ordination of the research policies of Member States. The creation of this lacuna has not been one-sided. Members have been often been reluctant to cede control to the Commission, as evidenced in the origins of EUREKA. Seen in a historical perspective, the story of EUREKA is essentially one of a ‘big-bang’, with major projects and spending commitments coinciding with its origin but a gradual decline of support since that time, driven in part by its divergence from the direction of the national innovation policies upon whose budgets it depended (see Section 4.3 below) and its lack of a decision-making capability to update its mandate. COST has been more flexible, if only because of its lack of formalisation, but it too has been squeezed by the lack of resources resulting from the declining budget flexibility of the organisations which participate in its actions. If these observations can be made about the evolution of the initiatives in isolation, what consequences have these had for their relationships with each other?
897
3. Inter-relation between the programmes A consideration of the degree to which European R&D needs are met by the current range of programmes must also consider their interactions, especially as they serve many of the same research organisations and firms in largely overlapping memberships. The interactions may be explicit or result from a repositioning caused by changes in one of the other initiatives. These relationships may be considered as falling into three types: • sequential relationships at the project level whereby the outputs from one programme the basis for a nearer-market follow-up in another; • synergy expressed through joint support of projects which meet the objectives of both organisations; • overlaps and changes over time manifested in implicit competition to satisfy a specified market for innovation support. After the initial hostility reported in Section 2.2, the relationship between the Framework Programme and EUREKA has been treated in official publications as an archetypal example of the sequential approach. Most recently, the Davignon Panel, in its 5 year assessment of the Framework Programme, opted strongly for the pipeline model which in its words could allow Framework Programme and EUREKA projects to “dovetail in an enhanced innovation chain propelling Framework Programme RTD into the market place” (Davignon, 1997). To achieve this it recommended strongly that the Commission should build necessary links with EUREKA to achieve this purpose. The evidence from evaluations has always been that industry does not share this view. Traffic from one programme to another is very low and about equal in either direction (Ormala, 1993). Firms continue to see distinct and complementary roles for the two approaches (Georghiou et al., 1999). Synergy through co-funding began on a large scale with the strategic projects, notably JESSI, 9 in which the Commission provided about a quarter of the public funding, the rest coming from EUREKA’s usual sources in national governments. However, despite 9 Joint European Sub-micron Silicon Initiative, a large-scale strategic sub-programme for the development of semiconductors and related technologies.
898
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
being a member of EUREKA, with the same rights as national members, the Commission has rarely taken the lead in projects. In recent years, as national funding sources for EUREKA have declined, increased funding from the Commission has been seen as a route to salvation. This reached its peak at the London Ministerial Conference in June 1997 when a declaration on synergy suggested that the Fifth Framework Programme should maintain a reserve of funds to allow scope for funding EUREKA projects. A new mechanism emerged to launch strategic projects. These ‘cluster projects’ were established in a way that allowed members a year in which to provide funding commitments. At the time of writing it appears that the scope for the Commission to contribute to these was exaggerated. Apparently substantial contributions by the Commission to the first of these projects, MEDEA, were achieved by the simple device of adding the EUREKA label to projects already being funded by the Commission. As far as new projects are concerned, the Framework Programme operates according to strictly defined procedures including calls for proposals against a workplan. Only at the margins could ‘bottom–up’ EUREKA projects expect any favourable treatment in this system, and they would still have to conform to all normal EC contractual requirements to the point that they would cease to exhibit the characteristics of EUREKA projects described above in any respect other than carrying a dual label. This led the Strategic Review to conclude that far too much effort had been expended on seeking to use the Framework Programme as a funding source for the present EUREKA activities. As already noted, COST from its inception had an institutionalised relationship with the Commission which provided its main secretariat. In terms of the research itself, the sequential model has operated relatively successfully. Since, COST is only able to build networks it historically provided a basis for creating a critical mass from which constituencies for new funded programmes could emerge. COST initiated several collaborations on themes such as new materials, telecommunications and meteorology which, prior to 1984, were not supported by the EC. According to the evaluation of COST these Actions helped to lay the foundation for the larger EC programmes including ESPRIT, BRITE-EURAM (in the domain of industrial
technology and materials), Environment, FLAIR (food and agriculture) and the European Centre for MediumRange Weather Forecasting (PREST et al., 1997). Other COST Actions are seen as complementary to, or extending the scope of, EC programmes, examples being found in telecommunications. Both COST and EUREKA have been affected by expansion of the scale and scope of the Framework Programme. Each began with a larger membership than the Framework Programme and expanded to include Central and Eastern Europe at a faster pace than the EU programme. Hence, one source of projects has been to involve countries which were outside the Framework Programme. This rationale has diminished sharply with the accession of most EFTA members to the EU and association with the Framework Programme for many other European countries. A second dimension of change has been an expansion of the scale and scope of the Framework Programme through the inclusion of new areas (transport policy) and the significant growth of others (for example life sciences). The key question at present is whether the explicit emphasis of the Fifth Framework Programme on socio-economic objectives marks a clear step towards the market and hence into EUREKA’s territory. The main constraint upon the Commission is not one of intent but is inherent in its mechanisms. The flexibility required for truly near market work is not often compatible with the lengthy procedures and contractual obligations involved in agreeing upon and implementing the Framework Programme. The EUREKA Strategic Review has proposed a new form of synergy in which the interface is as much with the regulatory and policy-making DirectoratesGeneral of the Commission as it is with those which sponsor research. In the context of EUREKA projects which seek to provide a public–private interface for innovation, the argument is that European regulators as well as national ones need to brought into closer contact with innovating firms.
