Synergies FP7- SFs for Research Infrastructures
Agnès RobinEuropean Commission
Directorate-General for Research & Innovation, Unit “Research Infrastructures”
With material from Christos Profilis, Research Infrastructures, DG R&I, and Pierre Godin, Cohesion Policy, DG REGIO.
The future of the 21st century ocean – Marine Sciences and European Research Infrastructures Brest, France – 28 June – 1 July 2011
FP7 2007-2013: Provides funds for R&D
projects (including Research Infrastructures) on the basis of scientific excellence
Contributes consequently tocreation of knowledge-technology-exploitation
Therefore, R&D-RIs are a core element for the implementation of EUROPE 2020
SFs 2007-2013: Funds for regional strategies
(supporting programmes & related projects), to strengthen the capacity to respond to challenges of less advanced regions, on the basis of socioeconomic impact-return
Contribute consequently tocreation of growth and employment (including regional R&D capacities)
Therefore core element for implementation of EUROPE 2020
Rationales: Framework Programme 7 (FP7) – Structural Funds (SFs)
FP7 2007-2013 based on:
Rules for Participation
Specific Programmes
Work Programmes(individual activities)
SFs 2007-2013 based on:
Strategic Guidelines on Cohesion(Commission)
National Strategic Reference Frameworks (NSRF), (MS: national strategic priorities)
National Sectoral Operational Programmes (SOP) and Regional Operational Programmes (ROP), (MS: detailed priorities)
FP7 – SFIn Practical Terms
Introduction to Cohesion Policy
• Reducing regional disparities• Promoting competitiveness, growth and employment• Addressing sustainability issues• 2 Structural Funds (SF):
• ERDF: European Regional Development Fund (DG REGIO)
• ESF: European Social Fund (e.g. for human capital) (DG EMPL)
• RTD-I crucial to regions’ economic performance
Cohesion Policy Approach to RIs
• Current situation• Regional disparities: RIs concentrated in few leading regions
• Towards a balanced distribution of RIs • No spread of money / Not building the same RIs in all regions• Fostering existing centres of excellence• Enabling new ones to emerge in regions with greatest needs
• European Territorial Cooperation (ETC)• Linking regional RIs to other interested regions / remote access• Dissemination of good practice across EU (Interreg / Regions for
Economic Change)• EGTC: a new legal instrument to facilitate cooperation
• Impact assessment of RIs on regional development• Cost / benefit analysis for major projects (JASPERS: tech. Assist.)• Impact assessment studies at regional level• innovative businesses: start-ups, spin-offs, SMEs
(incubators, clusters)
SF Allocation to RTD-I for RIs
• € 86 billion (i.e. 25% of total SFs), allocated to RTD-I (2007-2013), of which:
Code 02: "Research and development Infrastructures and centres of competence in a specific technology"
• € 9.74 billion (i.e. 11.4% of total RTD-I), allocated to RIs: Exclusively from DG REGIO, broken down:
• 75.8%, in favour of Convergence regions
• 22.9%, in favour of Competitiveness and Employment regions
• 1.3% for exploiting RIs across borders, i.e. European Territorial Cooperation
SF Allocation to RTD-I for Human Potential of RIs
• Code 74: “Developing human potential in the field of research and innovation, in particular through post-graduate studies ...”
• € 4.93 billion, i.e. about 5.77% of the total RTD-I, consisting of:
• € 4.36 billion (21% of total-DG EMPL-ESF) and• € 572 million (0.88% of total-DG REGIO-ERDF)
• Mainly ‘Convergence’, less ‘Competitiveness & Employment’, few ‘European Territorial Cooperation’
SF Eligibility rules for RIs
•Limits imposed by EU rules (Reg.) + national rules (MAs): consult Practical guide for EU funding (check with MAs)
•Eligible beneficiaries: virtually all R&I actors•Geographical eligibility of RIs: priority in ‘Convergence’•Eligibility of activities / investments related to RIs: preparatory activities, construction and equipment
•Eligibility period related to RIs: not beyond 31/12/2015•Eligible types of financial support for RIs: grants, loans,…•Other important eligibility issues: project generating income; real cost principle; specific rules for in kind contribution, depreciation and overheads,
•Rules concerning the regularity of expenditure: public procurement, environment, sustainable operational costs, availability of public co-financing, advertising.
