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Fifth Framework Programme

Why Key Actions?

And basic research?

In addition to the key actions, approximately 30% of the resources of the Fifth Framework Programme are devoted to:

Research activities of a generic nature
These are aimed at supporting research work on basic knowledge or technologies in rapidly emerging sectors and those with high potential for the future.

Support for research infrastructures
This is intended to ensure the optimal use of European and national scientific and technical installations, and to permit the rational and economically efficient development of new infrastructure through transnational cooperation

The strong points of the key actions

23 high-priority socio-economic problems;
a multidisciplinary approach, involving researchers, industry, users, etc.;
targeting of objectives;
integration of research, demonstration, and training activities, etc.;
better coordination of research between Member States, countries outside the EU, international initiatives, etc.

What are the aims of European research, and whom does it benefit? These questions underlie the major reform undertaken by the Fifth Framework Programme (1998-2002), which defines the RTD objectives supported by the European Union. Part of the answer is found in the programme's 23 key actions, which are designed to focus most of Europe's research effort on 23 major social and economic problems over the next five years.

The Community's research and development effort is implemented by means of framework programmes. These provide a coherent, multi-theme structure and allow the strategic planning of the EU's research and development expenditure to be based on a five-year time horizon. The philosophy underlying the Fifth Framework Programme, which was adopted on 22 December 1998, and runs until the end of 2002, differs radically from that of its predecessors. "We are moving from research based on performance for its own sake to research which focuses on the social and economic problems which face society today," explains Edith Cresson, the European Commissioner in charge of research, innovation, education, training and youth(1). "This time, the available resources have been concentrated on carefully targeted priorities in order to avoid their being spread too thinly, which only too often limited the impact of programmes in the past."

Reversing the approach

Without any doubt, scientific and technological progress increasingly determines the way, and the speed at which, society evolves. This phenomenon inevitably raises a certain number of questions, in particular with respect to the speed of the changes and the directions in which they are taking society. But one can also turn the approach on its head: if the role of research and technological development is to innovate, is this not in order to respond to social and economic needs and expectations?

This is the innovative approach introduced by the new concept of "key actions", which concentrate on targeted, clearly delimited, social and economic problems, and on European resources and skills. For the Fifth Framework Programme, 23 such key actions have been identified, representing about 70% of the programme's budget. This approach signals a departure from the traditional organisation of research into relatively compartmentalised disciplines. On the contrary, the idea of the key actions is precisely to bring together the contributions of specialists from very differing scientific fields, together with industrial researchers, users, and political and economic decision-makers. The 23 key actions presented in this special supplement to RTD Info, and the areas of research that they cover, reflect the challenges felt throughout Europe - if not the world - by citizens concerned by both the future and the present - challenges to which science and technology can provide some of the answers.

(1) See "A turning point for Community research", RTD Info 21, p.3.