4. A changing landscape for R&D in Europe 4.1. The larger picture The landscape for R&D in Europe has seen some major changes in its framing conditions since the mid
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
1980s. Most notable is the end of the Cold War, with its implications for enlargement of previously West European institutions and for defence cutbacks and re-structuring. European Monetary Union put great pressure on public expenditure as countries sought to conform to membership criteria. Ecological and new technological themes have also manifested themselves in the priorities which have emerged for research. However, within this section, three changes are briefly outlined, as a prelude to considering their implications for the present infrastructure for support of research and innovation in Europe.
4.2. Globalisation of industry While debate continues upon the true extent of globalisation, or internationalisation as some prefer to term it (Meyer Krahmer et al., 1998), there is little doubt that it has increased competitive pressure upon European firms. Along with the development of the European single market, globalisation has made it no longer possible to seek shelter from competition in national markets. For larger firms, the principal challenge in the 1980s was to move from a national to a European scale. This process is now being repeated on a global scale in which firms seek to establish a limited number of centres of competence in different geographical locations (Meyer Krahmer et al., 1998) driven by the need to interact with different national innovation systems and markets (OECD, 1998). The increased competitive pressure has had both indirect and direct consequences for industrial R&D. Mergers and industrial restructuring more generally have heralded cost-cutting, while trends in R&D structures have seen the decline of major corporate laboratories, with budgets given to business units with shorter term R&D goals. Strategic research is more often out-source from third parties, including the academic sector (Howells, 1999). Such broad generalisations mask a range of circumstances. However, even in sectors with apparent large growth in spending, notably the life sciences, this has been accompanied by major efforts to increase R&D efficiency-witness in the pharmaceutical sector, the acquisition of Wellcome by Glaxo and the rapid rationalisation of laboratories which followed.
899
4.3. New innovation policies and the network economy In the first part of the 1980s, the distinction between innovation and technology policy was less clear than it is today. Following Dodgson and Bessant (1996), for this paper technology policy is taken to mean support for creation of strategic or generic technologies, while innovation policy goes beyond a purely technological remit to include facilitation of the diffusion of technology, encouragement of knowledge transfer and promotion of small firms. Certainly at the level of implementation, the pre-eminent theme was large-scale state-funding for industrial R&D, mainly in large firms. Today, this remains the dominant approach only in European-level programmes. At a national level, a far wider range of instruments are employed and new foci have emerged. Small and medium-sized firms are supported partly because they are seen as a dynamic sector of the economy with job-creating potential and partly because they are more clearly constrained by inadequate access to resources and capabilities. Provision of an infrastructure for innovation is the central feature of the new policies, usually in the context of providing incentives or institutions which support better networking in the economy (Metcalfe and Georghiou, 1998). Linkages with science performed in universities and public sector research institutions provide a second focus for such policies. However, such policies also seek to build linkages beyond the R&D sector to encompass potential sources of finance, regulators and other stakeholders who are likely to influence the broader environment for innovation. Foresight programmes are one manifestation of attempts to build a common vision of the future as a means to co-ordinate innovative activities across organisations while avoiding any centralised direction. 4.4. Enlargement and problems of decision-making The consequences of enlargement of the membership of the three European initiatives have already been touched upon several times above, notably in the discussion of the changing relationships between the initiatives. However, enlargement may also be considered in broader terms. Ultimately, the membership of all of these initiatives is likely to converge with one or two obvious exceptions. Hence, the difficulties
900
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
already being experienced by EUREKA and COST in meeting the needs of their more diverse constituencies and in taking decisions herald the future for the EU itself. There is no doubt that strains have been created: “. . . COST is under stress. Already the management structures are overloaded: leaving the system unchanged is a recipe for disaster. Continual increase in membership and Actions is liable to render COST unmanageable . . . The system requires revitalisation — and would do so even if it were to be frozen in terms of Actions and membership” (PREST et al., 1997). “In the Panel’s view, the Framework Programme is not fulfilling its promise. It lacks focus and is underachieving. This is not the fault of individuals but of a structure which inhibits the formulation of real strategy and makes effective implementation difficult” (Davignon, 1997). “Looking at the (EUREKA) network as a whole, despite recent reforms and improvements, there