23 Amendments of Hermann WINKLER related to 2016/2147(INI)
Amendment 36 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
Amendment 52 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Notes that Pillars 2 and 3 are too focused on higher Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs), which limits the future absorption of disruptive innovations that are still in the pipeline of research projects with lower TRLs; considers that TRLs exclude non-technological forms of innovation generated by fundamental or applied research, particularly from SSH; Emphasises that the success of collaborative research in generating innovation hinges partly on project partners being allowed to cover all TRLs; expects, therefore, that collaborative research at lower TRLs or whose focus is more on generating knowledge will continue to feature in calls for proposals in all areas of the programme;
Amendment 59 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
Amendment 69 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Stresses that the current low success rate of 14 % represents a negative trend compared to FP7; emphasises that the inadequate budget makes it impossible to make funding available for a large number of very high-quality projects, a state of affairs which triggers severe feelings of frustration among the applicants whose proposals are rejected and does nothing to foster the European research area; regrets that the cuts inflicted by EFSI have deepened this problem;
Amendment 77 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Insists that research can be a risky investment for private investors and that funding research practice through grants is a necessity; regrets the tendency, in some cases, to move away from grants towards the use of loans; recognemphasises that loans must be available for high TRL, close to market activities, within other types of instruments (e.g. EIB schemes) outside of the FPcollaborative research in particular must continue to be funded only by means of grants, not loans, because, for example, risky research, technological developments or laboratory-scale demonstration projects are not suited to loan-based funding; emphasises, in that connection, that many public bodies are anyway legally precluded from accepting loans;
Amendment 94 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Confirms that ‘excellence’ should remain the key criterion across the three pillars, while noting that it is only one of the three evaluation criteria, alongside ‘impact’ and ‘quality and efficiency of the implementation’; calls for the reweighting of these criteria and invites the Commission to set out additional sub- criteria by adding ‘SSH integration and geographical balance’ under ‘impact’ and ‘project size’ under ‘efficiency of the implementation’;
Amendment 116 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Calls for better evaluation and quality assurance by the evaluators in order to avoid unnecessary frustration and ensure that the reputation of the programme is not damaged; takes note of the complaints made by unsuccessful applicants that the Evaluation Summary Reports lack depth and clarity on what should be done differently in order to succeed, and calls for immediate improvements in this area;
Amendment 126 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Call on the Commission to better define ‘impact’; stresses that the assessment of the impact of fundamental research projects should remain flexible and its relative weight in the evaluation procedure should be decreased; asks the Commission to check that the balance between bottom-up and top-down calls is maintained and to analyse which procedure (one or two stage) is more useful to avoid oversubscription;
Amendment 137 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. Calls on the Commission to continue to enhance the societal challenges approach and emphasises the importance of collaborative research; underlines the need to reinforce some societal challenges such as innovation in agriculture and health, especially cancer and antimicrobial resistance research plans;
Amendment 161 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Notes that synergies between funds are crucial to make investments more effective; stresses that RIS3 are an important tool to catalyse synergies setting out national and regional frameworks for R&D&I investments; regrets the presence of substantial barriers to making synergies fully operational19 such as the State Aid rules; calls on the Commission to revise the State Aid rules and to allow R&D structural fund projects to be justifiable within the FP rules of procedensure that more effective coordination between the ESIF Funds and R&D&I investments is possible; calls on the Commission also to look into ways of generating greater synergies in the future; _________________ 19 Large research infrastructure fits within the scope and goals of the ERDF, but ERDF funds allocated nationally cannot be used to co-finance it; construction costs associated with new research infrastructures are eligible under the ERDF, but operational and staff costs are not.
Amendment 168 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Notes that the R&I capabilities of North/South and West/East Member States are very different; recognises the European dimension to the problem of the participation gap, which must be addressed by the FP if the EU is to exploit its full potential and the European research area is to raise its profile in the long term; welcomes, in this respect, the Widening Programme; calls on the Commission to assess whether the three Widening instruments have achieved their specific objectives and to clarify the rational and general goal of the Programme, to review the indicator used to define ‘underrepresented’ countries, and to keep a dynamic list that allows Member States to be in or out depending on how their capabilities evolve; calls on the Commission to adapt or adopt new measures to bridge this gap; emphasises, however, that for all new measures the criterion of excellence should continue to be decisive and that confusion with the objectives of cohesion policy should be ruled out;
Amendment 205 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20
Paragraph 20
20. Recalls that SSH integration means SSH research in interdisciplinary projects and not an ex-post add-on to otherwise technological projects, and that Welcomes the Commission’s commitment to taking corrective action that may help bring about greater SSH integration within Horizon 2020 in the context of supporting innovation; calls on the Commission, in this connection, to look into further most pressing problems faced beasures that may the EU require methodological research that is more conceptually focused on SSH; calls on the Commission either to introduce a minimum percentage dedicated to SSH funding, or to createlp bring about greater integration of SSH, such as, for example, more careful examination and identification of relevant topics, provision for more evaluators with appropriate specialist knowledge and focus, or the introduction of an evaluation sub-criterion that takes account of its inclusion in projects;
Amendment 215 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21
Paragraph 21
21. UnderlinesHighlights the emphasis placed on innovation within the Horizon 2020 programme and calls for the same approach to be taken for the new framework programme; underlines the fact that Horizon 2020 is notcan be focused even more effectively on the ‘valley of death’ that constitutes the main barrier to converting prototypes into mass production, and; sees considerable potential in this area, e.g. as regards Joint Technology Initiatives; stresses furthermore that H2020 is the first FP to putcombine research and innovation together; welcomes the creation of an EIC20, but insists that this should not lead again to the separation of research from innovation, and therefore calls on the Commission to look into what gap in the value chain can usefully be closed by an EIC, specifically with a view possibly to providing support during the phase termed the ‘valley of death’; _________________ 20 Commission Communication entitled ‘Europe’s next leaders: the Start-up and Scale-up Initiative’ (COM/2016/0733).
