The Joint Research Centre has published practical guidelines taking the form of a "Decision Tree" and addressed mainly to research organisations that receive public funding. The publication “State Aid Rules in Research, Development & Innovation. Addressing Knowledge and Awareness Gaps among Research and Knowledge Dissemination Organisations” could also be useful for other stakeholders such as project promoters, experts, decision-makers with a view to better understand the ac
JRC published guidelines in the form of a Decision Tree for practitioners in Research Organisations to better understand and correctly apply EU State Aid Rules in Research and Innovation
- 20 November 2020
The Joint Research Centre has published practical guidelines taking the form of a "Decision Tree" and addressed mainly to research organisations that receive public funding. The publication “State Aid Rules in Research, Development & Innovation. Addressing Knowledge and Awareness Gaps among Research and Knowledge Dissemination Organisations” could also be useful for other stakeholders such as project promoters, experts, decision-makers with a view to better understand the activities, needs, requirements and limitation applicable to publicly funded research organisations. The present work is the result of over one year of intense work performed by staff from different relevant Commission services and several independent expert contributors, coordinated and managed by JRC. The guidelines take the form of a decision tree walking the reader through various practical situations constructed based on the current EC rules and regulations on State Aid in Research and Innovation. The document is intended to provide technical clarification and should not be interpreted as a piece of legislation.
The global economy is becoming more and more innovation-driven. Therefore, Research and Knowledge Dissemination Organisations (RDOs) need to take an ever more active role in translating knowledge into innovation, to fuel economic growth, jobs and competitiveness. This not only necessitates that RDOs collaborate more closely with a broad range of partners, including industry, but also that they embrace new innovative models through science parks, shared research infrastructures, innovation clusters or similar catalysts. Such activities often involve intensive interaction between publicly funded RDOs and industry – e.g. in the form of R&D-collaboration, the outsourcing of R&D-services to RDOs, knowledge transfer or the sharing of RDO-infrastructure. While these activities are desirable from an innovation and industrial-policy point of view, they may involve an element of public support. Such public support could constitute ‘State aid’ to one or more of the parties involved – the RDO and/or the undertakings, depending on the circumstances.
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