Additionality of EU framework programmes

This paper draws attention to problems inherent in the routine application of the concept of additionality in evaluation. It exemplifies these problems by expressing them in a typology based on the perceived additionality of public R&D support and the strategic value of the R&D funded. Some categories are considered to represent successes of public R&D support and others to represent failures. The paper questions such routine assumptions, and uses empirical materials from EU framework programmes, a special case of public R&D programmes, to illustrate the problems. The paper ends by suggesting that the present system of evaluation rewards short-term success, and argues that it would be more beneficial to develop evaluation procedures that stretch over a longer period and are therefore able to pick up emerging areas of important technology supported by public programmes.