The European Union 7th Framework programme
The current EU framework Programme in research, technological development and demonstration activities is the seventh of that name and lasts from 2007 to 2013. It involves four distinct programmes each corresponding to one of the four major European policy lines as far as research is concerned:
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Cooperation – in particular, support for trans-national projects, in the form of collaboration, networks of excellence and the coordination of research programmes. The collaboration between the EU and third countries is an integral part of this action.
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Ideas – An autonomous European Research Council has been created to support investigator-driven “frontier research” carried out by individual teams competing at the European level, in all scientific and technological fields, including engineering, socio-economic sciences and the humanities.
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People – the Marie Curie actions, which aim to facilitate the training and carrier development of research workers, are to be reinforced with a better focus on the key aspects of skills and career development and strengthened links with national systems.
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Capacities - Key aspects of European research and innovation capacities are supported: research infrastructures; research for the benefit of SMEs; regional research driven clusters; unlocking the full research potential in the EU’s “convergence” regions; “Science in Society” issues; horizontal” activities of international co-operation.
Note that the part of the programme entitled “cooperation” is by far the largest in budgetary terms with over 61% of the total budget of the 7th Framework Programme, amounting to some 44.432 billion euros over seven years.
Operational aspects of the programme
The 7th Framework Programme is significantly simpler in its ways of working than the preceding programmes. The measures taken cover the entire funding cycle, including the simplification of funding schemes, administrative and financial rules and procedures, as well as the readibility and user-friendliness of documents.
In order to strengthen diffusion and the use of research results, the spread of knowledge and the transfer of results, including to decision-makers, various activities are funded across all the thematic areas. These activities include networking, seminars and events as well as assistance provided by external experts and online information services, in particular CORDIS.
Support for trans-national cooperation takes various forms:
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Collaborative research under varying financial regimes: collaborative projects, networks of excellence, coordination or support actions;
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Joint technological initiatives – in a number of cases, long-term public-private partnership are to be set up taking the form of joint technology initiatives that combine private sector investment and public sector funding from national and European sources, including funding from the Framework Programme as well as loans from the European Investment Bank.
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Coordination of research programmes using two main tools: ERA-NET (coordinating national and regional research activities) and the participation of the Community in national research programmes.
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International cooperation - either by opening activities in the thematic programmes to researchers and institutions from all third countries or by cooperation reserved for third countries in specific areas of mutual interest.
The place of ICT and education?
Amongst the nine themes identified for the cooperation strand of the programme, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) plays a key role with 28.5% of the “cooperation” budget. Many of the technological paths followed could have interesting fall-out in the field of education and training. However, it is in the action dedicated to applications research and particularly the part on ICT for content, creativity and personal development that there is specific mention of training: technology-enhanced learning; adaptive and contextualised learning solutions; active learning. In other words, in the pursuit of the current Tlearn programme.
ICT in social sciences and humanities
ICT in education also has a potential place in the social sciences and humanities theme. Activities in this area aim to help improve the elaboration, implementation, constructive fall-out and evaluation of policies in a wide range of areas. Specific mention is made of education and training. Amongst other things, it is a question of developing scientific indicators for the implementation of policies and prospective activities aimed at major scientific and technological challenges, such as the globalisation of knowledge, and the related socio-economic aspects.
