Evaluation of the economic effects of Brite-Euram programmes on the European industry

Abstract

This article deals with an evaluation performed by BETA group about the economic effects of EU R & D programmes (Brite, Euram and Brite-Euram I) on the European industry. The approach used is based on an original methodology designed by BETA, which aims at evaluating those effects at a micro level (i.e. the participants to the programmes) by means of direct interviews of 176 partners involved in 50 projects. The definition of these economic effects is firstly described, as well as the different steps of the evaluation work. Then the overall results of the study are presented, showing the importance of both “direct” and “indirect” observed effects in monetary terms. Finally, some more detailed results highlight the positive impact of some aspects of the organization structure set up for the analyzed R & D projects on the amount of observed effects: i) the participation of a university lab; ii) the participation of at least one partner involved in a fundamental research work; iii) the diversity of research tasks over a scale ranging from fundamental research to industrialization work; iv) the combination of “user-type” and “producer-type” of activity in one given organisation (integration effect) or in one given project (consortia effect), etc...