EVALUATION OF THE ECONOMIC-EFFECTS OF BRITE-EURAM PROGRAMS ON THE EUROPEAN INDUSTRY

This article deals with an evaluation performed by BETA group about th e economic effects of EU R & D programmes (Brite, Euram and Brite-Eura m I) on the European industry. The approach used is based on an origin al methodology designed by BETA, which aims at evaluating those effect s at a micro level (i.e. the participants to the programmes) by means of direct interviews of 176 partners involved in 50 projects. The defi nition of these economic effects is firstly described, as well as the different steps of the evaluation work. Then the overall results of th e study are presented, showing the importance of both ''direct'' and ' 'indirect'' observed effects in monetary terms. Finally, some more det ailed results highlight the positive impact of some aspects of the org anization structure set up for the analyzed R & D projects on the amou nt of observed effects: i) the participation of a university lab; ii) the participation of at least one partner involved in a fundamental re search work; iii) the diversity of research tasks over a scale ranging from fundamental research to industrialization work; iv) the combinat ion of ''user-type'' and ''producer-type'' of activity in one given or ganisation (integration effect) or in one given project (consortia eff ect), etc...