The European Commission has put forward a report assessing the progress made in implementing FP7, also pointing put what still remains to be done to fully reach its original objectives. This report provides a basis for the 2010 Interim Evaluation of the programme, for which the Commission will seek advice from an independent expert group, and for further political discussions in the Council, the Parliament and with stakeholders.

In its Report, Commission highlights that FP7 Programme is considerably bigger in size and scope than the previous FP6 Programme. It combines continuity and novelty. Well-proven elements of FP6 are continued, such as the Marie-Curie fellowships for international incoming fellowships, intra-european fellowships, as well as international outgoing fellowships, support to European Research Infrastructures and EURATOM activities, and the funding of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) as a provider of robust and independent scientific and technical support for EU policies. At the same time, FP7 introduces novelties and radical innovations in both content and implementation, which require simplification and management changes.

The available evidence for 2007 and 2008 indicates that FP7 had a good start. The response of the scientific community to its calls for proposals shows a strong demand for Community research. Nearly 36.000 proposals were received, and over 5.500 proposals were selected for funding. The overall participation rate is at 21.7 %, taking into account two-stage application procedures. Furthermore, the quality of the evaluation process is recognised, with 91% of the evaluators stating that the quality of the evaluation process was similar to or better than national evaluations in which they participated.

Good results form FP7

• The success of the European Research Council is evident from the more than 11.000 proposals received for the first call. Already over 500 frontier-research projects have started in prestigious research institutions across Europe resulting from the first calls of the ERC Starting Grant and ERC Advanced Grant schemes.
• Five large-scale public-private partnerships – Joint Technology Initiatives (JTI) – have been set up, each as an independent legal entity under Article 171 of the EC Treaty: Innovative Medicines (IMI); Embedded Computing Systems (ARTEMIS); Clean Sky; Nanoelectronics (ENIAC) and the Fuel Cells & Hydrogen (FCH) JTI. ARTEMIS and ENIAC have launched projects from their first calls and have just published ARTEMIS second call and ENIAC second call, which are still open The other JTIs have launched their first calls for which evaluation and selection of first projects are underway.
• Demand for the new Risk Sharing Finance Facility (RSFF) has been strong since its launch in June 2007, with 30 RSFF operations approved and the value of signed loans reaching EUR 2 billion by the beginning of 2009.
• Two agencies - the Research Executive Agency and the ERC Executive Agency – have been set up to ensure efficient management of a continuously growing FP7 budget without direct staff increases in the Commission.
• Progress has been made in simplifying participation in FP7: A new Guarantee fund has made most ex-ante financial viability checks obsolete; a Unique Registration Facility allows one-off submission of legal documents, and audit certificates and ex-ante financial capacity checks have been reduced by a factor of ten compared to FP6.

However, some issues still deserve some further attention and development, such as SMEs participation under "Cooperation" Specific Programme and "Capacities" Specific Programme, which remains low. Also, below average FP7 participation rates for most new Member States are balanced by higher financial contributions: EU 12 participants obtained almost 5% of the total requested FP7 contribution, compared with a 2.8% share of EU12 in the total EU27 intramural R&D expenditure.

Commission concludes in its report that the 7th Framework Programme is adapting to help the EU meet its goals of creating a low carbon, knowledge-based society. It seeks to increase its leverage effect on public and private R&D investment and to diversify its instruments in order to maximise European added value.

FP7 remains a crucial instrument to promote scientific excellence and technological development, responding to EU policy priorities and the needs of industry and society. FP7 contributes to sustained research efforts, both private and public, as exemplified in the public private partnership initiatives for green cars, energy efficient buildings and factories of the future launched as part of the European Recovery Plan.

In order to obtain advice for further improving and possibly adapting FP7, the Commission will be seeking advice from an independent expert group, which will undertake an Interim Evaluation of FP7. Their mandate should be adopted in autumn 2009, and the evaluation should be completed in the autumn of 2010.

The findings of this Interim Evaluation will not only be relevant for a possible revision of FP7, but also be of great influence on the emerging debates on future financial frameworks of the European Union, the post-2010 Lisbon strategy and the next Framework Programme.