COMPETITIVE EUROPEAN REGIONS THROUGH RESEARCH AND INNOVATION
“PRACTICAL GUIDE TO EU FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES FOR
RESEARCH AND INNOVATION”
ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu./pub/fp7/docs/practical-guide-rev-2_en.pdf
SF payment rules
•SF support not directly paid to the beneficiaries•Support paid by MS to beneficiaries•MS reimbursed by the EC (certified expenditure)•Pre-financing payment from Commission to MS for OPs: at the beginning of the period to speed up payments to beneficiaries
•MS send annual provisional forecasts for payment claim•Interim payments and payments of final balance: based on the payment claim (certified expenditure) and co-financing rates laid down in the decision on the OPs,
•No payment before the control system is accepted•Procedure interrupted in case of deficiency / irregularity.
ATTENTION !
It is critical, in discussions between the Managing Authorities and RI owners/managers: to explore and assess the impact of facilities (RIs) on the economy of the region, in particular in terms of creation and development of innovative businesses (including spin-offs, start-ups, etc).
For example: identification of industrial partners via letters of interest from companies.
• Exploiting the potential for synergies• Fostering co-ordinated access to the EU
funds: possible support of ESFRI projects under SF (e.g. ELI), to be explored with MAs (ad hoc template)
• Ensuring communication & information• Updating a database of projects• Preventing financial irregularities
Publicise & use the practical guide
Role of national / regional authorities
implementing the different EU policies
Consequent Bottlenecks in RI – SF links
Two different Policies (FP – Cohesion Policy)
Different selection criteria (scientific excellence – socioeconomic impact/return)
Limited understanding/knowledge of the above, both inside and outside EC
Nonetheless, COMMON ULTIMATE AIM: EUROPE 2020
Synergies possible!
Reinforcing RI – SFs links:HOW?
Build bridges between two different policies
Establish a vision of combined strategies (not only combined funds)
BY USING THE OPEN METHOD OF CORDINATION + GOOD PRACTICES
How to coordinate in PRACTICE
FP7 (RIs) and SF Actions ?
• National R&D-RI priorities to be included in NSRFs (then in SOPs / ROPs) so that SFs are properly & timely earmarked by DG REGIO (MS-Regions)
• Inform candidate RI applicants of availability and/or complementarity of FP-SF funds; how and where to apply (MS-Regions-EC)
• Assist candidate RI applicants in understanding the rules (MS-Regions-EC)
• Ensure appropriate awareness campaign, communication & information exchanges (MS-Regions-EC-CoR)
For the 34 running 1st ESFRI Roadmap PP Projects:
Mapping of RIs-SFs
• Identification, on a project by project basis, of individual participants eligible to apply for SFs
• DG RTD-REGIO common consultation and cross check of findings
What has been done to date in practice ?
