FP7 employed a range of different types of instruments (projects and actions) to implement its priorities, with a different profile of instruments being used within each of the areas discussed above. The instruments employed by FP6 were as follows:47
• Research for the benefit of specific groups (in particular SMEs) – Support for research projects where the bulk of the research and technological development is carried out by universities, research centres or other legal entities, for the benefit of specific groups, in particular SMEs or associations of SMEs. Efforts will be made to mobilise additional financing from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and other financial organisations
• Collaborative projects – Support for research projects carried out by consortia with participants from different countries, aiming at developing new knowledge, new technology, products, demonstration activities or common resources for research. The size, scope and internal organisation of projects can vary from field to field and from topic to topic. Projects can range from small or medium-scale focused research actions to large scale integrating projects for achieving a defined objective. Projects should also target special groups such as SMEs and other smaller actors.
• Coordination and support actions – Support for activities aimed at coordinating or supporting research activities and policies (networking, exchanges, trans-national access to research infrastructures, studies, conferences, etc.). These actions may also be implemented by means other than calls for proposals.
• Combination of CP & CSA – Support for the preparatory phase leading to the construction of new research infrastructures or major upgrades of existing ones. This activity should help the majority of projects for new research infrastructures to reach the level of technical, legal and financial maturity required to enable the construction work to start.
• Support for “frontier” research – Support for projects carried out by individual national or transnational research teams. This scheme will be used to support investigator-driven "frontier" research projects funded in the framework of the European Research Council. This instrument includes ERC Starting Grant and Call Advanced Grant.
• Support for training and career development of researchers – Support for training and career development of researchers, mainly to be used for the implementation of Marie Curie actions. This includes Initial training networks, Industry-academia partnerships and pathways, Life-long training, International dimension, and Specific actions.
• Networks of Excellence – Support for a Joint Programme of Activities implemented by a number of research organisations integrating their activities in a given field, carried out by research teams in the framework of longer term cooperation. The implementation of this Joint Programme of Activities will require a formal commitment of the organisations integrating part of their resources and their activities.
• Article 169 of the Treaty – A financial contribution from the Community to the joint implementation of well identified national research programmes, on the basis of Article 169 of the Treaty. Such a joint implementation requires the establishment or existence of a dedicated implementation structure. Community financial support will be provided subject to the definition of a financing plan based on formal commitments of the competent national authorities.
• Article 171 of the Treaty – A financial contribution from the Community to the implementation of Joint Technology Initiatives to realise objectives that cannot be achieved through the funding schemes identified above. Joint Technology Initiatives will mobilise a combination of funding of different kinds and from different sources: private and public, European and national. This funding may take different forms and may be allocated or mobilised though a range of mechanisms: support from the Framework Programme, loans from the European Investment Bank (EIB), or risk capital support. Joint Technology Initiatives may be decided and implemented on the basis of Article 171 of the Treaty (this may include the creation of joint undertakings) or by the Decisions establishing the specific programmes. Community
47 Source: Cordis (2010) GUIDE FOR APPLICANTS: Capacities – Research Infrastructures, [online] available at http://rp7.ffg.at/Kontext/WebService/SecureFileAccess.aspx?fileguid=%7B3d5aa05a-59d2-4560-ab1c-e258a66e4ca9%7D,
support will be provided subject to the definition of an overall blueprint of financial engineering, based on formal commitments of all parties concerned.
C.8.1. Project, participations and EC funding, by Type of Instrument
Figure 94 shows the numbers of projects and participations, and the volume of EC funding, achieved by UK participations for each of the main types of instrument covered by the FP7 database. As with the priority areas above, the various instruments have been used to a greater or lesser degree across FP7 and so it is not possible to draw firm conclusions on the performance of the UK from this table. However, in terms of numbers alone, UK participation was highest for Collaborative projects, followed by Support for Training and Career Development of Researchers. For each of these types of instrument, the UK has achieved at least 585 projects, 685 participations and €155 million in funding.
