EARTO publishes its answer to EC Consultation

EARTO, the European Association of Research & Technology Organisations, has prepared an answer to the Commission's consultation on the the past, present and future of the European Research & Innovation Framework Programmes. EARTO sees a increasing distance between the implementing agencies and the policymaking services. The association is concerned that there might be not enough feedback between the executive agencies managing the implementation of the FP and the DG services managing the policymaking. Services would get further decoupled, thereby leading to inadequate policy development and programming development, according to the paper.

EARTO is also observing an instability of the RD&I Budget in the Multi-Financial Framework due to the yearly budget discussions and the re-allocation of the FP budget to new top-down EU policies. Such budget instability would be detrimental to RD&I investments by beneficiaries which are largely co-funding EU RD&I programmes like RTOs and Industry and are based on medium to long-term investment strategies, EARTO says. In addition, without such EU RD&I investments, the targets set for the European Research Area would not be reached.

For more information: EARTO paper