Widening participation in EU research programmes steps that led to the teaming call

Transcription

1 Widening participation in EU research programmes steps that led to the teaming call Speech by Dr. Georg Schütte, State Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education and Research on the occasion of the Ministerial Conference TEAMING as a tool for spreading excellence and widening participation Warsaw, 25 March 2014 Check against delivery! 1

2 Minister Kolarska-Bobińska, Director-General Smits, Distinguished Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am pleased to be here today, representing my Minister, Professor Wanka, who unfortunately cannot join us due to other commitments and who sends her warmest regards to you. This conference marks the continuation and at the same time the climax of a long process of discussions and negotiations on the design of Teaming for Excellence as a new approach under Horizon Along the way of this process, many different players Member States, the Commission, the European Parliament, stakeholders of the European research and innovation community have articulated their expectations, their concerns and their hopes in relation to addressing the research and innovation divide in Europe. The debate has revealed the perceived fields of tension that often bother policy-makers: the tension between maintaining the principle of excellence and adhering to the objective of cohesion in Europe, which seem to be competing; between 2

3 employing top-down approaches and promoting bottom-up initiatives and between European, national and regional interests, which do not always coincide. Yet, Europe s strengths include its ability to manage diversity through coordination, its culture of solidarity by balancing interests, and its capacity to create mutual benefit out of cooperation. It is in this spirit that these same players gathered to exchange their views, worked together to reconcile different positions, coordinated their activities and ultimately joined forces to set up Teaming as a new model for cooperation in the field of research and innovation in Europe. Recalling some of the key questions raised in the Teaming context and the answers given to these questions in the recent past will enable us to identify the most important future challenges facing the successful implementation of the Teaming idea at political as well as at operational level. These questions include (1) What was the underlying rationale for creating the Teaming model, which we are here to support politically today? And what is the political dimension of Teaming? (2) What are the determining factors of successful Teaming projects? 3

4 (3) What are the challenges ahead in light of the current call and for Horizon 2020 as a whole? Let me briefly cover these questions while introducing some thoughts on the way the challenges are to be met in the future: (1) What was the underlying rationale for creating the Teaming model? In 2010, the midterm evaluation of the seventh EU RTD framework programme identified an imbalance in participation in the programme across European countries and regions and called for appropriate steps to address this political challenge. We have a wealth of scientific evidence suggesting that such an imbalance can be identified between countries and certain types of actors, but that this imbalance is multifaceted and depends on a number of factors. Among the most important factors is the existence of a functioning research system, which comprises national strategies, initiatives, and programmes supporting participation in international research, a critical amount of research funding and an institutional setting favouring principles such as transparency, autonomy, openness and competition. In light of the request put forward particularly by Member States from Eastern Europe for specific support to create stairways to excellence, the political debate evolved around the 4

5 notion of completing the European Research Area as a key framework for a balanced and internationally competitive European research landscape, capable of exploiting its full potential. The crucial importance of complementary national and regional funding for climbing the stairways to excellence has given rise to the growing recognition that the European Structural and Investment Funds will continue to play a pivotal role as a funding source in the countries now targeted by Teaming, but not less importantly as a mechanism for leveraging additional resources and strategically steering investments in research, technological development and innovation. Efforts are, therefore, needed to improve strategic programming and prioritise resources on key strengths. This is the very idea behind smart specialisation: to intelligently combine available resources in the frame of integrated national and regional strategies for research and innovation. The European Parliament played a central role in the political debate on finding effective ways of reconciling the different requirements and interests. Members of Parliament enthusiastically advocated more decisive action, more integrated approaches in support of structural change while promoting excellent research activities, thereby enhancing close synergies 5

6 between funding programmes along value chains and in innovation cycles. With the White Paper on Teaming for Excellence, key leading research organisations in Europe offered their commitment to creating a common vision for the Teaming idea, in the spirit of reconciling the supposedly disparate interests and based on the principle of mutual benefit. If Teaming is to become a success story, it is our political responsibility to carefully consider this effort. Last September, Member States, the Commission and key European stakeholders gathered for a workshop in Berlin, exchanging and discussing various views on the more concrete details of this new action. The workshop was a decisive step towards advancing the debate on Teaming, as it provided the European Commission with a sound basis on which to finally draft the work programme and the first call for 'Teaming' actions. At about the same time last September, the informal strategic programme committee configuration commenced its negotiations on the first work programme involving Teaming. As the result of the intense political debate in the European research policy arena. The work programme on Teaming was published in December last year The package of Spreading 6

