Since the European Commission launched the ERA-NET scheme in 2002, intending to coordinate national research programmes, the initiative has 'met a need', according to an expert group charged with reviewing the scheme.
At the end of the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), almost 70 ERA-NETs were up and running. The need for ERA-NETs persists, however. The experts' report gives a ringing endorsement to the continuation of ERA-NETs, while proposing ways in which their structure could be bettered.

So far, the scheme has followed a bottom-up approach, allowing programme owners and managers to suggest programmes to be networked. 'In turn, this has led to a certain diversity in the procedures followed across the scheme, and to a number of overlaps between ERA-NETs in closely related areas,' according to a foreword by the group's chairman, Professor Manfred Horvat of Vienna University of Technology.

In FP7, the Commission should seek to ensure consolidation and coherence. This could be done through the creation of a high level group, by the Competitiveness Council, to review the strategic role of transnational research initiatives and make recommendations on the involvement of EU Member States and Associated States...

Full article: Cordis: "ERA-NETs met a need, but need still exists, finds expert group"