ECRAAL invites contributions from interested parties to info@ecraal.org. For ease of reference, the next pages set out some general comments for your consideration and response, and are followed by selected relevant questions taken from the Commission’s Green Paper.

ECRAAL will circulate a first draft of the co-ordinated ECRAAL response to all parties who have made an initial contribution to the process, before submitting the final ECRAAL response in time for the 20 May deadline. In parallel, ECRAAL will carry out a mapping of the priorities of the individual Member States’ (including certain associated countries’) priorities and policy approaches towards their international co-operation partners. In this mapping exercise, ECRAAL will also be analysing the support for bottom-up or bottom-down approaches in order to identify support for the ECRAAL final position.

ANNEX

General comments on the European Commission in the Green Paper for your consideration and response:

* A number of statements or assertions directly concern AAL stakeholders. In particular, among the lessons learned and outlined in the Green Paper, is the suggestion that “stronger involvement of third countries would offer opportunities to capture the benefits of knowledge produced outside the EU”, see page 7.

* With this statement in mind, responses to the 13 Questions outlined on pages 8 and 9 concerning how to meet the EU 2020 Strategy targets as well as to address the grand societal challenges, need also to take account of AAL stakeholders’ interests and perspectives.

* On first reading sections 4.3 and 4.4 on strengthening the competitiveness of EU research and innovation, its science base and the European Research Area, appear to be restricted to EU stakeholders’ interests. However AAL stakeholders may well be concerned with the international dimension to the evolution of the “Innovation Union” Flagship initiative and the EU 2020 Strategy, especially in terms of EU mobility initiatives for researchers and in terms of research infrastructures.

* For example, do you as an AAL stakeholder, favour more “partnership” or “co-operation” in research and innovation collaboration with EU?

* Are there gaps in the support for innovation in the Union’s research and development activities with its international co-operation partners?

Selected questions for your response taken from the Green Paper

1. How should the Common Strategic Framework make the EU research and innovation funding more attractive and easy to access for participants? What is needed in addition to a single entry point with common IT tools, one stop shop for support, a streamlined set of funding instruments covering the full innovation chain and further steps towards administrative simplification?

2. How should EU funding best cover the full innovation cycle from research to market uptake?

3. What are the characteristics of EU funding that maximise the benefit of acting at the EU level? Should there be a strong emphasis on leveraging other sources of funding?

4. How should EU research and innovation funding best be used to pool Member States’ resources? How should Joint Programming Initiatives between groups of Member States be supported?

5. What should be the balance between smaller, targeted projects and larger, strategic ones?

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7. What should be the measures of success for EU research and innovation funding? Which performance indicators could be used?

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9. How should a stronger focus on societal challenges affect the balance between curiousity-driven research and agenda-driven activities?

10. Should there be more room for bottom-up activities?

11. How should EU research and innovation funding best support policy making and forward-looking activities?

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13. How could EU research and innovation activities attract greater interest and involvement of citizens and civil society?

14. How should EU funding best take account of the broad nature of innovation, including non-technological innovation, eco-innovation and social innovation?

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20. How should intellectual property rules governing EU funding strike the right balance between competitiveness aspects and the need for access to and dissemination of scientific results?

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22. How should EU support assist Member States in building up excellence?

23. How should the role of Marie Curie Actions be strengthened in promoting researcher mobility and developing attractive careers?

24. What actions should be taken at EU level to further strengthen the role of women in science and innovation?

25. How should research infrastructures (including EU-wide e-Infrastructures) be supported at EU level?

26. How should international co-operation with non-EU countries be supported e.g. in terms of priority areas of strategic interest, instruments, reciprocity (including on IPR aspects) or co-operation with Member States?

27. Which key issues and obstacles concerning the ERA should EU funding instruments seek to overcome, and which should be addressed?