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General Information
FAIR Programme |
 | Agriculture and Fisheries - FAIR[including agroindustry, food technologies, forestry, aquaculture and rural development] Fourth framework programme research and technological development This full colour brochure gives general information on the FAIR Fourth Framework programme. Sections cover: Upgrading of Biological Materials; The FAIR Programme; Technical Areas; Community RTD Achievements; Rules of Participation. Ref: CG-88-95-379-EN-C ISBN: 92-827-0168-9 |
CONTENTS
FAIR Programme
FAIR First Call For Proposals
FAIR Fourth Call For Proposals
FAIR Fifth Call For Proposals
The Agriculture and Agro-Industry including Fisheries Programme of Research and Technological Development (FAIR - 4th Framework Programme) is a continuation of the previous AIR activity of Framework 3. In some earlier reports it has been referred to as AIR2. However, the acronym FAIR has now been adopted to reflect the inclusion of fisheries research, together with agricultural and agro-industrial activities.
The objectives of the programme are to promote and harmonise research in the major European primary production food and non-food sectors of agriculture, horticulture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture and its links with the input and processing industries, together with the rural activities, the end user and the consumer. The programme is extremely diverse in nature, covering all aspects of the production and utilisation of biological raw materials, with the aim of developing new markets, products and processes for the raw materials coming from agriculture, forestry and fisheries. It will support evolving Community policies in the fields of agriculture, fisheries, forestry, industry, energy and the environment, and will also underpin the conclusions of the White Paper on "Growth, Competitiveness and Employment" in relation to European objectives concerning the development of biotechnology and the protection of the environment.
The programme is as follows:
LEVEL I: OBJECTIVES QUALIFYING FOR RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUPPORT
Area 1 - Integrated Production and Processing Chains
Area 2 - Scaling-up and Processing Methodologies
Area 3 - Generic Science and Advanced Technologies for Nutritious Foods
Area 4 - Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Development
Area 5 - Fisheries and Aquaculture
LEVEL II: CONCERTATION ACTIVITIES
Area 6 - Objectives Addressed by Concertation
(concerted and shared cost actions, preferably Thematic Networks)
LEVEL III: OBJECTIVES ADDRESSED BY MEANS OF HORIZONTAL ACTIVITIES
The first call for proposals for the FAIR programme covered all areas of the Programme except Area 2 and Areas 3.3 and 3.4. and demonstration for areas 1, 2 and 3 . It was published in the Official Journal on 15 December 1994, with a deadline for receipt of proposals on 15 March 1995. 937 proposals were received, registered and processed between the 12 - 27 March. Registration involved checking, and filing of proposals and copies, allocating of proposals numbers and entry of proposal data onto the databases. Allocation of the proposals to groups, the preparation of the evaluation venue and the invitation of the experts, took place between 1 - 20 April. The proposals were then evaluated as detailed below. Out of the 937 proposals received, all were eligible for evaluation, indicating the high quality of proposals presented and the simplification of the application forms. On the other hand 19 were evaluated by the experts as non-eligible because certain basic requirements were not met. A further 6 proposals could not be counted because they arrived too late and no acceptable reason was given.
The selection of proposals follows standard procedures:
Timetable of these events
| Call for proposals | 15 December 1994 |
| Deadline | 15 March 1995 |
| Expert evaluation | 24 April - 12 May 1995 |
| Preparation of report to FPC | 15 May - 1 June 1995 |
| First FPC Meeting | 2 June 1995 |
| Second FPC meeting (shortlist) | 7 July 1995 |
| Approval by the Commission | July 1995 |
| Information to participants and start of Contract negotiations | July/August 1995 (approx) |
| Projects begin | December 1995 (approx) |
THE EVALUATION PROCEDURE
Proposal evaluation took place in Brussels, between 24 April and 12 May. The expert evaluation was carried out by 276 invited experts over this three week period, constituting 58 individual expert groups which evaluated on average 18 proposals a week.
OVERVIEW
The Call resulted in 937 proposals (855 shared cost and 82 concerted actions), involving 5707 participants (average: 6 participants per proposal), a total cost of about 1.6 billion ECU and a total request for 1.14 billion ECU. The average total cost of a proposal was about 1.69 MECU (average request from EC - 1.22 MECU). An average of 3 countries were involved in each proposal. As in previous programmes the Commission examines all good proposals with a view to selecting the shortlist. In this call 120 projects were rated A of which 25 were rated A+ (total EC funding requested, 148 MECU). There were 304 proposals rated B of which 81 were rated B+ (total EC funding requested 361 MECU). The total amount of EC funding available for this call amounts to around 100 MECU.
The total cost of the projects at this stage was calculated to be approaching 22 million ecu, with an EC funding of 11.150 million ecu proposed.
Introduction
The overall aim of the FAIR programme is to optimise, through RTD, the production and utilization of
biological raw materials in Europe by: providing better quality food and drink; responding to industry's
demands for raw materials; and developing environmentally friendlier farming methods. The
development of the research, development and demonstration activities reflects the responses to the
periodic calls for proposals. As far as non-food activities are concerned, the fifth call (17 December
1996) represented the last opportunity for applications related to non-food as shared cost projects
(under area 1) or concerted actions, the total allocations for all calls being as follows:
Distribution of funds in FAIR programme by calls and activities
As indicated, the allotted budget for this call is in around 47 million ecu, of which around 20% could be
made available for non-food activities. As shown in the following table, area 1 attracted 144 proposals
out of 631 (23%), of which the greatest number fell in area 4 (agriculture, forestry and rural
development).
Summary of FAIR 5 Statistics
As indicated here most of the proposals are still for shared cost actions, but there has been a gradual
increase in the number of proposals for demonstration and concerted actions since the first call. Notably
there has also been a proportional increase in area 1 type proposals - especially in area 1.1 for the
Bioenergy chain and area 1.3 forest wood chain.
So far, in the first 5 calls, the average selection rate has been around 15% (353 projects selected
out of 2228 proposals submitted), with a total EC contribution of 319 MECU, or an average of around
0.9 MECU per project.
These proposals were evaluated in late April - early May 1997, resulting in a short list. Contract negotiations
should be initiated in Autumn 1997.
© Copyright 2006 Policy Statements
Updated
by CPL Press:
03/07/2007
- biomatnet@biomatnet.org
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