I appreciate the fact that my name has been spelled correctly. I thank the committee for the opportunity to make a presentation and build on the content of the information note we forwarded under the rules of procedures in respect of the European Union's seventh research framework programme. The area is complex and I propose to contextualise the rules for participation with regard to the overall programme before addressing the specific concerns we have raised on behalf of Ireland in the Council research group and on which we are making real progress.
Research and development are generally regarded as key components in any modern economy's drive towards competitiveness in an increasingly globalised business environment. The research framework programmes are the European Union's main instrument for funding research in Europe and have been operating successfully since 1984. There have been six so far and they have played a particularly important role in bringing European researchers, from academia and industry, together in collaborative research projects, in facilitating the mobility of researchers across Europe and in supporting economic and social development. The current framework programme, FP6, has a budget of €19 billion, spans the four-year period 2002 to 2006 and puts the emphasis on delivering on the Lisbon and Barcelona objectives of creating a European research area and on raising EU research efforts to 3% of EU GDP.
Irish engagement with the RTDI agenda owes much to the EU framework programme. During the difficult period of the mid to late-1980s and early 1990s framework support was effectively the only game in town in the science and technology area.
The researcher landscape has been transformed and science, technology and innovation have become a major plank of government policy, underpinned by significant resources. I have detailed some of the figures in the documents circulated to committee members, but I do not propose to go into them on account of time constraints.
The National Development Plan 2000-2006 has allocated €2.5 billion for investment in science, technology and innovation. This represents a five-fold increase over the period 1994-1999. While these increases provide us with a strong base on which to build, it is vital for long-term national economic success that we promote further investment in research and development to meet the targets in our national research and development plan, Building Ireland's Knowledge Economy, and to move towards the EU targets for these key areas as set out at the Lisbon and Barcelona Councils.
In February 2005, the Cabinet sub-committee on science technology and innovation charged the interdepartmental committee on science, technology and innovation with producing a strategy on STI to 2013. This work is currently being finalised and will build on the achievements of the last decade which can be seen today in new, well equipped labs, much research activity, enhanced collaboration between industry and academia and an enhanced image of Ireland as a good place to engage in research and development activity.
The strategy will, doubtless, recognise the importance of engaging in international collaboration and transnational co-operation and facilitate Ireland's participation in the framework programme and other collaborative research efforts such as those sponsored by the European Space Agency and similar inter-governmental research organisations.
The goals of European research policy are consistent with Ireland's strategy to move towards a knowledge-based economy. Through successive EU framework programmes, Irish researchers have joined with organisations in Europe and beyond to compete for and win funding for specific research projects. EU support under the framework programme has been used in addition to steadily increasing national supports to lay the foundation for a knowledge economy. This will continue. Irish researchers and institutions have been successful in securing approximately €165 million from FP6 proposals to date, with a number of calls still remaining. This compares favourably with a total drawdown of €148 million from FP5.
Ireland has put in place a comprehensive national support structure, NSS, to inform and support potential participants in FP6. This structure includes a network of 28 national delegates and national contact points drawn from 12 Departments and agencies. To ensure maximum impact from this network, an FP6 national information and support unit, located within Enterprise Ireland, was established in 2002. This support unit is a first point of contact for queries and dissemination of up-to-date information on the programme and holds regular meetings of the national delegates and contact points. Enterprise Ireland has also appointed a framework programme liaison officer in Brussels with the objective of helping to optimise Irish industry participation in the programme.
The achievements of the Irish Universities Association, IUA, in promoting the Marie Curie programme have been a major success story for Ireland under FP6. The IUA hosts the national delegate and contact point for the Marie Curie programme and this dedicated team is to be commended for its work in supporting researchers in both academia and industry, in submitting proposals and in managing the Marie Curie projects. Its members have significantly raised the bar in terms of performance and laid down a real challenge for the rest of the Irish system in terms of performance under FP7.
While our support structures have been reasonably successful in garnering support for Irish research efforts, the Department believes that more can yet be achieved in this regard. To this end, we are in consultation with stakeholders in the process of developing an enhanced support structure which will be headed by a national director for FP7 and supported by a core unit and dedicated teams. The aim is to outperform previous engagements under the framework programmes to date and to leverage as much international support and funding as possible to assist national efforts to achieve the Lisbon and Barcelona research and development targets.
In April 2005 the Commission published its proposal for the seventh framework programme which will cover the period 2007-2013. The proposal involves a doubling of the research budget to approximately €73 billion over the seven-year period. The adoption of the common position on FP7, which involves co-decision procedures with the European Parliament, is expected later this year. The specific programmes which give detailed effect to the FP7 proposal were published in September 2005 and these were followed in December by the rules for participation which we are here to discuss.
The rules for participation in the seventh framework programme lay out the contractual aspects of the programme. The Commission's aim is to simplify FP7 in comparison with its predecessor and claims that this proposal provides the vehicle for implementing many aspects of that simplification. The overall package of proposals for FP7 is designed to give new impetus to increasing Europe's growth and competitiveness and covers four specific research programmes. These are, co-operation, ideas, people and capacities. Co-operation covers transnational collaborative research projects. Ideas, covers frontier research and will involve discussions on the European Research Council, ERC. People, covers the human potential and Marie Curie actions referred to earlier and capacities will cover SME participation, research infrastructure and research potential.
