INGENIO 2010

Following the reactivation of the European Union's commitment under the Lisbon Strategy, which defines a series of measures to encourage growth and employment, a proposal has been made to set 2010 as deadline to bring the percentage of the European investment in R&D as close as possible to 3% of the GDP.

For the Spanish Government, this is a national project and a priority among its policies, given that the gap between Spain and its neighbours is still large.

For this purpose, apart from maintaining all the existing work in R&D&I, the government has created the INGENIO 2010 Programme, a commitment that involves the central government, enterprises, universities and other Public Research Bodies in an effort to reach the level we should have in this field, in accordance with our economic and political position in the European context.

Facing a future full of challenges, R&D&I investment is key to maintaining and increasing growth, productivity and welfare in our society.

Spain's figures for R&D&I are considerably lower than the EU average, both in terms of total R&D investment in respect of the GDP and in terms of the business sector's contribution to funding this investment and, likewise, the country falls below the average in many of the information society indicators. As these weaknesses condition the competitiveness of Spain's economy and the strength of its growth, we have developed the INGENIO 2010 Programme, which aims to:

• increase the R&D/GDP ratio, from 1.05% in 2003 to 1.6% in 2008 and to 2% in 2010, which will contribute to compliance with the Lisbon Strategy, which states that the EU should devote 3% of its GDP to R&D.
• increase the private sector's contribution to R&D investment, from 48% in 2003 to 52.5% in 2008 and to 55% in 2010, breaking the negative trend of the last few years. The Lisbon Strategy establishes as one of its goals, that in 2010, two thirds of the EU's R&D investment should be privately funded.
• reach the EU-15 average in terms of the percentage of the GDP earmarked for Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), from 4.8% in 2004 to 6.4% in 2008 and to 7% in 2010, which implies a 20 year increase with respect to the former trend.

For the implementation of this strategy, the necessary regional co-ordination will be encouraged to prevent resource dispersion, increase the effectiveness of the public investment in R&D&I and reduce the existing territorial differences.

The goals that INGENIO 2010 seek to achieve are:

1. To increase the public and private R&D investment. Reaching 2% of the GDP in 2010 and placing Spain among the 10 top countries of the European Union. This will be helped by an increase of national investment of at least 25% per year during this parliamentary term and the next, achieving a balance between grants and soft loans.

2. To increase the business participation to 55% of the total R&D&I investment. To achieve this, the resources will be concentrated in strategic lines to encourage public-private collaboration.

3. To increase Spain's presence in the European Research Area. Increasing the participation of Spanish enterprises and researchers in the European Framework Programme until a balance is achieved between Spain's presence and it economic weight.

4. To remove bureaucratic obstacles. The measures taken in this respect will include new Agencies Act, new regulations under the Subsidies Act and modifications to the Public Contracts Act and the Organic Law for Universities.

5. To finance large industrial research fields through public-private collaboration. The CENIT projects, which are 50% co-funded by the private sector, will move €1 billion in the next four years.

6. To risk investment in technology enterprises. In January 2006, a fund-of-funds with €200 million was set up designed to quadruple the creation of technology companies between 2003 and 2010.

7. To incorporate the best researchers. The Torres Quevedo programme aims to increase the placement of university doctors in the private sector, reaching a minimum of 1,300 doctors employed per year by 2010.

8. To strengthen leading research groups. The CONSOLIDER Programme is designed to increase the co-operation between researchers around leading consortium projects and special facilities, involving €2 billion over a period of four years.

9. To recover and promote researchers. The I3 Plan is designed to encourage hiring researchers with an outstanding professional background. Between 2005 and 2010, 1,400 new contracts will be promoted.

10. To expand the information society. Reaching the European average regarding the indicators for the information society through the AVANZA Programme.

To achieve these EU convergence objectives, the government, through INGENIO 2010, is focussing on:

• Increasing the resources for R&D&I, by increasing the budget allocations for R&D&I to at least 25% per year during this parliamentary period. In the 2000-2004 term, the average annual growth was 15% and, following this commitment, in 2005 this percentage rose to 27%, going over 30% in 2006 and reaching 34.3% in 2007.
• Focussing incremental resources in strategic actions to face the challenges of the science and technology system: The INGENIO 2010 Programme, through a number of strategic actions that respond to the challenges posed by the national R&D&I, expects to achieve progressive focussing of resources by allocating a substantial part of the minimum annual increase of 25% in the General National Budget for R&D&I, to strategic actions that should cover four large areas:

CONSOLIDER Programme, to stimulate critical mass and research excellence. This is a strategic line to achieve research excellence by increasing the co-operation between researchers and by forming large research groups.

The CONSOLIDER Projects offer long-term (5-6 years), large-scale (€1-2 million) funding to outstanding research groups and networks of proven excellence in any of the knowledge areas of the Spanish R&D&I Programme.

The CIBER and RETICS Projects are designed to promote outstanding research in Biomedicine and Health Sciences conducted in the Spanish Health System and in the National Science and Technology System by developing and enhancing stable co-operative research structures.

The Research Activity Incorporation and Intensification Encouragement (I3) Plan, encourages the creation of permanent positions in the National Science and Technology System for Spanish or foreign researchers with an outstanding career in research, and supports the best researchers by reducing their teaching duties.

