Strasbourg, 04/10/2000 (Agence Europe) - As was announced in yesterday's EUROPE, p.9, the European Commission approved, this Wednesday in Strasbourg, its Communication on the guidelines in terms of research for the 2002-2006 period. It is proposing to make the next framework programme for technological research and development (FPTRD) one of the main elements of the future European Research Area, in the framework of the renewed partnership with the Member States and with the intergovernmental organisations in this sector. A particular effort will have to be made to participate in the strengthening of networks of scientific excellence, the financing of infrastructures for the research and the development of researcher mobility. The problems linked to mobility will be concretely broached, as of next week, by the specialist group gathering together representatives from the Member States Ministries for Research and Home affairs.
In the sixth framework programme, the financing will have to be directed towards the more structuring activities, with a concentration of credits on the programmes answering real priorities. This concerns a profound change compared to the present system of financing for a multitude of small projects and the scattering of credits that results from it. A profound change compared to the present system of financing for a multitude of small projects and the scattering of credits that results from it. The management should also evolve, with a mechanism for renewed calls for competition and calls for proposals. The actors involved in research would be directly involved in the execution of activity blocks. The Commission is also considering the externalisation of certain tasks to the execution and possible management of "cooperative research" action for SMEs. Presenting this Communication to the Parliament, Commissioner Philippe Busquin called on the MEPs to support this new step towards a true European research policy, capable of competing with the United States and Japan. He insisted on the need for a "real concentration of efforts on subjects over which an action at Community level would bring greater European added value". Outlining several innovative proposals from the guideline note, he notably saw the importance of "the networking of national programmes through the support to the mutual opening of programmes and, especially, the Union's participation in programmes carried out in a coordinated manner".