remains a lack of clear definition of roles and responsibilities and a feeling that top-heavy (and expensive) decision-making procedures are being invoked for routine matters. Enlargement, whatever its broader political or economic advantages, has exacerbated this problem” (Georghiou et al., 1999). Various decision-making procedures are in operation but none seem satisfactory. The Fifth Framework Programme formally proceeded through the Commission’s proposals being subject to co-decision by the Council of Ministers and European Parliament but in reality also encompassed a wide range of “bottom–up” informal consultations with various stakeholder groups. The main problem is that the process takes between 2 and 3 years and is subject along the way to pressures from sectional interests which are more easily resolved by inclusion of activities than by a focus of resources. The process is also liable to delay for political reasons with no connection to research or innovation (Grande, 1995). Despite the hugely reduced need for decisions in the “bottom–up” EUREKA, the initiative has been characterised by an inability to take strategic decisions when they are needed. A weak secretariat has not had the resources (nor arguably the mandate)
to initiate policies. Decision-making is officially by consensus but this has frequently been treated as a requirement for unanimity, resulting in an avoidance of key decisions and an excessive voice for countries with a minimum level of engagement. The effects of enlargement are manifested not only in barriers to decision-making, but also in an increasingly diverse set of needs and demands from widely disparate national innovation systems. Within EUREKA, the increasing number of small firms and small projects does tend to meet the needs of its newer members more than it does those of its founders. For most of these new member countries large-scale projects of the type which characterised EUREKA’s initial strategic projects are not an option for public or private funding. Their current participation is largely by research organisations rather than by firms capable of exploiting the results. For a period this will be sufficient for countries seeking mainly to compensate for years of exclusion from technological development in the West, but as with the “cohesion countries” of the European Union, there must come a point when more direct benefits are demanded by representatives of taxpayers.
5. Conclusions The history of programmes for European co-operation has created a division of labour which has not been stable over time. However, each programme has acquired institutional rigidities which have inhibited its adaptation to changing circumstances. The successes of each of the European frameworks are well-documented. However, there is a sense in recent reviews that it is a time for change. “We agree with the Commission that it is time for a major change, for a leap forward as qualitative and fundamental as the creation of the Framework Programme itself” (Davignon, 1997). “The value of the (EUREKA) Initiative has been undermined by declining political and financial commitment on the part of governments. The data lead us clearly to the conclusion that decline will be terminal if action is not taken now” (Georghiou et al., 1999).
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
These concluding remarks consider what direction such change might take in the light of the changing landscape and rationales for European co-operation. Each of the changes outlined in Section 3 has direct implications for R&D policy at a European level. Globalisation raises serious questions for the rationale of schemes to support the competitiveness of European companies when (after Reich) it is not clear what sort of company that might be. Technological and market reasoning suggest that linkages with other parts of the Triad may be equally necessary and that a framework established by policymakers is needed to guarantee the conditions for collaboration. 10 Competitive pressures have reduced the appetite of some firms for longer-term high risk R&D. Rather than address such risks through finance to compensate for market failure, governments may be able to reduce that risk by producing a more conducive environment for innovation through correction of “government failure” in non-R&D domains and system failure more generally (Metcalfe, 1995). The emergence of new innovation policies at a national level also poses questions for the European-level initiatives. Why do they continue to place such a large emphasis upon collaborative R&D when others have moved on? There are several alternative explanations: at one end of the scale this may result simply from institutional inertia being far greater at a European level; on the other hand, national governments may have recognised that collaborative R&D is better performed and supported at a European level and proceeded to build complementary policies (with the added bonus that infrastructural policies are generally cheaper). Perhaps the most telling question is not why R&D is supported but rather, why European collaboration has not developed to the same degree in innovation policy. The fact that innovation policies are often better delivered locally does not mean that they would not benefit from co-ordination at a higher level. The EUREKA Strategic Review concluded that there is a need for a bottom–up, self-organising framework for national governments and the Commission to work with firms to this end. In the meantime, where does the solution lie to the increasingly cumbersome and paralysed decision10
This was already a conclusion of a study of the impact of the Framework Programme on Germany (Reger and Kuhlmann, 1995).
