Economic impact of EU’s €55B Framework 7 R&D programme ‘quite substantial’

The €55 billion Framework Programme 7 had a disproportionate impact on Europe’s economy, with each euro spent generating an estimated €11 in return, through new technologies or products.

In total, the research and commercial potential of FP7 funding could be worth some €500 billion to the European economy over a period of 25 years, according to an independent study presented this week.

FP7, which ran from 2007-2013, accounted for only 3 percent of total R&D spending in Europe. Given this, “Its economic impacts are quite substantial,” the report says.

The programme spawned 1,700 intellectual property registrations and 125 spin‐off companies.

The scientific output is also praised, with FP7 projects generating more than 165,000 scientific papers, of which 650 were published in the high impact journals Science and Nature. This is a “quite amazing” result, according to EU Commissioner for Research, Carlos Moedas.

Research projects funded by the European Research Council (ERC) were recognised with a Nobel Prize and two Fields Medals in 2014.

Universities were the big winners in the programme, amassing 44 per cent of total funding, while research and technology organisations scooped 27 per cent, large private companies 11 per cent, and small businesses 13 per cent.

The level of involvement of researchers outside Europe, especially from high income countries like the US and Japan, was disappointing. Efforts to attract more international partners to FP7’s successor programme, Horizon 2020, which runs until 2020, is one of Moedas’ big priorities.

Despite this, the report cites “significant strides” made during the course of FP7 in attracting top talent from outside Europe. The adoption of the scientific visa and launch of the academic jobs portal EURAXESS are praised.

However, the review is critical of the €20 million the Commission spent on 140 evaluations and assessments of the programme.  “Considering this budget, the varying levels of quality and lack of application of results is astounding,” the report says.

There is a lot more work to do in the next few years in this field, Moedas acknowledged. “We have more data to deal with [but] we also have more tools.”

Gender parity remain elusive

Despite women making up a quarter of all applicants, only one in five FP7-funded ERC grants were awarded to women. “The Framework Programmes have not made substantial progress towards equal opportunities,” the report says.

Elsewhere in the programme, there were some slight improvements. In 2006 only 16‐17 per cent of project coordinators were women. Six years later, the share increased to 19.2 per cent.

Gender in research is a broad problem, said Moedas. “We have to change it little by little. I hope we can do better in Horizon 2020,” he said. The programme has made a commitment to have 40 per cent female participation in its advisory structures. “So far, we are a little bit above our targets,” the Commissioner reported.