1. Member States reporting on R&I reforms in view of NRP Update by the group on the European Semester and ERA monitoring Ward Ziarko – ERAC december 2013

2. The content of the National Reform Programmes Context : reform measures that respond to each of the Country Specific Recommendations (CSR) progress towards national Europe 2020 targets, reform measures that will contribute to achieve these targets additional reform measures addressing AGS priorities and Euro Plus Pact commitments

3. ERAC Draft opinion on ERA PR 2013 In addition, the 2014 AGS calls on Member States to accelerate the reform of their national research systems in line with the European Research Area (ERA). In December 2013, ERAC has adopted an opinion on the ERA progress report 2013 which stresses the need for an appropriate and detailed monitoring of national policy developments which contribute to the objectives of the ERA and to connect this reporting closely to the European Semester. But in order to do this reporting in a pragmatic way, the ERAC opinion recommended "limiting the role of ERA-related measures in the National Reform Program to the new and most relevant initiatives".

5. Main issues regarding reporting Finding : reporting on R&I in NRP’s is very heterogenous. Challenge : How could "R&I inputs to NRPs” be structured and used in support of policy mutual learning in the context of ERAC? Finding : a lot of reporting takes place on Research and innovation Challenge : which other source(s) of information on R&I policies could be used to complement “R&I inputs to NRPs”?

6. R&I inputs to NRPs : Possible structure On a voluntary base Member States could structure their input to NRP’s as follows : Analysis of progress towards the national R&D intensity target Specific role and expected contribution of R&I to growth and jobs in the national context Main policy developments in the field of R&I contributing to ERA presented by the main ERA priorities (based on joint OECD/EC policy taxonomy)

7. ERAC recommends Member States (and Associated Countries) : To follow the proposed structure (on a voluntary base) when producing the input to the NRP’s and agree to share this input with the Commission and Member States to improve mutual learning The Commission : To continue to support the alignment of the OECD STI Outlook Survey and future database with the structure and content of policy reporting in the context of Europe 2020, leading to a new joint Survey and database avoiding duplications and double reporting by Member States Include the current ERAC Survey on R&I Investments in the new joint OECD/EC STI Outlook Survey and future database