Cobertura de parques hasta el 2006.

As innovation has been found to be an important driver of economic growth, R&D policies in most countries are aimed at improving innovative performance (see e.g. OECD, 2007b). This subsection describes the main characteristics of R&D policies in the EU Member States, which may be used to further explore the relation between policy instruments used and the efficiency and effectiveness of R&D spending.

The responsibility to decide how public R&D funds are used is split among various bodies in a large majority28 of Member States. Research priorities are usually set at the central/national level and most of the basic research is funded by federal institutions. The closer R&D approaches commercially-viable applied research, the greater is the involvement

27

Feedback has been received from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Latvia, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia and the United Kingdom.

28

For more detailed results, please refer to Table 8.

of regional authorities, research institutes and industry in decisions on R&D funding. Nevertheless, the Ministry of Finance often retains a coordinating role, which can be associated with its budgetary responsibilities (e.g. finance ministries often have veto rights to stop individual R&D investment programmes).

Nearly all Member States have set long term priorities for innovation. While in 2001 only around half of the Member States (14) had agreed on long term innovation priorities, by 2006 nearly all of them (23) had set such long term priorities as part of a multi-annual strategy for R&D and innovation. Such policy strategies generally aim at increasing not only the quantity but also the quality of R&D. The term "quality" is commonly understood to refer to the efficiency and effectiveness of R&D. Beyond the 3% of GDP target for overall R&D investment, which was set as part of the Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Jobs, the policy objectives most frequently mentioned are to increase public R&D spending29, to enhance R&D infrastructure, to improve educational measures, to foster innovation diffusion and adoption through more effective science-industry cooperation, to ease access to finance for companies engaging in R&D and to improve the IPR system.

In 2006 all Member States to a certain extent relied on medium-term funding programmes. As shown in Table 8, such programmes did not yet exist in a large number of Member States in 2001. They offer an important value added to companies, because they reduce to some extent the uncertainty facing firms considering long-term investments in R&D (Guellec and Pottelsberghe, 2000). In addition, some Member States use ad-hoc measures to support R&D, although most of the funds used for such measures are included in their medium-term funding programmes as well.

Most Member States rely on R&D funding mechanisms to distribute the funds available. R&D funds are generally not granted directly to the beneficiaries by the authorities in charge for R&D policy design. Most Member States have established (independent) funds or agencies which handle the distribution of R&D funding amongst research organisations. For example, the Slovak Research and Development Agency was set up in 2005 as an instrument for the distribution of public finances for research and development in all fields of science in Slovakia; the Austrian Research Promotion Agency was established in 2004 and serves as a one-stop-shop for applied industrial research; and the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation "Tekes" provides funding and technical support for selected R&D projects of companies, research institutes and universities.

Nearly all Member States carried out evaluations of their R&D programmes and projects in 2006. 18 Member States indicate that they had evaluation schemes in place already in 2001, whereas in 2006 23 out of 25 Member States used such schemes. Most Member States conduct both ex-ante and ex-post evaluations. Already during the tender stage for new programmes and projects Member States usually assess the potential benefits of certain measures. These tender appraisals are viewed by many Member States as ex-ante evaluations. Ex-post evaluations of R&D projects or programmes are conducted in many Member States, but often on a rather irregular basis. Most Member States which conduct ex- post evaluations do this every few years. The ex-post evaluations often aim at assessing the impact on R&D performance overall, rather than the outcome of a specific programme or project. However, only a few Member States, including Finland, Austria, Germany, Sweden, Slovakia and Spain, have made ex-ante and ex-post evaluation a fixed element of all their R&D programmes and projects.

29

Surprisingly the objective to increase private R&D spending was not mentioned explicitly by the Member States as a long term priority.