91999E0811

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0811/99

by Joaquín Sisó Cruellas (PPE) to the Commission

(6 April 1999)

Subject: Selection of 81 research facilities

The Commission has selected 81 research facilities in the European Economic Area that it considers to be the most important for high-quality research. A list of the said facilities has been published(1), with a view to helping European researchers gain access to them.

Can the Commission say:

1. What form the selection procedure has taken?

2. What selection criteria have been employed?

3. Whether support of any kind from the European Union is available for those European researchers interested in gaining access to the said facilities?

4. What the European Union is doing to promote research work within the Union? Are economic and/or other measures in place to support those individuals wishing to devote themselves to research work?

Answer given by Mrs Cresson on behalf of the Commission

(7 May 1999)

Contracts for researchers supported under the access to Large-scale facilities (LSF) activity of the Training and mobility of researchers (TMR) programme are intended to pay for the use of an existing facility by research teams (and individual researchers) who would not normally have access to the facility. Research teams will be eligible for support if they are conducting research in the Community or an associated state. Community financing is intended to cover 100 % of the travel and subsistence costs of entitled users coming essentially from countries other than that where the facility is located. Community financing also covers up to 100 % of the additional costs of providing users with access to the facility.

The process and the criteria under which successful proposals from research facilities have been selected can be found in the TMR work programme, published by the Commission in 1996(2). More detailed information can be found in the information package and in the evaluation manual for the TMR-LSF activity, both of which are available on the TMR programme homepage on the Internet (http://www.cordis.lu/tmr/src/alsf1.htm).

More general information about the Improving human research potential (IHP) programme, which is the successor to the TMR programme, can be found in the IHP work programme which figures on the recently set up programme homepage on the Internet (http://www.cordis.lu/improving/home.html).

(1) OJ C 36, 10.2.1999.

(2) ISBN 92-827-7173-3.