The 3^rd Annual Report on Public-Public Partnerships (P2Ps) that has been prepared by the ERA-LEARN 2020 project team using data provided by the P2P networks. It starts with an overview of developments over the 12 month period from July 2016 to June 2017. It then summarises the current position and cumulative investment in P2P joint calls since FP6 followed by a specific section on the Horizon 2020 ERA-NET Cofund instrument. Available data on planned investment for the second half of 2017 and beyond is also included. The report concludes with short summaries of other analytical work carried out by ERA-LEARN 2020 over the past year.

The report analyses alignment across regional programmes and within initiatives developed at regional level. In investigating the alignment possibilities at regional and trans-regional level, the report aims at identifying good practice examples and guidelines on how to effectively achieve alignment in different P2P initiatives. Furthermore, the goal of the report is to underline if and how the regional perspective could facilitate the alignment of national research programmes or be an added value to the alignment process. After an introduction about the regional collaboration in the EU, the report adresses good practices and key factors of success of regional initiatives in terms of alignment and ends with conclusions.

This practical “toolbox” synthesizes the lessons learned from the case studies that examine current and novel alignment modalities. It describes specific alignment actions or instruments in practical terms, the key benefits and weaknesses of such an action, and the success factors necessary to ensure effective implementation and impact.

There are a variety of actions and instruments currently in use in Europe that promote and facilitate the practical implementation of alignment of national research and innovation strategies, activities, and resources. Such joint actions can in fact occur at any stage of the research and innovation programming cycle. The consolidated “Alignment Typology” identifies 29 alignment actions and instruments currently in use by various European public-to-public research partnerships along the entire research and innovation programming cycle. This report provides information about the possible use, benefits, challenges, and key factors of successful implementation for each of the 29 actions identified in the Typology table.

Annex to the ERA-LEARN report on the definition and Typology of alignment.

The Joint Programming Initiative More Years Better Lives (JPI MYBL) is an example of a Joint Programming Initiative in which a set of performance indicators has been set up in an early phase of the programme. The set of key indicators was later used in an independent evaluation in order to assess the progress made in the JPI. This case study provides information on the development of the indicators set and how the indicators were used by the external evaluation.

The case studies examine Monitoring and Evaluation approaches and instruments used in the context of existing JPIs. The case study analysis relies on a review of existing literature and targeted interviews with relevant P2P programme managers and participants.

This publication contains three case studies that examine Monitoring and Evaluation approaches and instruments used in the context of existing JPIs. The case studies highlight a variety of benefits commonly accruing to JPIs that set up adequate Monitoring & Evaluation frameworks and activities, including:

1. the development of a comprehensive, focused set of indicators beyond operational objectives and the explicit linking of the JPI’s vision, aims, and objectives to the indicator framework;
2. tool for organisational learning, where impact assessment provides the opportunity to reflect on internal organizational processes that can feed back into revisions of Strategic Research Agendas (SRAs);
3. assisting the overall coordination and giving direction for future activities; and
4. raising awareness among key stakeholders and improving impact communication.

The cases pinpoint a number of factors that enable the development of effective Monitoring and Evaluation frameworks and reveal the obstacles and challenges to be overcome in the process. At the end several key conclusions are drawn.

This publication contains seven case studies that examine novel alignment modalities of national research strategies, programmes and other activities. By ‘novel’ modalities, instruments, or approaches are meant that contribute to alignment of research activities at the strategic or operational level that are at a pilot stage or have been introduced in schemes or networks other than the JPI or ERA-NETs.

The case studies do not constitute in-depth evaluations of ongoing practices. Instead they aim to illustrate how select novel approaches have been used to promote alignment at strategic, operational and financial levels, and what the key “lessons learned” are from these experiences. The case studies outline the key benefits and challenges practitioners have faced when putting in place such approaches, and the key factors for their successful implementation.

The DACH Agreement is an instrument of cross-border collaboration, signed in May 2008 between the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and its partner organisations, the FWF (Austrian Science Fund, Austria) and the SNSF (Swiss National Science Foundation, Switzerland). It relates to the mutual opening of the respective funding programmes with the objective to simplify the execution of cross-border research projects. Simplification is achieved by making one of the funding agencies the only responsible of the evaluation process of the transnational projects ("Lead Agency" process). In particular, the DACH Agreement – and the related “Lead Agency Procedure” – is a concrete and successful example of cooperation at trans-regional level, which represents a good practice in implementing inter-operability and creates the basis for an alignment at operational level.

The political leaders of 15 European industrial regions gathered on 30 January 2014 in Brussels to engage in a joint effort for the industrial future of Europe. The ‘Vanguard Initiative for New Growth through Smart Specialisation’(VI) is now a network of 30 European regions and they are politically committed to support the wider application and visibility of smart specialisation principles with the aim of boosting EU competitiveness and to revitalise European industrial growth. This is delivered by aligning regional areas of strengths and enabling co-investment on the basis of regional smart specialisation strategies.

The Central European Research Infrastructures Consortium (CERIC-ERIC, acronym CERIC) was set up under the ERIC legal framework in June 2014 by the Commission's implementing decision, based on the formal request of five Countries. It provides open access to the Member's scientific facilities, such as synchrotron light sources, neutron sources, nuclear magnetic resonance apparatus and similar, based on international peer review. CERIC is a distributed research infrastructure in materials and biomaterials. The ERIC Regulation provides a common legal framework based on Article 187 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). The setting up of CERIC by integrating several different facilities into a single distributed infrastructure opens a great opportunity to enhance the circulation of human resources, ideas and innovations. The driving force behind is the common scope to be relevant and attractive at the international level.

The European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) was established in September 2003 by 15 European countries with the aim to develop capacity building for clinical trials and new clinical interventions to address the needs of sub-Saharan Africa in the fields of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. Created as an Article 169 of the Treaty (since re-numbered as Article 185 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union), the EDCTP aims at improving coordination and integration of research from different European Member States in the field of poverty related diseases. The programme has facilitated alignment and coordination of European national research programmes and activities; has fostered African leadership in clinical research, and has strengthened the ethics and regulatory environment for conducting clinical trials in sub-Saharan Africa.

The BLUEMED initiative, Blue Growth research and Innovation Initiative for the Mediterranean - BLUEMED Initiative, is the result of the efforts of 9 EU member states bordering the Mediterranean sea, to foster a sustainable blue growth in the Mediterranean sea area. Its final goal is to contribute to align or integrate the funding strategies, R&I funds and infrastructures at regional, national and EU level, by avoiding duplication, improving the effectiveness in the use of resources and maximizing the leverage effects. BLUEMED represents a good practice of alignment at strategic level, involving from one side the EU Mediterranean Countries, who committed at political level to adopt common research priorities and strategic agenda, and from the other side, the European Commission DG RTD and MARE, which facilitated and supported the process.