The aim of this study by the European Parliamentary Research Service, is to explore, identify and shed light on the reasons for the low participation and success rate of the EU-13 countries, in order to improve their future performance in Horizon 2020 and FP9. The study includes an extensive literature review on various aspects of EU-13 participation in FPs, a comprehensive data analysis to allow a number of hypotheses regarding the origins of the low participation and success rates of the EU-13 countries in FP7 and Horizon 2020 to be tested empirically, an online survey among public research institutions, universities and business enterprises, and interviews with policy-makers.
In order to explore possible explanations for the low participation and low success rates 11 hypotheses were chosen and tested. The results of these tests provided an indication as to where the heart of the problem of low EU-13 participation really lies.