Figure 94 – UK projects, participations and EC funding, by Type of Instrument
Instrument Pr o je ct s Pa rt ic ip a ti o ns EC fu nd ing (€ m il li o n )
Research for the Benefit of Specific Groups 101 216 26.5
Collaborative Project 1,012 1,975 757.1
Coordination and Support Action 273 415 54.8
Combination of CP & CSA 81 202 140.5
Support for Frontier Research (ERC) 133 139 198.7
Support for Training and Career Development of Researchers 585 685 155.2
Network of Excellence 19 47 15.4
Article 169 of the Treaty - - -
Article 171 of the Treaty - - -
Pilot Type B - - -
Risk-Sharing Finance Facility - - -
Total 2,204 3,679 1,348.3
Source: FP7 participation data (E-CORDA, 1st November 2009)
In order to place the raw numbers shown in the above figure into context, UK projects, participations and EC funding have been expressed as a share of the FP7 totals for each type of instrument. The results are shown in Figure 95, and arrows (↑↔↓) have been used to symbolise whether the UK has performed comparatively strongly or less well for each type of instrument, as compared to the UK’s overall performance in FP7. For example, across FP7 as a whole, the UK participated in 43% of projects, so we can say that a project participation rate of 90% within Networks of excellence is ‘above average’ (↑), while involvement in 20% of Coordination and Support Action is ‘below average’ (↓).
None of the UK results show comparatively strong performance in terms of all three indicators. The results are rather mixed. The UK has however performed well in terms of share of projects as well as share of funding in Combination of CP & CSA. It has performed strongly based on participation and funding in Support for Training and Career Development of Researchers and Support for Frontier Research. The UK’s performance in terms of share of projects has been impressive in Networks of
excellence, however the shares of participation and funding were near to the UK average.
The UK has performed comparatively less well in terms of its share of projects, participations and funding in Coordination and Support Action. It has also performed below average in terms of funding in Research for the Benefit of Specific Groups, Collaborative Projects, Coordination and Support Action. In terms of project participation, the UK’s share was lower than its average in Coordination
and Support Action, Support for Frontier Research (ERC) and Support for Training and Career Development of Researchers. Average performance has been evident except for aforementioned in Networks of excellence also in participation shares of Collaborative Project and Combination of CP & CSA.
Figure 95 – UK projects, participations and EC funding, expressed as a share of FP7 totals, by Type of Instrument Instrument Pr o je ct s ha re Pa rt ic ip a ti o n sh a re EC fu nd ing sh a re
Research for the Benefit of Specific Groups 58%↑ 14%↑ 13%↓
Collaborative Project 67%↑ 12%↔ 13%↓
Coordination and Support Action 36%↓ 7%↓ 7%↓
Combination of CP & CSA 82%↑ 12%↔ 23%↑
Support for Frontier Research (ERC) 20%↓ 20%↑ 20%↑
Support for Training and Career Development of Researchers 31%↓ 21%↑ 23%↑
Network of Excellence 90%↑ 12%↔ 16%↔
Article 169 of the Treaty - - -
Article 171 of the Treaty - - -
Pilot Type B - - -
Risk-Sharing Finance Facility - - -
Total 43% 12% 15%
Source: FP7 participation data (E-CORDA, 1st November 2009)
C.9. Nature of FP7 participation
Participants in the Framework Programmes can occupy the role of project coordinator or are otherwise listed simply as one of the participants. Analysis of the UK’s FP7 participations reveals that the UK partner has occupied the role of project coordinator in 917 cases, or 42% of the projects in which UK participants have been involved. This means that the UK participants were in a coordinating role for 25% of all UK FP7 participations, well above the FP7 average of 17%.
Patterns of UK coordination by FP7 Priority Area have been analysed, and are shown in Figure 96. It reveals higher than average coordination rates for the UK in many of the Priority Areas, particularly in the Food, agriculture and biotechnology, General activities, Socio-economic sciences and humanities, and Fusion energy Areas, where UK coordinator to participation ratios were approximately double the overall FP7 rate. Areas of relatively low UK coordinator ratios in comparison with overall FP7 figures were Energy, Information and communication technologies, and Space. In addition, there have been no UK coordinators in three of the Priority areas (Coherent development of research policies, Regions of knowledge, and Research potential Areas).
