Overcoming innovation gaps in the EU-13 Member States

Studija 14-03-2018

Investing in research is considered essential for achieving smart, sustainable and inclusive growth and jobs in Europe. The EU Framework Programme for research and innovation is the EU’s primary instrument for building the European Research Area. Framework Programmes are expected to produce European added value: therefore the principle of juste retour does not apply. Research needs to be of the highest quality, produced in international collaboration and selected on a competitive basis. Under such conditions, uneven participation is unavoidable. However, Framework Programme participation appears to be disproportionately weak for an entire region of the EU. After almost 20 years of access to the opportunities of the FPs, the EU-13 still lags behind the EU-15. The aim of this study is to explore, identify and enlighten reasons for the low participation and success rate of EU-13 countries, in order to improve their future performance in Horizon 2020 and in future Framework Programmes.