Background and purpose

The Committee de la Recherche Scientifique & Technique (CREST) is an advisory Committee to the European Council. It is tasked with acting as the operational interface to define and oversee the implementation of a soft governance tool called the "Open Method of Coordination" to achieve the goal set at the Barcelona European Council 2002 of research investment approaching 3% of GDP by 2010. This "Open Method of Coordination" involves mainly benchmarking & peer group review.

During the first CREST cycle, expert groups looked at 6 broad areas, and we provided expert input to the "IPR and Research" expert group. All 6 of these groups reported back to the main CREST committee and the "IPR and Research" final report is available. A summary of their recommendations are available.

The outcomes of this first cycle were published by CREST in its report of 1 October 2004 .

The Intellectual Property Expert Group of the CREST OMC 2nd Cycle (the IP Group) was tasked with following up on these recommendations. This cycle was structured as a rolling programme of narrowly defined, Member State led projects. the Office lead one of these on the topic of "knowledge transfer and cross-border collaborations". The project was formally launched by Lord Sainsbury, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Science and Innovation on 20 September 2005.