Brussels, 14/12/2005 (Agence Europe) - Although it is still waiting for the adoption of the financial perspectives to gain clarity on the financial envelope for the forthcoming framework programme for research and development (2007-2013), European Commission has finished its organisation of its functioning. After the specific programmes presented in the autumn, it is likely to adopt draft participation rules without delay. On the basis of the functioning of the programme and its administrative simplification, these rules may be adopted by written procedure before Christmas, unless the Cabinet of a member of the Commission tables a reservation, which would oblige the dossier to be included on the agenda of the forthcoming meeting of the Commission, which will probably take place early in 2006.
The participation rules cover the various aspects of setting up and running a consortium in order to carry out a research project, the formalities to be observed for the selection and Community funding of the project, the details of this funding and the rules concerning intellectual property. In recent months, Commissioner Janez Potocnik has incessantly pointed out that these rules must guarantee a sufficient degree of flexibility to answer the requirements of administrative simplification, on which the scientific community has laid great emphasis. The text which the Commission is in the process of putting the final touches to should allow this objective to be achieved, as long as the European Parliament and Council of ministers do not, as has been the case in the past, add a handful of administrative requirements and constraints. Within the Parliament, Belgian Socialist Philippe Busquin is set to be appointed rapporteur on this dossier. The former Commissioner for Research, who is well versed in the problems faced by researchers, is expected to support the simplification. It remains to be seen what attitude the Member States will adopt within the Council.
Three major developments will be proposed by the Commission. The first relates to the level of Community participation. Up to now, this has been limited to 50% of the costs of the research project. In future, the Union will be able to get involved to a level of 75% of the costs incurred by non-profit making bodies (universities, research institutes) and small and medium-sized enterprises. As for fundamental research project at the cutting edge of knowledge and selected by the European Research Council, these may be funded entirely. But the major novelty relates to the financial responsibility of participants. The principle of collective or solidarity-based responsibility, which came in for much criticism from the scientific community when the sixth FPRD was adopted, raised major problems, particularly for universities and SMEs, which had to get a bank guarantee in order to be able to take part in a project. This is set to be replaced with a form of risk mutualisation, based on taking a guarantee sum, at source, out of the Community subsidy. For each project, this sum will usually be less than 1% of Community funding. Intellectual property rules will also be revised, in order to reduce obstacles to the use of research results, which were a particular problem for SMEs and universities. The new rules will also allow those taking part voluntarily to abandon the prior notification regime of the transfer of the ownership of results to a third party.