901
making structures which are emerging. The answer almost certainly lies in making as few decisions as possible which involve all parties, and restricting those which are made to issues of principle and broad strategy. All other aspects are best left devolved to a lower level in which participation is optional but dependent upon real commitment. The EUREKA Strategic Review has presented this future as being one of a “network of networks”. The key to this lies in the concept of variable geometry mentioned earlier. The idea of variable geometry is treated with deep suspicion by the less advanced European countries, which see it as a device for the elite to exclude them from the cutting edge. Advanced countries may reply that policies for the leading edge and for greater equality are rarely if ever satisfactorily addressed by a single instrument. Among the European institutions, it is most difficult for the Commission to deliver variable geometry. Sharp (1998) has argued that while cohesion is primarily addressed through infrastructure paid for by the Community Structural Funds, there is a role also for building human capital and capabilities through the networking opportunities offered by the Framework Programme. This is perhaps a viable position in that Programme where subsidy levels are relatively high but it is less clear what incentives are available to advanced firms when funding is lower as in EUREKA. 11 In a bottom–up network there must be explicit benefits for all participants. Here, a different kind of bargain needs to be put on offer whereby learning about the market of the less advanced country is traded for access to leading edge technology. What conclusion may be drawn for the relative positions occupied by the various European initiatives? Put another way, how can the large but disparate scientific and technological capability of Europe best be leveraged to support socio-economic goals? As the European research area document suggests, the answer almost certainly lies in achieving more effective co-ordination of the 95% of public funding for research which lies outside the Framework Programme. This requires the Commission and Member States to engage in the more challenging task of 11 Lar´ edo (1998) goes further by challenging the assumption that the fixed procedures of the Commission should be maintained, arguing instead for facilitation of bottom–up networks.
902
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903
achieving co-ordination between institutions rather than research actors. In many ways co-ordination presents a greater management challenge than operating R&D support programmes, requiring a light touch, flexibility and a feeling of ownership among those being co-ordinated. However, this is no more than the Commission achieves in some of its non-research domains in the harmonisation of regulation and legislation. Given the focus of this paper on the relationships between the three initiatives, it is not surprising that one conclusion is that use should be made of the two main existing co-ordination frameworks, COST and EUREKA as a means of achieving a rapid start to the policy of co-ordinating European institutions. Nonetheless, each requires substantial rejuvenation and restructuring. The financial and managerial resources of the Framework Programme can contribute to achieving this but there is also a need to review and update their missions. EUREKA in particular offers the potential to be redefined as an instrument for the co-ordination of innovation policy which could be combined with the Commission’s existing efforts in that field. This could fill an important gap in the European innovation landscape. By emphasising that research support is only one instrument for innovation support, and that socio-economic goals can only be achieved through innovation, it could have the additional benefit of allowing research support to proceed without the need to attach a socio-economic justification to each individual project. For the Commission itself, the price of achieving a new central role would be to accelerate its own process of internal reform but in the direction of efficiency and flexibility rather than the present drive towards sclerosis by accountability which has followed the shortcomings of the Santer Commissioners. To summarise, the essential elements of the proposed framework are: 1. Set research policy in the context of a broader European innovation policy which brings together those responsible for the framing conditions for innovation. 2. Shift the main emphasis of European policy to co-ordination but back this with a large share of the Framework Programme to be deployed in the support of co-ordination.
3. Ensure that the remaining parts of the Framework Programme are well-connected to meeting the Commission’s own policy needs in its regulatory and other functions. 4. Integrate and use the existing policy instruments of EUREKA and COST as a means of achieving a rapid start to the co-ordination-driven policy. 5. Recognising their shortcomings, ensure that a mechanism exists to continually review and update policy needs and instruments in the light of changing circumstances. 6. Prevent decisional inertia through enlargement of membership by institutionalising the concept of variable geometry and bottom–up participation at all except the very highest policy levels. 7. Prevent variable geometry from creating a technologically-excluded group of nations by placing a strong emphasis on policies which encourage true cohesion, in particular the large-scale and bi-directional mobility of scientists and technologists at all stages of their careers.
