• they have focused on advanced technologies with 

 high apparent potential for commercialization; 



• they work to aggregate the scientific and 

 technological resources of Europe and encourage 

 synergistic benefits in ways improbable for 

 member states to achieve without supranational 

 coordination; and 



• they provide impetus to the lowering of technical 

 and regulatory barriers to competition within 

 Europe, thereby encouraging development of 

 production economies on a par with those of the 

 United States and Japan, reducing the latters' 

 distribution and marketing advantages. 



Commission programs have thus accrued leverage far 

 out of proportion to their relative funding weight by 

 directing and coordinating resources in ways designed to 

 stimulate synergistic collaboration and rapid 

 achievement of results. This process tends to level the 

 playing field in Europe for subsequent commercial 

 competition while simultaneously building collective 

 competitive strengths vis-a-vis the U.S. and Japan. 



This approach was deemed critically necessary to the 

 recovery of economic health in European advanced 

 technology applications. Between 1979 and 1985, the 

 EC countries collectively showed net declines in 

 exports, both inter-EC and external, in every high tech 

 industry except chemicals and pharmaceuticals, 

 illustrating an economy becoming increasingly 

 dependent on technology development taking place 

 outside of Europe. 



The FRAMEWORK Programme of 

 Research Support 



The goal of the FRAMEWORK Programme is to 

 establish models for, and to institutionalize the pattern 

 of, cross-fertilization in S&T through coordination of 

 expertise, resources and financing which reside in the 

 member states. The more immediate objectives of the 

 Community-sponsored R&D are to: 



• raise the capabilities of European applied 

 technologies R&D to the level of the U.S. and 

 Japan; 



• break down barriers to cooperation in research 

 between EC countries, between firms, and between 

 research institutions; 



• foster university-industry linkages in basic and 

 applied sciences; and 



• encourage the mobility of S&T professionals and 

 equal treatment of professional and academic 

 credentials throughout the Community. 



The EC research program for 1987-91, known as 

 FRAMEWORK II, accounts for an average of just over 

 one billion ECU ($1.2 billion (a) 1 ECU = 1.2 $US) 

 annually. Along with the in-house expenditures of the 

 Joint Research Center, the total of $1.6 billion represents 

 roughly four percent of total public sector R&D by the 

 twelve member countries of approximately 40 billion 

 ECU (1989 estimate). This comprises only five percent 

 of total publicly-funded civil R&D in the EC 12. The 

 EC's own R&D capability is limited; over ninety percent 

 of EC-funded R&D is actually performed through 

 FRAMEWORK at member state public and private 

 sector facilities, using their staff and equipment. As a 

 rule, the EC provides no more than half the cost of any 

 project; the remainder comes from the contract research 

 participants. 



For another measure of comparison the EUREKA 

 Program, which is industry-led and independent of the 

 EC, and targeted on R&D somewhat closer to 

 commercializable products and services, has been 

 capitalized since its inception in 1985 at over $8.7 

 billion, with spending which now approaches $1.5 

 billion per year. It is obvious that total funding for either 

 Community or EUREKA programs, excepting 

 information technologies (IT), is not remotely 

 comparable with the levels of research spending devoted 

 to their counterpart national efforts. 



The FRAMEWORK Programme has been directed 

 initially and predominantly at applied technology 

 research and pre-competitive technology development. 

 By far the largest components of EC -funded R&D under 

 FRAMEWORK II have been telecommunications and 

 information technologies (42 percent); energy research, 

 especially fusion and nuclear safety (22 percent); 

 industrial modernization (16 percent); and health, 

 biological resources and environment ( 1 1 .5 percent). 

 Only fusion research could have been said previously to 

 embody any significant amount of fundamental science. 

 Under FRAMEWORK HI (1990-1994), which was 

 authorized in the spring of 1990, the proportions have 

 changed somewhat, as follows: IT (39%); energy 

 (14%); industrial modernization (16%); and health, life 

 sciences and environment (22%). Additionally, human 

 resources and mobility are brought under the 



