Assessment of the IMPACT of the
EU FAIR Agri-Food Research
Professor Peter Richmond, UK
Early in 2001, the author was awarded a small Accompanying Measure by the Agri-Food Directorate of DG Research to assess the IMPACT of a selected subset of projects recently completed within the FAIR RTD program. The project, completed with Professor Jim Leslie, pointed to a number of exciting sucess stories that have already arisen from EU sponsored research. IMPACT is juged differently by different stakeholder groups and we identified five different domains againse which IMPACT might be measured. More importantly the study pointed to a number of characteristics that seem to be a feature of successful projects having a strong impact. Key characteristics termed 'process factors' were:
- Clarity of projects;
- High quality of contract between partners;
- Strong industry commitment throughout life of project;
- The availability of dissemination opportunities;
- Style of coordinator;
- Strong team spirit;
- Availability of well trained staff; and
- Close contact with scientific officer.
Full details are given in EU DG Research publication EUR 20496.
