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Dept of Trade and Industry

Answer

Mr. Chaytor: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what management arrangements she has established for processing applications under the LINK Programme; and if she will make a statement. [101879] Ms Hewitt: LINK is a pan-government scheme for the support of collaborative research between UK companies and the science base. It consists of a number of individual programmes which have their own management procedures agreed by the sponsoring Departments in line with overall LINK Scheme guidelines. Each programme funds a number of projects. I believe that my hon. Friend has a particular interest in the LINK Basic Technologies for Industrial Applications programme. In the case of this programme, my Department is the primary sponsor and has established a 2-stage process for assessing applications to minimise unnecessary work for applicants whose projects may not be strong candidates for support. Initial outline proposals, consisting of a 3-page project description with a covering application form, are submitted to the programme co-ordinators by the advertised closing date. These proposals are then circulated to an appraisal panel of independent industrial and academic experts, who assess the proposals against the programme's criteria for support, in particular, the degree of innovation and the potential long-term wider benefit for UK productivity. The panel, which has an independent chairman from industry, meets to review the proposals and recommends those which it considers should come forward as full proposals, bearing in mind the funds available for commitment. The project applicants are then informed of the panel's recommendation by e-mail. A telephone contact number and e-mail address are provided for applicants who wish to seek further feedback or discuss the panel's recommendation. The target for the process from closing date to notification is 30 working days, which was achieved in the call currently under way which involved 140 applications. With such a large number of applications, it is not possible to give detailed feedback to all the applicants within the stated target times for processing. The projects invited to submit full proposals are given a closing date for submission about two months after notification. They are provided with feedback from the appraisal panel and visited by the programme co-ordinators or officials to provide advice on preparing a full application. The full application consists of a 10-page project description with technical annexes plus a LINK summary application form and application forms from each of the consortium members summarising company and financial information. The full proposals are again circulated to the appraisal panel and additional input is sought from other experts where appropriate. The panel meets to review all the proposals and recommends to DTI those which should be supported. The proposals are ranked to enable the available funds to be assigned to the strongest proposals. The applicants are notified of the recommendations of the panel which indicate that, subject to satisfactory financial arrangements being completed, the project will be offered grant support. The target to complete the process from closing date to notification is 40 working days. Information on the programme, including application forms and guidance notes for applicants, are available on the programme website at www.basictechnologies.gov.uk, which is maintained by the programme co-ordinators.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

101879; 401 c690-1W

Session

2002-03

Subjects

Companies Applications Finance Technology Research Science LINK programme

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk