The Council
held an exchange of views on four proposals aimed at establishing joint
technology initiatives (JTIs) in the following fields:
- innovative
medicines ("IMI")
- aeronautics
and air transport ("CLEAN SKY") (CNS/2007/0118)
- nano-electronics technologies
("ENIAC") (CNS/2007/0122)
- embedded
computing systems ("ARTEMIS") (CNS/2007/0088)
The
ministerial debate concentrated in horizontal issues with a view to adopting
final decisions at the November Competitiveness Council meeting in order to
enable a swift start to the four JTIs in 2008.
The Council
underlined a number of important political elements which resulted from the
discussion:
- The JTIs
should be set up under Community law as Community bodies. They should receive
Community funding in order to implement the research programmes, notably
by awarding funding to selected projects, following publication of calls
for proposals.
- They will
take the form of real public/private partnerships with a shared
responsibility of industry in the management of the joint undertakings.
EU member states and the Commission will exercise appropriate
supervision over the use of public funds.
- They will
have a limited duration of 10 years.
- They will
not have the status of international organisations.
- They will
have legal personality and will be established on the basis of articles
171 and 172 of the EC treaty.
- They will
implement the research programmes by combining public and private
funding.
- The
Community will contribute to both the research activities and the
running costs.
- The Council
also tasked the preparatory bodies to continue further technical work
based on the political guidelines agreed by the Council.
The IMI initiative
will include: development of tools and methods to better predict the
suitability, safety and efficacy of drugs, intelligent infrastructures for
data integration and knowledge management through close cooperation between
industry, academia and clinical centres. It will also address education and
training gaps to ensure that Europe has the skills to translate research
results into benefits for the patient.
The maximum of
the Community contribution is estimated at EUR 1 billion (up to 2017).