Food Research Ireland - Department of Agriculture

Although FP7 is the largest funding programme in Europe, it is a fraction
(estimated to be 5%) of the total spend on research across the EU. The
majority of money committed to research is through national
programmes, which can result in duplicity of effort and inefficiencies in
problem solving. With this in mind the research strategy within the EU is
changing direction with more emphasis now being placed on
coordinated transnational cooperation. ERANETs 36 and Joint
Programming have the objective to step up the cooperation and
coordination of research activities carried out at national or regional level
in the Member States and Associated States through the networking of
research activities, and the mutual opening of national and regional
research programmes. In the coming years, it is important that efforts
continue to ensure an increase in the amount of funding coming in to
Ireland through FP7 and its successor “Horizon 2020”.
5.2 MEASURING SUCCESS
Food Research Ireland will act as a roadmap for future competitive
funding of food research activities. It is intended to guide state
investments up to 2020. To ensure that it remains relevant to the needs
of stakeholders, it is recommended that the roadmap be reviewed
annually and in line with funding initiatives to ensure that the
investments being made are reflective of the research objectives outlined
herein. In addition to a review of the roadmap, it is envisaged that the
research activities funded will be reviewed at a high level by the Food
Research Expert Advisory Group or other relevant stakeholder groups.
Evaluation of research proposals and post award monitoring of research
initiatives will be the responsibility of the lead funding agency or as
agreed within a cob-funded initiative and/or in accordance with the terms
and conditions of the award.
5.2.1 BENCHMARKING OF R&D PERFORMANCE AND
INVESTMENT
As part of contextualising the implementation of Food Research Ireland,
particularly in identifying priorities for national investment, a
benchmarking analysis of the current R&D performance of the food
sector should be carried out. This should enable an assessment of the
R&D performance of the Irish food sector as a whole, within industry and
within the research base and allow relevant benchmarks with best
international practice to inform the priorities and targets for support.
Food Harvest 2020, referencing international benchmarks, calls for a
doubling of industry investment in R&D to 2020 (R&D as percentage of
turnover) from a cross sectoral average of 0.65% to 1.3%. As previously
mentioned, the current measure of Business Expenditure on R&D (BERD)
performance (0.65%) is significantly below accepted industry standards
with best in class operating at approximately 2.5 % (UK Department of
Trade and Industry Annual R&D Scorecard). In addition, and as
mentioned previously, increased collaboration between industry and
academia will be required to ensure that the research is informed by and
exploited by the needs of the industry. If this step change is to be met,
it will be important to ensure that current performance of all
stakeholders in Food Research Ireland are assessed, compared with
relevant international R&D benchmarks and initiatives and used to guide
the priorities that will underpin Food Research Ireland to best support the
food sector as a whole to realise Food Harvest 2020 targets.
36 ERA-NET actions provide a framework for actors implementing public research programmes to coordinate their activities and reduce the fragmentation of the European Research Area
Food Research Ireland
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