Findings for possible Convergence support to
ESFRI Project RIs
• 66 different participating organisations, located in 29 cities/regions, in 16 MS involved, in 25/34 ESFRI Roadmap projects, are potentially eligible to receive Convergencefunds under "Research and development Infrastructures and centres of competence in a specific technology" of DG REGIO (Code 02)
• The total amount "available" for this category underConvergence (in competition with any other research related activities), amounts to 7.340.337.206 €
Findings for possible Competitiveness & Employment
support to ESFRI Project RIs
• 260 different participating organisations, located in 128 cities/regions, in 17 MS involved, in the 34 ESFRI Roadmap projects, are potentially eligible to receive Competitiveness and Employment funds under "Research and development Infrastructures and centres of competence in a specific technology" of DG REGIO (Code 02)
• The total amount "available" for this category underCompetitiveness and Employment(in competition with any other research related activities), amounts to 2.230.019.518 €
Findings for possible European Territorial Cooperation
support to ESFRI Project RIs
• 131 different participating organisations, located in 59 cities/regions, in 19 MS involved, in 27/34 ESFRI Roadmap projects, are potentially eligible to receive European Territorial Cooperation funds under "Research and development Infrastructures and centres of competence in a specific technology" of DG REGIO (Code 02)
• The total amount "available" for this category underEuropean Territorial Cooperation
(in competition with any other research related activities), amounts to 42.114.392 €
• There is real potential for any of the three types of DG REGIO funding under the category "R&D Infrastructures & centres of competence in a specific technology“ (Code 02: about 10 Bio €), for practically all ESFRI Roadmap Projects RIs (more than 300 organisations)
• For most ESFRI Projects, there are actually simultaneous possibilities for two or even 3 types, i.e.: Convergence, Competitiveness and Employment and European Territorial Cooperation, because of the number and/or variety of the cities/regions participating in the same project
Conclusions of the Mapping Exercise
• The following ESFRI PP projects are being thoroughly scrutinized: BBMRI (ES), LIFEWATCH (HU), Neutron ESS (ES), SPIRAL2 (HU) and ELI (CZ-HU-RO-ES)
• ELI pilot exercise? meeting National Authorities / DG RTD-REGIO in December 2009; April 2011: 1st large project of the Operational Programme 'Research and Development for Innovation' to be approved. The EU financial contribution will amount to € 236 million for CZ
• Joint (RTD-REGIO) “Template“ document for information on RI applying for Structural Funds Support: to facilitate the relevant interactions between stakeholders concerned (RI owners/managers and National-regional Managing Authorities).
Follow-up resulting from the Mapping
exercise to date
1. For ESFRI projects for which construction/implementation phase is foreseen now - 2012, applicability of possible DG REGIO funding for the period (2007-2013) needs to be verified (Action: ESFRI PP COOR-MS-Regions-EC):
• verification of the content of the respective National Sectoral and Regional Operational Programmes; may require modifications to become applicable to RIs (e.g. ELI: CZ; HU; RO or EATRIS: DE);
• explore the interest of Managing Authorities (MS, EC), to use Structural Funds for these projects or relevant ideas stemming from these projects.
2. For those ESFRI projects for which the implementation phase is anticipated after 2013, may be useful to stimulate the Managing Authorities to possibly include them in future NSOP and/or ROPs (Action: ESFRI Regional WG)
Suggested additional Actions (1)
3. Awareness Campaigns and Dissemination of relevant information to all possible stakeholders (below) to allow them exploring possible interests/benefits, from Structural Funds investments in Regional Research Infrastructures:
a) RI Project Coordinators, participants, owners, managers (Action: e.g. Event 28/05/2010);
b) National/regional public authorities; c) the RI PC members (Action: e.g. 2/07/2010 meeting);d) the Research Infrastructures NCPs;e) ESFRI representatives (including ESFRI Reg WG);f) the Committee of Regions (Action: e.g. October 2010
“Open Days” event, REGIO-CoR);g) the European Parliament.
Suggested additional Actions (2)
Visit the EU specific websites• Practical Guide on EU funding opportunities for research &
innovation:
http://cordis.europa.eu/eu-funding guide/home_en.html• FP7: http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/home_en.html • CIP: http://ec.europa.eu/cip/index_en.htm• ERDF: Managing Authorities for the Operational Programmes
http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/atlas2007/index_en.htm• ESF: Managing Authorities for the Operational Programmes
http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/esf/index_en.htmContact the information centres & the MAs in the MS
• EEN – Enterprise Europe Network: for FP7 and CIP• NCP – National Contact points: for FP7; for CIP (energy & ICT)• SF – Managing Authorities: contacts & OPs summaries in web-sites;
funding depends on their budget planning, timing and procedures.
Regional Policy – SFs links
Thank you!Merci
Gracias
DankeGrazie
Bedankt
Teşekkür ederim
Obrigado
KiitosTack
Hvala
KöszönömΕυχαριστω
СПАСІБOありがとう
Christos PROFILIS
Tel: +32/(0)2/[email protected]
Va multumesc
Contact EC, DG Research and Innovation:
