Brussels, 03/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 3 March, the European Commission set up a new support instrument - the Policy Support Facility (PSF) - to help EU member states reform their research and innovation (R&I) policies. Bulgaria was the first to decide on using this, and it will soon be followed by Hungary.
The PSF works on the principle of peer review - in other words, a group of experts and officials from the member states will assess the national policies, supported by the Commission. The group will pay particular attention to how public R&I money is spent and to how to improve these investments. This will be about “opening up public financing to competition and introducing performance assessments of universities, or stimulating cooperation between academia and business”, the Commission stated in a press release. The PSF is financed from the European budget (Horizon 2020 framework programme) and could have an allocation of up to €20 million. (Jan Kordys)