7 Excellence and Widening Participation provides a broad portfolio of different measures to develop a broad-based and inclusive but nevertheless competitive European Research Area. By providing support to partnerships between lower performing Member States and regions and leading research and innovation institutions, it promotes the integration of all parts of Europe into ERA; it stimulates the catching-up process of lower performing regions; and it provides incentives to endorse the principles of excellence in national research systems. Teaming - with total funding of approximately 250 million euro has the potential to contribute substantially to these objectives. With today s conference, we are underlining our political support for this new mechanism. (2) Having said this, what are the determining factors for successful Teaming projects? Building a single ERA means creating a level-playing field in R&I based on common standards and fair rules, with compatible and competitive research systems. This means that widening participation measures will have a major role to play as a catalyst for driving reforms in the national and regional research systems. 7

8 Teaming advocates an approach where cooperation and competition should go hand-in-hand. However, specific challenges need to be considered for this approach to work. First, there is a perceived or a real contradiction between excellence-based competition as a principle of research policy and the concept of cohesion, where positive impacts on regional development can be triggered and augmented through cooperation. Yet, it is this ability to identify areas for cooperation while willingly facing competition based on specific local strengths that will make Teaming a success. Second, looking at the European research landscape, the challenge for any Teaming proposal is to create research capacities in low-performing countries that do not compete with, but complement the existing research landscape, in order not to jeopardise mutual benefit. This implies that it is crucial to identify niches that meet the demands of the research community and of industry in Europe. This, in turn, means setting regional priorities in areas with a unique potential in the sense of smart specialisation, so that research capacity can be created that is complementary to existing research capacity elsewhere. Teaming up with a leading research institution requires that institution s early involvement in such strategic considerations so that it can subscribe to the overall objective of a joint vision of a Teaming activity by identifying own benefits and contribute its know-how. If we think of the 8

9 ESFRI roadmap, which pursues a strategy of jointly establishing and maintaining complementary infrastructure, this is a European-wide approach to smart specialisation. However, the success of these efforts demands strong commitment on the part of the Member States and their regions to invest in research and innovation, centred around the excellent institutions that will be created or upgraded through Teaming in the years to come. Eastern Germany, too, underwent a profound transformation process from the 1990s onwards that may be similar to what many regions in Europe are facing today. The research landscape in Eastern Germany was fundamentally revamped, reorganized and modernised. This process involved many tough decisions, including the closing-down of some research centres. Yet, such decisions were based on independent excellence-driven evaluations of institutes, enabling clear priority-setting hence helping to concentrate efforts on those centres with the potential to prevail in a competitive environment. A number of these institutions have successfully earned a reputation globally and created spread-out effects regionally. 9

10 (3) What are the challenges ahead in light of the current call and for Horizon 2020 as a whole? The fundamental question we need to answer is how to make Teaming a success within the proposed framework and budgetary limits for it to kick-start processes of catching-up in research and innovation performance. Building clusters around the new or upgraded centres will be an important element of Teaming, which is so far only emphasised to a limited extent in the current call. Linking the new centres to businesses and other research entities and thereby facilitating knowledge and technology transfer is a precondition for these centres to make an impact on innovation in the region. It will allow the regional economy to climb in the value chain by developing new technologies on their own, rather than sourcing-in existing technologies. It will not only enhance the competitiveness of industry and create high-quality jobs, but will also help identify mutual benefits for the leading entities, which will then see an opportunity to establish interregional research-business links. For us policy-makers, ensuring the long-term and visible impact of Teaming for Europe is an important achievement in 10

11 order to safeguard the future viability of such complex funding schemes. The political process on Teaming has been a very valuable exercise in engaging relevant stakeholders in the discussions. Nevertheless, the teaming instrument will prove its viability now with the first call open, we will be able to observe the receptivity amongst our research communities and, if necessary, fine-tune the instrument in future to achieve its full potential, success and sustainability. Ladies and Gentleman, let me conclude by passing on the message of this conference that we are Optimistic that Teaming will become a success story, and that we are Determined to create the conditions conducive to this success. Thank you! 11