Completion of previous Framework Programme and other activities
Programme results provide valuable lessons for the future
The findings and recommendations of previous Framework Programme evaluations serve as a basis for the design of future ones.
EU funding in 2010
€124.95 million
Evaluation is the European Commission's main tool for assessing to what extent EU activities achieve their objectives and how their future performance can be improved. Well-conducted evaluations can help improve the relevance, efficiency and cost-effectiveness of public interventions. The evaluation of Framework Programmes has a long history.
The approach being followed has been systemically updated, normally at the start of each new Framework Programme. At the core of this is the fundamental principle that evaluation should be carried out at the level where there is management and financial responsibility for an activity. In this way, the evaluation results can feed through directly into improvements.
In 2010, the final report was published on the ex-post evaluation of the strategic value and impact of the FP6 thematic research area covering nanotechnologies and nanosciences, knowledge-based multifunctional materials, and new production processes and devices (NMP). The results show that NMP research under FP6 did promote excellence and produced new knowledge. Moreover, it mobilised sufficient resources to create a critical mass, resulted in shifts in research towards exploitation and industrial utilisation, and created opportunities for researchers. There was also a general increase in the market orientation of R&D and more cooperation between academia and industry.
Intensive cooperation between academia and industry was also achieved in the FP6 programme New and Emerging Science and Technology (NEST), which funded collaborative projects with bottom-up defined content. Eleven of the 53 projects completed and assessed in 2010 resulted in a patent.