EU’s top research official calls for less bureaucracy in future Joint Technology Initiatives

The next generation of Joint Technology Initiatives (JTI) needs to be run on a simple, trust-based footing if the projects are to appeal to industry and academe alike. “We need to move to a trust-based system,” Robert-Jan Smits, director-general of research told MEPs. “How can we make the system much more user-friendly, or company and academia friendly?” asked the bureaucrat in charge of Europe’s research agenda, adding, “The system is complex, it has too many controls.”

Calling on MEPs for support, Smits said he would like do things in a much more straightforward way, “Of course, we require the lead from MEPs. It requires the modification of the financial regulation in order for us to move to a trust- based approach,” he said at a meeting last week held to highlight the achievements of the first five JTIs, which share a total budget of €10 billion.

Since their launch in 2007, in embedded computing systems (ARTEMIS); green aviation (Clean Sky); nanoelectronics (ENIAC); fuel cells and hydrogen; and the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) – the five JTIs have been criticised by academic and industry stakeholders alike for being slow and over-regulated.

Three of them, the embedded computing systems initiative, the nanoelectronics JTI and most recently the hydrogen and fuel cells project, have been shaken up by critical evaluations. These reports point out, among other things, that it takes too much time to set up projects because the regulations are too complex and a disincentive to industry participation.

Richard Bergström, director-general of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) told Science|Business that some bureaucratic hurdles remain.  “IMI was the first JTI to get going. This means there were teething problems, and there is still some bureaucracy we are dealing with.” But Bergström went on to stress that despite the “slow start,” there is now increased interest in the project, and he looks forward to the second generation of public private partnerships, to be set up under Horizon 2020, the successor to Framework Programme 7 that gets under way in 2013.

Funding of the JTIs, around one third of which comes from the European Commission, with the remainder contributed by industry and national governments, is another source of discontent. “Member states have committed to provide funding, but it doesn’t always arrive, and it doesn’t always arrive on time," Christopher Hull, secretary general of European Association of Research and Technology Organisations (EARTO) told Science|Business. “[This] has to be addressed, and it has to be fixed," he said.

Despite the growing pains, Smits believes the first generation JTI partnerships between public and private institutions have been successful in boosting innovation in sectors that are key to European competitiveness and job creation. “Let me be quite frank, it was not easy getting these [projects] off the ground. It was a long journey. But now that they are up and running we see the first results very clearly, and they are first class.”

Smits hailed the increase in the research and innovation budget proposed over the seven years that Horizon 2020 will run, though he acknowledged that the total of €80 billion is not the doubling parliament had asked for.

Parliament still has a chance to achieve its goal, believes Smits. “Parliament has been asking for a doubling, up to a €100 billion, and perhaps during the debate, in the context of co-decision, you can beef it up with another €20 billion.”

In fact, the Commission already has a model for how to run JTIs more efficiently, in the public private partnerships that were set up at short notice in response to the financial crisis of 2008. The €3.2 billion partnerships scheme needed to be established at speed if it was to be seen as a credible response to the crisis, forcing the Commission to adopt a bureaucracy-lite approach to its structure.