Ex post evaluation and impact assessment of funding in the FP7 NMP thematic area

In December 2013 the European Commission's DG RTD mandated Technopolis Group and the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research to perform the ex post evaluation and impact assessment of the FP7 'Nanosciences, Nanotechnologies, Materials and New Production Technologies' (NMP) Theme. The report at hand presents the most important findings of this evaluation and impact assessment. The core objective of the FP7 NMP Theme was to improve the competitiveness of European industry and generate the knowledge needed to transform it from a resource-intensive to a knowledge-intensive industry. The evaluation was commissioned in order to get insight in the impact and achievements of the NMP Theme (as is done for all other themes in FP7) but also to investigate the results of the introduction of the Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in 2010. The introduction of these new directions chosen under FP7 was one of the main actions of the e200bn European Economic Recovery Plan aimed at maintaining and creating jobs and strengthening competitiveness in Europe. Launching the PPPs was one of the main actions of the Commission in this regard. Another - related - novelty was that the NMP Theme was the first theme that positioned the projects in the innovation chain using the Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) concept. The concept was used to outline the different research and deployment steps supporting the process of transferring ideas to the market. Due to these developments the NMP Theme became a forerunner of the approach that was adopted in Horizon 2020, with as its main characteristic the integration of research and innovation activities.