Report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament. Summary report on the monitoring and assessment exercise of the research programme of the research fund for coal and steel

The Research Fund for Coal and Steel of the European Commission (hereinafter RFCS) was established in 2002 to support the competitiveness of the European Coal and Steel sectors, building on the legacy of the expired European Coal and Steel Community Treaty. In its 11 years of activity, the RFCS has co-funded research, pilot and demonstration projects with total funding in the order of €600m (typically €55m per year) granted to industries, universities and research centres.

In accordance with Article 38 of the legal basis of the RFCS (Council Decision 2008/376/ EC), the Commission has recently completed a monitoring exercise of the research programme and an assessment of the expected benefits. An Expert Committee made of independent experts was appointed to carry out these two tasks.

The monitoring exercise was intended to monitor the implementation of the programme since 2002, encompassing all operational aspects and drawing recommendations for future improvement and possible simplification of current procedures.

The assessment exercise was carried out on completion of projects co-financed by the RFCS between 2003 and 2010 in order to assess the qualitative and quantitative benefits to the society and to the relevant sectors.

From this analysis, the Research Fund for Coal and Steel appears fully in line with its mandate defined by Article 2 of the RFCS legal basis on the adoption of the Research Programme for the RFCS (Council Decision 2008/376/ EC), which shall be an instrument to “support the competitiveness of the Community sectors related to the coal and steel industry”, delivering innovation and therefore “complementing the activities carried out in the Member States and within the existing Community research programmes” such as FP7 and the forthcoming Horizon 2020.

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)845: Follow the progress of this report through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:845:FIN

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