FRAMEWORK umbrella for the first time, receiving 

 9% of the total funding. 



The Third FRAMEWORK Programme carries the 

 potential for significant qualitative improvements over 

 its predecessor. The second Programme was composed 

 of 37 separate research programs, each of which 

 required discussion and a qualified majority vote in the 

 Council of Ministers before it could be implemented, or 

 more significantly, modified. The effect overall was to 

 rob the program managers and Commission policy 

 makers of initiative once the FTIAMEWORK package 

 and its individual programs were initially approved. The 

 success of the Commission in getting the number of 

 programs reduced to fifteen, along with obtaining 

 concessions from the Council pertaining to 

 reprogramming of funds, promises greater latitude to 

 managers in directing resources toward emerging 

 priorities while closing off less promising areas of 

 research. 



A major disappointment to the Commission 

 concerning FRAMEWORK III was the ceiling placed on 

 future year funding; the total Programme budget of ECU 

 5.7 billion ($6.84 billion @ 1 ECU = $1.2) over the next 

 five years, in inflation-adjusted terms, provides virtually 

 no increase over the ECU 5.4 billion allocated in 1987 

 for the second FRAMEWORK. However, in keeping 

 with the "rolling" nature of FRAMEWORK, there is a 

 two-year overlap with the second Programme, which 

 results in an additional ECU 2.2 billion ($2.65 billion) 

 available for the first two years of the third Programme. 

 That money, however, will fund continuing or already 

 initiated research projects; it will not be available to new 

 starts under FRAMEWORK III. 



The Commission has initiated under FRAMEWORK 

 m a larger and more concerted Community effort in 

 basic research. Senior S&T officials in Brussels have 

 indicated that program managers in all 15 categories of 

 the new FRAMEWORK will be encouraged to set aside 

 up to 10% of their program budgets to support 

 fundamental research in science and engineering 

 relevant to their program objectives. Likely fields for 

 such initiative are advanced computing, new materials 

 and biotechnology-related life sciences. 



The ground for this advance was prepared earlier, 

 when the Commission in 1989 announced a new 

 component of the information technologies program 

 ESPRIT n to be focused on basic research. 

 Approximately 4-5 percent ($60-75 million) of the 

 ESPRIT II budget through 1992 has been set aside for 



this area of research activity, which will be performed 

 principally by university and public research institute 

 investigators. It is under the ESPRIT Basic Research 

 Program that the Community's first basic research 

 cooperation with the U.S., beyond nuclear fusion and 

 safety, is moving forward with the National Science 

 Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Defense 

 Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). 



S&T Infrastructure-Building 



The Commission is involved in several other ways in 

 encouraging a more coherent research environment 

 within the Community. Although member state policies 

 and procedures control participation and procurement in 

 nationally-funded work, the EC is attempting to 

 coordinate the types of local incentives offered to attract 

 and support research with potential commercial 

 utilization. It is also wrestling with the topic of fairness 

 in public procurement, initially by determining whether 

 R&D should be treated as a service or a product. 



One Commission program just authorized in late 1990 

 will devote $300 million in EC funds to an 

 NSF/EPSCoR-type program to develop human S&T 

 capabilities in lesser-developed regions of the 

 Community. Work in the SCIENCE human resource and 

 mobility program, as distinct from the directed research 

 programs in FRAMEWORK, has been focused on 

 securing and promoting freedom of mobility, equality of 

 national treatment, and stimulation of transnational 

 collaborative opportunities for researchers and other 

 professionals throughout the Community. Under 

 FRAMEWORK III, this effort is being expanded with 

 total funding of nearly $600 million for the five-year 

 effort. And finally, the EC is moving toward legislation 

 regulating the importation, transport, and disposal of 

 research materials. All these efforts are designed to level 

 the playing field for competition over R&D resources 

 within the Community. 



EUREKA, while not a European Community 

 initiative, is intimately linked to a wide variety of EC 

 programs. It is supported financially by the EC, as one 

 of the 21 members of EUREKA, through participation in 

 EUREKA projects having a pre-competitive character 

 and where there are mutually supporting interests. The 

 EC also contributes to the success of EUREKA projects 

 by way of the evolving framework of institutional 

 mechanisms, the thrust of Community-wide research 

 and training programs, and commitment to the 



