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Project SITPRO
Acronym SITPRO Title Assessing the EU-Transport RTD Programme Co-ordinator Halcrow Fox, London, United Kingdom Client European Commission, DG Energy & Transport Contract Number ST-98-RS.3081 Duration November 1998 – November 1999 Person Responsible Liana Giorgi Project Homepage www.its.leeds.ac.uk/projects/sitpro Objectives Identifying and assessing the impacts of the Transport RTD-Programme within the Fourth Framework Programme for RTD of the European Commission, this was the aim of the research study SITPRO ‘Study of the Impacts of the Transport RTD Programme’. A specific objective of the project was the development of a method to identify and assess research impacts.
Between December 1998 and fall 1999 the ICCR together with a consortium of TIS – Portugal, Prodec – Denmark, INRETS – France, IST-University of Leeds – UK, PLANCO – Germany and under the co-ordination of Halcrow Fox – UK investigated a sample of 20 research projects out of 280 projects commissioned by DG 7 within the Transport programme.
The method deployed in the study was a result in itself, as the demand to identify and particularly assess impacts required a specifically adapted methodology. Thus, impacts were defined as contributions to the programme objectives, which was both the policy goals of transport policy and the objectives of the Fourth Framework RTD programme itself. The method of the project studies sought to establish the extent to which research is progressing along its impact pathway, thus findings were contrasted with the expectations of this path of progress. To capture the programme objectives, expert interviews with Commission officials and national representatives respectively were carried out at programme level and supplemented by programme statistics analysis.
1,300 institutions participated in the Programme, averaging 2 projects per institution. Widespread collaboration is in evidence, both spanning countries and types of institution. Most consortia were planning to work together in further framework programme activities, including 6 of 7 consortia in the project studies that had not worked together before.
With regard to the material impact it was too early to draw final conclusions when the project was finalized, as many projects were still ongoing within the Transport programme at that time. A lot of dissemination efforts were made in the projects, however, lack of availability of projects’ results and information on projects’ progress was seen as a major problem by users and national representatives. Of the sample of 20 projects, 13 had already been exploited, though this use may be limited and includes examples of use by members of the consortium in further research. Considering practical application alone; 10 of the 20 projects had outputs that have already been or will be used. Results indicate that progress towards impacts may be occurring more successfully in closed market environments, where there are strong links between the project and its target users, than in open market environments.
Drawing on the findings the study recommends to conceptualise the research impact pathway at the project’s inception, to encourage closed network environments and to minimise barriers in open markets for example by establishing a programme search system by themes to allow potential users to realise quickly which project is relevant for them.
Project Partners ICCR, Vienna, Austria
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