The EU (European Union) Framework Programs have been running since 1984. We are currently in the final year of FP6. It is the largest civilian research program in the world with approximately 5 Billion Euros of available funding in each of its four years.
Historically, each Framework Program ran for four years. Initially there were separate parallel research program but they were gradually combined into a single Framework Program. Initially they were not known as “Framework Programs”. That term was only applied retroactively to the early programs.
Under FP7 which is due to start January 2007 the funding will be substantially increased and will last seven years.
The nature of the Framework Program is top down i.e., the specific technical areas to be funded are predefined. Other topics would not be eligible for funding. The Commission states many times that the goal of the framework is only to address about 5 - 10% of European Union industrial research – the rest is funded by individual countries or companies. The only topics available for funding are those covered by the “Workprogram” and which attempt to go beyond current state of the art and have a believable exploitation plan. That is, the results must be marketable with an expected market size commensurate with the cost/investment.
Because projects are expected and required to extend the state of the art, there has to be identifiable risk and the Commission sees the funding as being an offset for this risk. This is an important point – a project that cannot complete because of valid technical reasons should not be treated as a failure – it only demonstrated that a particular approach is not practical at this point.
Another critical criterion for a valid project must be that it demonstrates that there is significant added value or likelihood of success by addressing the project at the European level. This is the so-called “subsidiarity” criterion. This states that work better done at the local level should not be carried out at the European level. This concept of “subsidiarity” is important to understand and to address.
A final critical criterion for the new types of project introduced in FP6 must be that there is a significant strategic impact of the proposed work.
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