Luxembourg, 23/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Court of Auditors has published its ninth Special Report of 2001, focussing on the "Researchers' Training and Mobility" programme which was allocated EUR 792 million under the 5th Framework Programme for Research and Development. The Court found that the procedures followed to assess the proposals occasionally lacked transparency. There were, for example, no detailed minutes available into the decision-making process to back up the decisions that were actually taken. A Court of Auditors' press release signals that the Court found a danger of a clash of interests when it came to sharing out proposals among the relevant assessors, and recommends improving the implementation procedures and apply them more rigorously. The Court welcomed the improvements that have been made in the process of granting "Marie Curie" mobility bursaries, and recommends that the entire management process for Marie Curie bursaries be dealt with by a dedicated service. The Court picked up anomalies in the eligibility criteria and the costs laid down for making use of the different activities in the programme (which were not being respected by contractors and the Commission made insufficient checks) and called on the Commission to take measures to deal with these shortfalls. The report can be downloaded (in French) from: http://www.eca.eu.int/fr/RS/2001/rs09_01fr.pdf.