The Strategic Scientific and Technological Infrastructures Fund safeguards the availability and renewal of scientific and technological equipment and installations in the Science and Technology System, and promotes science and technology parks with links to universities and Public Research Bodies, and Special Strategic Projects.

The CENIT Programme (National Strategic Consortiums for Technological Research) seeks to stimulate co-operation in R&D&I between the private sector, universities, public research organisations and centres, science and technology parks and technological centres.

The CENIT Projects co-fund major lines of public-private industrial research, last for at least four years and have a minimum budget of €5 million per year, during which time they will receive minimum funding of 50% from the private sector and at least 50% of public funding will be allocated to Public Research Centres or Technological Centres.

The Torres Quevedo Programme funds the hiring, by the private sector of, PhDs and technologists, virtually quadrupling the original figures, from 347 in 2004 to 1,000 in 2008 and 1,300 in 2010.

There will also be a venture capital fund-of-funds (NEOTEC) to create and consolidate technological companies that will invest in private venture funds, which, in turn, will invest in technological companies during their creation and start-up stages.Its aim is to complement existing programmes to create, through public initiative, 110 new companies in 2008 and 1,300 in 2010.

The AVANZA Plan, whose aim is the convergence with Europe in terms of the main information society indicators. The Plan is divided into three major horizontal lines, the aim of which is to take the Information Society to ordinary citizens, and to private and public sectors. Additionally, there is a series of specific sector-based actions, one of the most important of which is to take education into the Information Society.

EUROINGENIO 2010 is a plan that aims to improve the returns obtained by Spain under the European Union's 7th Framework Programme. Its goal is to obtain an 8% share of the €50.521 billion budgeted under the European Union’s 7th Framework Programme (7FP), in order to assimilate the returns obtained through the 7FP with Spain’s economic weight in the European Union. It is important to point out that in the previous FP, Spain obtained a return of 5.9%, for this reason the EUROINGENIO 2010 Plan is expected to boost Spanish R&D&I in Europe. This umbrella Plan encompasses the following four Programmes:

EUROCIENCIA: promoted by the Ministry of Science and Innovation, for funding the creation, within Universities and Public Research Bodies (PRBs), of internal management structures to prepare strategic participation plans under the EU's 7th Research and Development Framework Programme (7PM) and to assist the researchers in presenting their 7PM projects.

EUROSALUD: this Programme has provided funds to hospitals to cover the normal medical care provided by professionals taking part in the 7FP programme, enabling them to devote more time to their projects.

TECNOEUROPA: this Programme has been designed by the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce to offer financial and management aid to help create international innovation units. This programme is aimed at large companies and at enabling Spanish corporations to lead projects involving three or more EU countries.

INNOEUROPA: This is a programme promoted by the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade designed to increase the economic returns obtained by Technological and Research Centres in the 6th Framework Programme, to increase leadership on the 7th Framework Programme projects and to boost the involvement of the Spanish private sector § (especially SMEs) in the 7th Framework Programme consortia, promoting the incorporation of new businesses.
.

• Promoting legislative reform to increase R&D&I activity: As part of INGENIO 2010, a number of legislative reforms are taking place to improve the management of R&D&I, reduce bureaucratic obstacles and encourage technology transfer and co-operation between Public Research Centres and the private sector. A few of these have already come into effect:

The Regulation of Law 38/2003, dated 17th of November, the General Subsidies Act, approved by Royal Decree 887/2006, dated 21 July, which includes streamline and reduce the bureaucratic obstacles faced by researchers and businesses receiving funding for R&D&I activities by establishing tools designed to simplify the overall management of public aid.

Law 28/2006, on State Agencies for the Improvement of Public Services, passed in July 2006, for the purpose of creating Institutional Public Bodies that are sufficiently autonomous and flexible in their management to prevent the proliferation of public bodies not subject to the general administrative regime, and achieve a joint model to avoid the organisational dispersion that previously existed.

Organic Law 4/2007, dated 12 April, which modified the Organic Law 6/2001, dated 21 December, on Universities, published in the Official National Gazette on the 13 April, also known as the LOU, which includes, among many others, measures to place public researchers in the private sector and to give greater curricular value to technology transfer activities.

In addition to this, there are plans to present a modification to the Law on Public Sector Contracts, which is currently being processed, and which will include further measures to reduce bureaucratic obstacles to the acquisition of R&D&I-related products and services by Public Research Centres.

• Setting up a new system for the monitoring and assessment of the R&D&I Policies, known as Integrated System for Monitoring and Assessment (SISE), which is the tool designed by the government to control the management of public grant programmes for R&D&I activities. It seeks to improve the transparency and publicising of the actions, so that Spanish citizens and society as a whole are better acquainted with publicly-funded activities.  The SISE is also a system to produce and analyse information to help its own planning, reviewing, updating and adaptation to the new scenarios posed by the objectives of public policy on science and technology.

SEOSAT/INGENIO

Spanish Earth Observation System. Call for opportunities for Stage B of the Complementary Payload. The purpose is to carry out a Call for Opportunities addressed to the Scientific Community to select the Complementary Payload for the Spanish Earth Observation Satellite Programme (SEOSAT/INGENIO) in its Stage B.