N. 15, June - July 2004 
IP & RTD: Articles 

What does the Commission do with the Technological Implementation Plan (TIP)?
Hélène Barry and Stefaan Vandendriessche
European Commission, DG Research
Directorate G: Industrial Technologies
 
The TIP is one of the final reports of every RTD or CRAFT project in FP5 and gathers all information related to exploitable results and the project partners' intentions about using and disseminating the knowledge generated in the project. It is requested in electronic form (eTIP) based on version 3.3 of the TIP which has the following structure:

  • Publishable information:

    Part 1: Overview and description of the project and its results (1 form per project)

    Part 2: Description of each result & search for collaboration through Commission services (1 form per result)

  • Confidential information:

    Part 3: Description of the intentions by each partner (1 form per partner)

The TIP is used for several purposes by the project officer and by the Innovation Cell and the Evaluation Function of the specific programme under which the project is funded:

  1. The project officer verifies if the contractors plan to exploit the results of the projects as they committed to in the "Description of Work":

    A project is funded because of its anticipated contribution to the objectives of the programme under which it is funded. That anticipated contribution is described in the Description of Work (Annex I of the contract) and planning the necessary action to try to achieve that contribution is just as much an obligation under the contract as trying to achieve the project's RTD objectives.

  2. The project officer or the Innovation Cell verifies if any exploitable results are left unprotected and unexploited:

    Articles 9 and 10 of Annex II of the contract oblige the contractors to protect and "use", "cause to be used", and / or "disseminate" the exploitable "knowledge" generated within the project in accordance with the interests and obligations of the Community. In the absence of commitment in the TIP to carry out the appropriate actions, the Commission acquires the right to protect, use and disseminate the knowledge. When the latter happens, the knowledge is normally added to the portfolio of knowledge generated by the Joint Research Centre's own RTD activities.

  3. The project officer or the Innovation Cell checks if any assistance can be offered with the needs described in the TIP under "collaboration sought":

    Section 2.3 of the TIP (version 3.3) enquires which forms of collaboration are still being sought in view of the exploitation of the results of the project. Help with several of these (e.g. "Further Ramp;D ", "Licence agreement", "Manufacturing agreement", "Marketing agreement/Franchising", "Joint venture", "Venture capital/spin-off funding", "Private-public partnership", "Information exchange") is available from innovation support services or information services funded by the Commission, and where appropriate, the project officer or the Innovation Cell will signpost the relevant contractor(s) to these services (e.g. the IPR Helpdesk, Gate2Growth, the CORDIS Results database, the CORDIS Partners database) or even invite these to contact them (the IRC network in particular will actively offer their free services to RTD result owners).

  4. The publishable part of the TIP is transmitted to CORDIS which then enters the description of the exploitable results into the CORDIS Results database:

    The CORDIS Results database is in the first place meant as a source of information on possibilities for technology transfer. It is complemented by the (free) technology transfer service of the IRC network (an Innovation Cell may in fact pass interesting RTD results directly to the IRC network in parallel with their transmission to CORDIS).

    CORDIS may decide to give extra promotion to particularly interesting results, either via the Technology Marketplace, or via one of its magazines (e.g. RTD Results Supplement).

  5. The TIPs form the basis of an inventory of the RTD results generated within a programme:

    Depending on the human resources available to the Innovation Cell, this inventory may be used for promotion activities such as special editions of CORDIS magazines, technology transfer brokerage events, grouped presentations at trade fairs, etc. Such events are especially feasible for programmes or programme areas covering a single sector of industry or a narrow range of sectors.

  6. The TIP is a source of information for the evaluation and impact assessment of the programme:

    The TIP includes a short evaluation questionnaire and, as such, offers a systematic survey collecting feedback from project co-ordinators. It collects quantified estimates of economic and non-economic outputs and impacts, and it is therefore (obviously to a limited extent) a basis for the impact assessment of programmes.

    The Growth programme actually uses the TIP as input information for a more thorough evaluation and impact assessment of each completed project by an independent expert.

Whilst the TIP at project end is compulsory for all FP5 programmes, it is the choice of each programme to decide whether or not it requires a draft TIP at mid-term. The Growth programme does require one, mainly to ensure that the planning of the exploitation of the results is undertaken at a sufficiently early stage. The Growth programme actually offers its projects the possibility of a "TIP seminar" or "Exploitation Strategy Seminar". This service consists of (1) a study by an expert of all issues which may adversely affect the exploitation of the intended results, and (2) a seminar to brainstorm on a strategy to avoid the identified risks (and to prepare the consortium for producing a high quality TIP).

In FP6, the TIP will be replaced by a "Plan for using and disseminating the knowledge" which has to be developed gradually throughout the project (a draft will be required in each periodic report).