Figure 96 – UK coordination levels by FP7 Priority Area
Priority coordinators UK participant ratio Coordinator to (UK)
Coordinator to participant ratio
(FP7 overall)
Energy 8 7%↓ 9%
Environment (including Climate Change) 18 8%↔ 7%
Food, Agriculture, and Biotechnology 20 13%↑ 7%
General Activities (Annex IV) 1 33%↑ 18%
Health 54 11%↔ 10%
Information & Communication Technologies 48 8%↓ 10%
Nanosciences, Nanotechnologies, Materials and new
Production Technologies 23 9%↔ 8%
Security 7 14%↑ 9%
Socio-economic sciences and Humanities 27 23%↑ 12%
Space 1 3%↓ 5%
Transport (including Aeronautics) 20 8%↔ 7%
Activities of International Cooperation 1 17%↑ 10%
Coherent development of research policies 0 0%↓ 18%
Regions of Knowledge 0 0%↓ 11%
Research for the benefit of SMEs 28 13%↔ 10%
Research Infrastructures 18 7%↔ 7%
Research Potential 0 0%↓ 58%
Science in Society 10 14%↔ 13%
Marie-Curie Actions 498 72%↑ 53%
European Research Council 129 92%↔ 91%
Fusion Energy 1 13%↑ 5%
Nuclear Fission and Radiation Protection 5 11%↑ 7%
Total 917 25%↑ 17%
Source: FP7 participation data (E-CORDA, 1st November 2009)
We have also looked at coordination ratios in types of instrument, where the likelihood of being a project coordinator varies significantly depending on the type of instrument in which organisations are involved. For example, the Networks of Excellence have an average of 30 partners and it is therefore relatively difficult to occupy a high share of coordinator roles within this type of instrument. However, Support for training and career development of researchers have an average of only two partners, so we would expect to identify a high share of coordinator roles for this instrument.
Figure 97 presents the number of UK coordinators for each type of instrument and the ratio of UK coordinators to participants. The average FP7 coordinator to participant ratio for each type of instrument is also shown for comparison. Arrows (↑↔↓) have again been used to symbolise whether UK’s coordination levels for each type of instrument are above, below, or in line with the overall picture. The data indicates that UK partners have occupied the role of coordinator to a higher degree than the overall FP7 average for most instruments, particularly Networks of excellence where the UK coordinator ratio is nearly double the overall FP7 rate.
Figure 97 – UK coordination levels by type of Instrument
Instrument UK coordinators participant ratio Coordinator to (UK)
Coordinator to participant ratio
(FP7 overall)
Research for the Benefit of Specific Groups 30 14%↑ 11%
Collaborative Project 195 10↔ 9%
Coordination and Support Action 49 12%↔ 13%
Combination of CP & CSA 14 7%↓ 6%
Support for Frontier Research (ERC) 128 92%↓ 93%
Support for Training and Career Development of
Researchers 497 73%↑ 58%
Network of Excellence 4 9%↑ 5%
Article 169 of the Treaty - - -
Article 171 of the Treaty - - -
Pilot Type B - - -
Risk-Sharing Finance Facility - - -
Total 917 25% 17%
Source: FP6 participation data (E-CORDA, 1st November 2009)
Analysis of the organisation (activity) type of the UK coordinators revealed that HEIs and research institutes were most likely to fulfil the role of coordinator, occupying the position of coordinator in 44% and 34% of participations respectively. Industry participants were coordinators in 7% of their participations, public bodies were coordinators in 18%, and for ‘other’ organisations the figure was 12%. The UK’s coordinator ratio is higher than the overall FP7 profile in case of HEIs, Public bodies and Research organisations. This suggests that these organisations occupy more important roles in projects.