EU research and innovation website comes online

New website to monitor the pace of research and innovation within the EU, which provides data and analyses at both national and EU level, is now online.

The Research and Innovation Observatory (RIO) – Horizon 2020 Policy Support Facility website supports policy-making in Europe by providing practical information on research and innovation policies across the EU.

The website offers quantitative and qualitative information by country, including policy documents, reports, statistics and visualisations of key indicators, as well as updates of research and innovation policy developments in Member States.

It constitutes an important knowledge base in support of the European Semester, the EU’s annual cycle of economic policy coordination, as part of which the European Commission through DG Research & Innovation undertakes each year detailed analyses of the Member States’ research and innovation performance and policies, and provides them with recommendations.

The outcomes of the activities of the Horizon 2020 Policy Support Facility (PSF) run by DG Research & Innovation feed into the website in order to strengthen support to evidence-based policymaking, according to the European Commission.

The PSF was launched by the Commission in March 2015 to assist EU Member States and Associated Countries in reforming their research and innovation policies.

The Observatory at DG Joint Research Centre produces detailed yearly RIO Country Reports on the evolution of national research and innovation systems.

As of this year, it will also provide a series of thematic analytical reports on the impact of public funding instruments on excellence and on effective knowledge transfer mechanisms between business and academia.