The European Parliament adopted a resolution based on the report drafted by David HAMMERSTEIN-MINTZ (Greens-ALE, E), on the proposal concerning the Specific Programme to be carried out by means of direct actions by the Joint Research Centre under the 7th Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007-2013). The following amendments were adopted in plenary:
- a new recital states that publicly funded research should be directed primarily towards public needs and priorities and seek complementarity with privately funded research. Work undertaken by the Joint Research Centre should be coordinated with research carried out under the thematic priorities to avoid overlap with and duplication of national research programmes;
- the Commission should arrange for an independent assessment to be conducted concerning the activities carried out in the fields covered by the programme, which would include environmental, social, health and animal welfare criteria;
- the JRC must focus attention on issues which are important in terms of societal concern, which have a research component and which have a dominant community dimension, or which are of significance to a substantial proportion of the Community. It must also intensify its cooperation with other European institutions, in particular the European Parliament;
- the overall administrative expenditure of the Specific Programme, including internal and management expenditure for the Joint Research Centre should be proportional to the tasks undertaken under the Specific Programme and is subject to the decision of the budgetary and legislative authorities. Budget appropriations shall be used in accordance with the principle of sound financial management, namely in accordance with the principles of economy, efficiency and effectiveness, as well as the principle of proportionality;
- the Commission’s assessment must contain an assessment of the soundness of financial management and an evaluation of the efficiency and regularity of the budgetary and economic management of the Specific Programme;
- as with all the specific programmes, a new clause states that the Commission shall provide prior information to the budgetary authority whenever it intends to depart from the breakdown of expenditure stated in the remarks and annex to the general budget of the EU;
- the JRC must increase transparency when setting its research priorities by making the criteria for these priorities publicly available and by informing the European Parliament and the Council of the reasons justifying the choice of research priorities;
- efforts should also be made to improve the access of SMEs to research results . This will encourage dialogue between science and society.