Amendment 234 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22 a (new)
Paragraph 22 a (new)
22a. Underscores once more the importance of the SME Instrument as a mainstay of innovation economies and calls for it to be maintained and strengthened, with simplified rules on participation; stresses in this connection, however, that the existence of the SME Instrument within the Framework Programme must not give Member States a free hand to cut their own support programmes;
Amendment 258 #
Motion for a resolution
Subheading 5
Subheading 5
Further FP 9 recommendations
Amendment 263 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 26
Paragraph 26
26. Welcomes the success of H2020 and the 1:11 leverage factor; notes the unacceptably high degree of oversubscription and the challenges that lie ahead, and calls for a budgetary increase of at least EUR 1020 billion for FP9 and for no cuts whatever during the programme period;
Amendment 269 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 26 a (new)
Paragraph 26 a (new)
26a. Calls on the Commission to offer a balanced mix of small, medium and large- sized projects; notes that the average budget for projects has increased under H2020 and that larger projects require participants with large financial and staff capabilities; notes that this favours large institutions, creating a problem for smaller Member States and for small participants from larger Member States; regrets that this poses obstacles for newcomers; stresses that the Framework Programme should remain equally accessible and attractive for actors of different types and sizes; underscores the fact that low-volume projects should also be supported;
Amendment 275 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 26 b (new)
Paragraph 26 b (new)
26b. Stresses the importance of collaborative research as one of the greatest successes of EU research and innovation framework programmes and points up the fact that it should form the core of the next framework programme too; stresses that the programme must be designed to be open to actors of different types of sizes, including newcomers, and that low-volume collaborative projects involving a small number of partners must therefore be possible;
Amendment 297 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28
Paragraph 28
28. Welcomes the current pillar structure of the programme, and calls on the Commission to retain this structure for the sake of continuity and predictability, to improve the interaction among all funding instruments/programmes and to study the possibility of having fewer instruments with harmonised rules; asks the Commission therefore to continue work on the coherence, simplification, transparency and clarity of the programme, on improving the evaluation process and on reducing the fragmentation which stems from the involvement of many authorities and instruments; urges the Commission to draw up and make available to applicants a handbook setting out details of the most frequent mistakes and ways of avoiding them;
Amendment 319 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 30
Paragraph 30
30. Underlines the need for new higher excellence centres and regions and the importance of continuing to develop the ERA; calls for policies to remove barriers such as lower salaries that are faced by Eastern and Southern countries in order to avoid brain drain, and for the excellence of the project to be prioritised over the excellence of ‘elite’ centres;
Amendment 329 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 30 a (new)
Paragraph 30 a (new)
30a. Emphasises that, owing to their cross-sector potential, key technologies ares hoped, central to the competitiveness of the EU; stresses that the high-level group on key technologies established by the Commission has set in train, in particular in the areas of microelectronics, information and communication technologies, new materials, photonics and biotechnology., a process which will bear fruit in the future expects the next FP also take proper account of key technologies;
Amendment 333 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 31
Paragraph 31
31. Notes that R&D investment by industry has not significantly increased; in view of the generally scarce resources for publicUnderstands that the FP intends to incentivise industry participation in order to increase R&D spending by industry; criticises the fact that industries have not increased their share of R&D spending,; calls for industrial competitiveness to be supported by differentiating between mature and emerging sectors, thus allowing larger or more mature industries to participate in projects more at their own cost or through loanon the Commission to look into the success of current JTIs and to consider the scope for making improvements; takes the view, at all events, that JTIs can be a suitable instrument to overcome the ‘valley of death’ phenomenon in the area of key technologies, and emphasises that successful JTIs should therefore be continued and further developed; emphasises, in that connection, the need for satisfactory funding rules, in particular for universities and research bodies;
Amendment 344 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 31 a (new)
Paragraph 31 a (new)
31a. Emphasises the need to exploit the existing potential for simplifying the FP with a view to increasing its attractiveness and degree of acceptance; proposes, in that connection, that research bodies and enterprises should be allowed to use their proven settlement practices or nationally recognised settlement procedures, in particular in the areas of charges resulting from the in-house provision of services, staff costs and equipment write- downs;