Horizon 2020 is the biggest EU research and innovation programme ever. €77 billion of funding is available over seven years (2014 – 2020) – in addition to the private and national public funding that the EU investment will leverage. Three years into the programme implementation, the European Commission launched an interim evaluation to assess the progress made so far on the basis of five evaluation criteria: relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, coherence and EU added value. As an integral part of this interim evaluation, a public stakeholder consultation was open from October 2016 until January 2017. Stakeholders (including non-participants) submitted nearly 3500 replies to the online questionnaire and more than 300 position papers. This publication presents a detailed analysis of the results of the stakeholder consultation. It includes revealing findings for example on the flexibility of the programme, on the simplification of rules, or the European added value. It also contains a set of key messages and areas of improvements as suggested by stakeholders.

In June 2018, the European Commission published its proposal for Horizon Europe, a €100 billion research and innovation programme that will succeed Horizon 2020.The proposal introduces a European Innovation Council (EIC) to help the EU become a frontrunner in market-creating innovation. The Commission's proposal will establish a one-stop shop to support innovators in turning their high potential and breakthrough ideas into market application, and help the most innovative start-ups and companies scale up their visions. The new EIC will help identify and fund fast-moving, high-risk innovations with strong potential to create entirely new markets. It will provide direct support to innovators through two main funding instruments, one aimed at the early stages and the other for development and market deployment. The legislative proposal for Horizon Europe is now in the phase of inter-institutional negotiations with the European Council and European Parliament. In order to inform the negotiations and to identify key issues for the implementation phase of EIC, the Research, Innovation and Science Expert (RISE1) group was asked to hold a dedicated workshop on EIC. To facilitate this work the RISE group identified and invited a number of external experts whose work could more deeply inform the discussion. The workshop took place September 12, 2018 in Brussels. Input to the discussion included the legislative proposal for Horizon Europe, oral contributions by European Commission representatives and statements by invited experts and RISE members. The workshop was divided into two sessions, one dealing with the “why?” of the EIC (Challenge: how to identify and qualify Incremental vs Radical vs Disruptive vs Breakthrough vs Market Creating innovation?), the second with “how” to establish and run the EIC (Implementation: Context, Instruments and Learning). This document reflects the main results of the discussion and the recommendations by the RISE members and experts to the European Commission. To enhance the accessibility of the document we have omitted footnotes but a list of references is included at the conclusion of the document.

This report combines inputs from three experts on monitoring the impact of the European Framework Programme for research and innovation. This work is largely based on literature review and lessons learned from relevant practices worldwide as regards the tracking of scientific, societal and economic impact from research and innovation investments. These inputs informed the European Commission proposal for the monitoring and evaluation system of Horizon Europe, the ninth European Framework Programme (FP) for research and innovation, where the introduction of Key impact pathways, and related key impact pathway indicators should allow a better tracking of progress towards the programme objectives over time.

This report looks at how scientific advice can best support crisis management during transnational crises, such as those provoked by natural hazards or pandemics. Scientific advice has an important role to play in all phases of the crisis management cycle - preparedness, response and recovery.  It can be particularly valuable during the sense-making period when a crisis occurs and develops.  However, this value is dependent on the quality and timeliness of the advice and most importantly its relevance to the decisions that crisis managers and policy-makers have to make during a crisis. Generating rigorous scientific advice requires access to relevant data, information and expertise, across scientific disciplines and across borders. Ensuring this advice is useful requires effective connections between scientific advisory processes and crisis management mechanisms, including at the international level.

What is innovation and how should it be measured? Understanding the scale of innovation activities, the characteristics of innovative firms and the internal and systemic factors that can influence innovation is a prerequisite for the pursuit and analysis of policies aimed at fostering innovation. First published in 1992, the Oslo Manual is the international reference guide for collecting and using data on innovation. In this fourth edition, the manual has been updated to take into account a broader range of innovation-related phenomena as well as the experience gained from recent rounds of innovation surveys in OECD countries and partner economies and organisations.

The 2018 edition contains improved guidance reflecting evolving user interests and accumulated practical experience. It includes new material dedicated to supporting the measurement of innovation outside the business sector, understanding the internal and external drivers of business innovation as well as a firm’s most important innovation, and facilitating better use of innovation data for statistics and analysis.

Aquest observatori té per objectiu fer un seguiment de l'estat de l'Accés Obert a la Universitat de Barcelona, a la Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya i a la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. Per una banda, es vol mesurar i mostrar la producció científica en obert d'aquestes institucions i per l'altra es vol analitzar els costos i els hàbits dels investigadors a l'hora de publicar en obert.

Seguint les iniciatives d'altres països com Dinamarca, Països Baixos i Regne Unit, aquest observatori vol reunir els resultats de diverses institucions de recerca obtinguts a partir d'una mateixa metodologia i disposar d'informació agregada.