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How FP7 was negotiated

During FP6 (2002-2006) individual Member States carried out national consultations about how their R&D communities would like to see FP7 developed and fed their findings into the Commission. In April 2005 the Commission published a Communication containing it’s proposals for FP7, the first of a number of documents relating to the development of FP7.

Member States then spent the whole of 2006 in negotiation with each other and the Commission on the fine points of the new FP before agreement was reached in December 2006, as FP6 ended. 

Further information on this and other Communications on European R&D is available on the Commission’s website.

How the UK position was decided

A UK public consultation on FP7 was launched in Spring 2004.  Copies of the Consultation Document were sent to a wide range of representative stakeholders.  It was also available in electronic form and to order in hardcopy through the OSI International Website.  In addition, OSI held a consultation event in London on 21 June 2004.  This involved some 180 representatives from a wide range of stakeholder organisations who discussed the issues involved in designing the next EU Framework Programme in a series of plenary and workshop sessions. 

The policy outlined in the UK position paper on our initial approach to FP7 reflected the outcome of the consultation. These documents can be found under related documents on the right.

In addition, OSI commissioned two evidence projects to help identify where the new Programme could have greatest impact:

• a review of existing evidence on international R&D programmes; and
• an evaluation of the impact of the Framework Programmes in the UK

A summary of these findings can be found under related documents on the right.

Additional annexes to this material can be found on the Technopolis website link on the right.

Key Messages from the UK Government response:

• FP7 should address the areas that really matter; basic research, industrial research and research in support of policy, making clear the different aims and objectives of these areas. To achieve these aims the Framework Programme should be simplified to make it more user friendly for industry and science.
• The bulk of funding for FP7 should be concentrated on industrial competitiveness where the long term research agenda must clearly reflect the needs of the industrial users.
• Welcome the debate on the proposal to establish a European Research Council (ERC). Improved performance in basic research would be a key contributor towards achieving the EU’s aim to increase the overall research effort as part of the Lisbon agenda.
• Support the increased budget for research within a disciplined EU budget and welcomed the proposed increase of research funding by 75%, over the period 2007 to 2013, outlined as part of the Financial Perspective (multi-annual spending plan of the EU) deal agreed in December 2005.