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The National Research and Development Plan.

The law of the General Promotion and Coordination of Scientific and Technical Research establishes the institutional framework used to develop scientific and technological policies which, respecting the researcher's liberty, coordinate and plan research, directing it towards top priority interests. To accomplish these ends and keeping in mind the scientific, social and economic needs of the country, the Law establishes a National R+D Plan as a basic instrument to develop those activities directed at achieving optimum benefits from the resources devoted to R+D and entrusts an interministerial Committee of Science and Technology -in which all Ministries with research and developments activities are represented- with the planning, coordination and follow-up of the National R+D Plan. The Science Law also created two consultive bodies devised to guarantee the correct participation of the elements forming the system: the General Council of Science and Technology, which coordinates the activities included in the national Plan of the Autonomies, and the Advisory Council for Science and Technology which has the responsibility of fostering the participation of the scientific community's representatives and the economic and social delegates.

The national R+D was approved in 1988 after having carried out, for the first time in Spain, an assessment of the material and human resources devoted to these activities and their degree of coordination and efficiency. The Plan, which became effective in 1988 for the years 1988-91, has invested over this period a total of 76,900 million pesetas for the different directed programmes and 39,000 million pesetas for the sectional and integrated programmes, among which the most important is the promotion of basic investigation. The whole National Plan includes approximately 30% of R+D spending in our country, because these funds serve as an incentive to promote spendinf on R+D activities by the companies and institutions participating in its different activities.

The National Plan is an instrument for planning and as such incorporates in its different thematic programmes the scientific and technological goals considered to be of greatest interest for the optimum development of the country and therefore receive maximum attention. At present 15 national programmes are being developed in the fields of Production, Communications, Quality of Life and Natural Resources and Sociocultural Technologies, others include horizontal studies such as the Formation of Research Personnel, Information for Scientific Research and Technological Development, and other special ones like the National Antartic Programme. The National Plan is also promoting quality non directed research through the Sectorial Programme of the General Promotion of Knowledge, sponsored by the Ministry of Education and Science which integrated in the National Plan, in fulfilment of Article 4 of the Science Law.

The National Plan's goals are fundamentally being developed along five lines of activities; the formation of research personnel; research projects which are acrried out in public institutions and non-profit making research entities; the endowment of these same institutions with a scientific and technical infrastructure, co-ordinated projects developed by companies in colaboration with public research institutions and integrated projects institutions.

With respect to the quality and viability of the proposals, they are all assessed by the National Agency of Evaluation and Prospective which is one of the most important managerial departments within the National Plan. The Agency has at its disposal more than 7,000 assessors among whom 1,400 are foreign.

With the inauguration of the European Single Market, the Spanish Scientific Technologial-Industrial system must be consolidated. For this reason, the National R+D Plan has created the Offices for the Transference of Research Results (OTRI/OTT Network), an interphase structure that provides the required mechanisms to promote cooperation between companies ans public research institutions, which is necessary for the functional integration of the System's elements. This networks is made up of 65 Offices for the Transference of Research Results (OTRI), located at each of the universities, public research institutions and research associations. Other activities include the aforementioned projects underway and the PETRI, the Programme of Motivate and Transference of Research Results, promoting indispensable communication between public research institutions and private companies, which means that it motivates projects whose results can be transferred to industry.

In 1992 the National R+D Plan iniciated its second phase (1992-1995) with the programmes which appear in the above chart. There are other sectorial programmes aimed at fomenting R+D, among which the most important are the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism's Plan for Industrial Technological Action and its plan for Energetic Research which is geared towards the final stages of industrial technological development.

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NATIONAL R+D PROGRAMMES (1992-1995)
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NATIONAL PROGRAMMES
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Life and Natural Resource Quality

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Production and Communication Technology

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Programmes of:

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Horizontal and Special Programmes

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AUTONOMOUS COMMUNITIES PROGRAMMES

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SECTORIAL PROGRAMMES

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(Source: Interministerial Committee of Science and Technology)

In October 1995, the III National R+D Plan for the years 1996-1998 was designed. You can get more information about this Plan, going to III Plan Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo.

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