Currently the dutch goverment is in the midst of a process to spend a (FES) fund of 500 million euro's on innovative research projects. The purpose of this money is to select the best parts of the 37 BSIK research programs that were funded four years ago, when a budget of 800 million euros was available. Many of those 4-6 year programs have ended or will end this year. With the reduction of the available fund to almost half its size not all topics an consortium partners will have place in the new programs.
The money will be spent selectively in 8 thematic areas: hightechsystems en materialen; food & flowers; life sciences & health; water, climate and space; ICT; chemistry and energy; creative industry and education.
Baground information (in dutch) can be found here:
In the area of ICT it has been decided that only one large program will be submitted, in contrast to the previous round where several competing ICT programs were submitted. The ministeries have asked ICT-regie (www.ictregie.nl) to direct the effort of making this one program. It has therefore been up to them to make the initial selection of partners and topics, that are believed to be the best to spend tax-payers money on.
During the last months I have been able to participate in a very small piece of the development of the ICT program, and have thus been able to witness part of the proces. This experience has revived the interests I had 5 years ago to investigate how goverment funded research and innovation processes take place.
Many questions could be asked from a scientific and a political point of view. In general the most important one is perhaps: What have we learned from the previous 37 programs that were funded at the end of 2003? Does what we have learned have any impact on the way we develop and select the programs for the next round?
This is truly a question, to which I do not yet have an answer. But in all honesty, I must admit, that I do have a slight worry that it is very difficult to learn from past program experiences, and consequently that not a great deal will change. Let's say that this is a hypothesis, that requires further refinement.
On another level, an important question is if we would at all want any changes in the way this type of money is spent. I suppose the answer to this question is not so much a matter of facts, but a matter of choice. How should money for research and innovatio be spent under the given circumstances?
A final question could be: Is there anything special about the current circumstances, that justifies a better evaluation of past programs and perhaps a change in the way future programs are positioned?
Blog entries should be short. This seems like a nice point to stop for now.
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