Following the recent decision on the EU financial perspectives, current indications are that the FP7 budget will be in the region of €50 billion, a substantial increase on expenditure under the current programme but not quite the doubling Commissioner Potocnik had hoped to get.
Irish priorities for FP7 have been identified following extensive consultation with stakeholders, organised under the mantle of the then Irish council for science, technology and innovation, ICST. Ireland intervened early with the Commission in the design of FP7. Our overall aim in the negotiations is to ensure that the priorities to be funded under the programme and the rules governing participation are such as to facilitate the maximum level of Irish participation in the programme, both in academia and industry.
Ireland submitted a position paper on the issues hindering SME participation in the framework programme and has put forward suggestions to address the very real problems being encountered by small and medium-sized firms in engaging with it. In addition, Ireland, with a degree of support from the new member states, continues to make a significant input into the ongoing technical examination of the proposals in the Council research working group and has also submitted views on the thematic areas to be funded, the specific programmes and rules for participation proposals.
Many of the priorities and suggestions put forward by Ireland were reflected in the Commission's initial proposal and in subsequent Presidency amendments. These include: the continued focus on collaborative research in the thematic areas; the priority attached to the "people" component of the proposal; the emphasis placed on efforts to simplify the programme and make it more attuned to the needs of industry, particularly SMEs; a 15% target for SME participation in the co-operation programme; and improved support, better information and less bureaucratic participation procedures. The extent of Ireland's support for the new elements of the programme, including the proposed European Research Council, ERC, and support for the construction of research, etc., will depend on the amount of funding finally allocated to research in the EU budget package which is expected to be finalised shortly.
The Irish position on the rules for participation was formulated in consultation with all the relevant stakeholders. A national working group comprised of representatives from Forfás, Enterprise Ireland, and the Irish Universities Association, IUA, co-ordinated this consultation process. Representatives from UCD and NUIG also participated in the working group, which met frequently from August 2005. The group consulted the Commission prior to the publication of its proposal for the rules relating to participation. Following this, the group carried out a detailed analysis of the Commission proposal to determine any negative impact on Irish industrial and academic participation in FP7, both in terms of the level of that participation and the benefit that Irish participants would derive from it. Consultation was undertaken with researchers in industry, research institutes and in third level colleges, as well with counterparts abroad, to ensure that all appropriate angles were covered. Upon completion of this rigorous stakeholder consultation, the group formulated detailed observations on the Commission's proposal and submitted these to the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment for input through the Council research group in Brussels.
The group's position was broadly supportive of the Commission's rules in respect of participation and in overall terms it welcomed the latter's proposal. However, a number of issues were identified that are of particular concern to Ireland and clarification was sought on a number of other matters. The main issues of concern were the removal of the additional cost model, revisions to the operation of the programme committee and the perennial issue in this area of intellectual property rights ownership and management.
I wish to address each of these three important issues before concluding. The proposal to drop the additional cost model and provide for a full cost model is contained in Articles 30 to 33, inclusive, of the rules. This has been identified by the stakeholders' group and by the OST as the main concern in the Commission's proposal. We are not convinced that this represents any simplification in the programme, at least from the perspective of researchers on the ground.
In its current form, this proposal could have implications for the continued participation of Irish universities in FP7 research, which, I presume, my colleagues from the IUA will address in greater detail. In essence, it could place any university that does not have an accounting system to determine indirect costs at a financial disadvantage relative to FP6, unless the flat rate for indirect costs is set at a realistic figure. To address this concern, it will be necessary to ensure that such flat rates are based on a close approximation of the real indirect costs concerned.
The Commission proposal to change the powers of the programme committee are set out in page 5 of the memorandum accompanying the draft. The current arrangement whereby the Commission must obtain the consent of the programme committee, which is made up of representatives of member states, to proceed with the funding of proposals over a certain threshold has served the member states well. The Commission proposes to remove this mandate from the member states. Its argument for change is one of simplification in that it believes the time to contract would be reduced. We believe that the short window of opportunity provided to participating countries to raise issues about project funding decisions before their final approval is an important part of the governance and the transparency of the programme and we cautioned against the removal of this step. In this context, we have supported calls from other member states for the retention of the committee's existing functions. It remains to be seen how successful we will be in this regard.
An Austrian Presidency amendment to the original Commission proposal on intellectual property rights, IPR, is set out in Article 42.4. If adopted, this amendment would include a requirement in the FP7 rules to notify the Commission in advance of any intended transfer of ownership or any intended grant of an exclusive licence to a third party which is established in a third country not associated with FP7.
The original Commission proposal on the rules did not have this provision but simply allowed an option in the grant agreements to include a requirement that the Commission be notified in advance of such transfers. This matter is of concern to Ireland because it may deter multinational corporations from participating in FP7 and Ireland, UK and other countries have argued that the Presidency amendment in this respect should not be adopted. This is a major concern that has been placed on the table of the Council research group on a number of occasions. Ireland's concerns on the rules of participation were pursued in the course of extensive discussions in the Council research working group. To lend weight to this approach, at the Competitiveness Council on 13 March, the Minister, Deputy Martin, reiterated our concerns and placed particular emphasis on the views expressed by our universities about the practical implications of moving to a different funding arrangement in FP7 and the implications for the legitimate employment practices and accounting procedures currently in place in our universities. Our concerns regarding this key issue and the other matters identified will continue to be pursued in the ongoing negotiations.
I will not delay the meeting by outlining the intended conclusion or timeframe for completion. Information in this regard is, however, included in the submission.