Acknowledgements The author would like to acknowledge his fellow panellists in the EUREKA Strategic Review from where much of the thinking in this paper originated and Pol van den Bergen, former Head of the EUREKA Secretariat for helpful comments on an earlier draft. He would also like to acknowledge colleagues in PREST and its partner organisations which carried out the review of COST, particularly Maria Nedeva, and Katharine Barker for helpful comments and criticism. All errors and omissions remain the responsibility of the author. References Airaghi, A., Baptista, J.V., Busch, N.E., Georghiou, L., Ledoux, M., van Raan, A.F.J., Kuhlmann, S., 1999. Options and limits for assessing the socio-economic impact of European RTD programmes. Report to the European Commission DGXII. Evaluation Unit. Caracostas, P., Muldur, U., 1997. Society, the endless frontier — a European vision of research and innovation policies for the 21st century. European Commission EUR 17655. Commission of the European Communities, 1995. Green Paper on Innovation. Luxembourg.
L. Georghiou / Research Policy 30 (2001) 891–903 Commission of the European Communities, 2000. Towards a European research area, communication from the commission to the council, the European parliament, the economic and social committee and the committee of the Regions. COM 6. Davignon, E., et al., 1997. 5 Year assessment of the European Community RTD Framework Programmes. Commission of the European Communities. Dodgson, M., Bessant, J., 1996. Effective Innovation Policy: A New Approach. Thomson Business Press London. Duff, A.N., 1986. EUREKA and the new technology policy of the European community. Policy Studies 6 (4), 44–61. Georghiou, L., Van Batenburg, O., Chevillot, J.-P., Kuhlmann, S., Oral, M., Reeve, N., 1999. Strategic Review of EUREKA. Building Europe’s Innovation Network, EUREKA Secretariat. Georghiou, L., Bross, U., Molero, J., Monjaret, B., Spaey, D., Finch, H., Nedeva, M., Sand, F., 1997. EUREKA Annual Impact Report 1997. EUREKA Secretariat, Brussels. Grande, E., 1995. Research policy in the joint decision trap — institutional structures, conflict dimensions and logics of bargaining in European research and technology politics. Politische Vierteljahresschrift 36 (3), 460. Guzzetti, L., 1996. A Brief History of European Union Research Policy. Commission of the European Communities, p. 71. Howells, J., 1999. Research and technology outsourcing. Technology Analysis and Strategic Management 11 (1), 17–29. Kastrinos, N., 1997. The European Community Framework Programme as Technology Policy: Towards an Assessment, PhD Thesis, University of Manchester, Manchester. Larédo, P., 1998. The networks promoted by the Framework Programme and the questions they raise about its formulation and implementation. Research Policy 27 (6), 589–598.
903
Metcalfe, J.S., Georghiou, L., 1998. Equilibrium and evolutionary foundations of technology policy. STI Review No. 22, OECD. Metcalfe, J.S., 1995. The economic foundations of technology policy: equilibrium and evolutionary perspectives. In: Stoneman, P. (Ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation and Technical Change. Blackwell, London. Meyer Krahmer, F., et al., 1998. Internationalisation of research and technology: trends, issues and implications for science and technology policies in Europe. Commission of the European Communities, ETAN Working Paper, EUR 18762. Narjes, K.H., 1985. Towards a European Technological Community CEC, p. 6. OECD, 1998. Internationalisation of Industrial R&D — Patterns and Trends. OECD, Paris. Ormala, et al., 1993. Evaluation of EUREKA Industrial and Economic Effects. EUREKA Secretariat. Peterson, J., 1993. High Technology and the Competition State: An Analysis of the EUREKA Initiative. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London. Peterson, J., Sharp, M., 1998. Technology Policy in the European Union. MacMillan, Basingstoke. PREST, CSIC/IESA, ESSOR-Europe, ISI and NUTEK/TEKPOL 1997. COST Evaluation — Main Report. COST Secretariat. Ray, T., Buisseret, T., 1995. Japan’s use of collaborative research to build a computer industry: lessons for the UK. Prometheus Vol. 13. No. 1. Reger, G., Kuhlmann, S., 1995. European technology policy in Germany. Physica. Verlag, Heidelberg. Sharp, M., 1998. Competitiveness and cohesion — are the two compatible? Research Policy 27 (6), 569–588. Williams, R., 1973. European Technology: The Politics of Collaboration. Croom Helm, London.