BOF (Bijzonder Onderzoeksfonds)

Next to other resourch agencies such as FWO-Vlaanderen, the Bijzonder Onderzoeksfonds (BOF) is an important financial resource for stimulating academic scientific research, i.e. research initiated by the scholar. The BOF-key is an interuniversity distributing mechanism providing the universities with significant financial resources that can further be allocated to large (the so-called GOAs) and smaller research projects through a proper internal selection screening based on peer-review of competitive project applications. The BOF-resources have been quadrupled (from 21,1 million euros in 1995 tot 90,3 million euros in 2002) in the period of 1995 to 2002.

Before 2002, the interuniversity distribution of these resources was based on three criteria, namely on the share of delivered second-cycle diploma’s over a time period of 4 years (35 %), on the share of delivered doctoral dissertations over a time period of 4 years (50 %) and on the total share of resources that universities could claim (15%).

From 2003 onwards, an additional criterium has been added to the distribution key: each university’s share in the total Flemish academic publication and citation output in the Science Citation Index (extracted from the Expanded Web-of-Science, ISI-Thomson) over a shifting time period of ten years. For 2003, the original three criteria were considered for 90%, the SCIE-output provided the remainder 10%. According to the latest update on the BOF-proposition, the 90/10 ratio is to grow into a 70/30 ratio in the coming years. ECOOM carries out the publication and citation counts for the Flemisch government.

IOF (Industrieel Onderzoeksfonds)

The establishment of the Industrial research fund (IOF) was an initiative of the Flemish government. The main goals of this  fund are aimed  at the  valorization of the university knowledge in the form of community and/or commercial applications. The Flemish government budgeted a large amount to be used by the Flemish universities to make a substantial contribution to this goal. The budget are distributed among the universities on the basis of several parameters related to valorization for instance industrial projects, EU-projects, spin-offs, patents, doctoral dissertation.

Data provision for IOF
The technometrics group of ECOOM is responsible for the data provision of parameter 5 and 6 (patents and spin-offs) of the IOF key.

Patent extraction and validation
The academic patents which are taken into account for the IOF key are EP applications and grants, US grants and WO applications where the university are (co-)applicant in a time window of 5 years.After a validation round by the Flemish universities, the validated patent counts are presented to the steering committee.

Spin-off creation
To take the creation of spin-offs at the Flemish universities into account, the official start-up documents are collected by ECOOM. Based on these start-up documents (start-up date, structure of shareholders, technology transfer) a list of relevant spin-off companies created in a time frame of 5 years are presented to the steering committee.

Stimulating research and development (R&D) and innovation is central to the Flemish government policies. In 2003 Flanders signed the Innovation Pact, thereby endorsing the European Lisbon strategy and the Barcelona-goals to increase R&D expenditure to 3% of the GDRP (Gross Domestic Regional Product). The ambition to attain this norm was reaffirmed with the signing of the 2020 Pact on January 20^th, 2009, in Hasselt. This entails a formal commitment by all participants on the Flemish innovation landscape (government, corporations, universities, and research institutions) to attain the 3% norm by 2014 through common and complementary efforts. Implementing the 3% norm implies first of all that there has to be good R&D data available at the Flemish level. The federal Belgian government is responsible for delivering data on R&D activities in Belgium to Eurostat.

In the R&D survey, data is collected on research and development (R&D) in corporations. In Flanders, this biannually survey is conducted by the Centre for R&D Monitoring for the federal and regional authorities, and in close cooperation with the other regions and the federal POD WB[1] through the CFS-Stat[2]. The Innovation Studies group of the Centre for R&D Monitoring collects the Flemish data and checks the validity and consistency, after which indicators relevant for policy are calculated.

At the European Council of Lisbon in 2000 the European Union set a high goal for the future: “to become the most competitive economy in the world, capable of durable economic growth, with more and better jobs and a tighter social cohesion” (Commission of the European Communities, September 2000).

Throughout the years different factors have been regarded as the driving force behind competition. In the 1960s and 1970s the focus was on efficiency. During the ’70s the focus moved to quality, and later to flexibility. From the 1990s onward, innovation became the ultimate competition force. The European Union has made many efforts to boost the innovation level in the EU, so as to realize its ambitious goals.

It is therefore a basic need to have powerful tools for measuring innovation activities. Since the beginning of the 1990s, much work has been put into developing instruments to measure innovation. The “Oslo manual” created by the OECD and first issued in 1992 constitutes the international directives for collecting and interpreting data concerning technological innovation. In recent years it has become clear that innovation entails more than just technological innovation, and, hence, the third edition of the OSLO manual also covers non-technological innovation, such as organizational and marketing innovation.

Using the principles of the Oslo manual, the innovation efforts in the European Union are measured systematically in the Community Innovation Survey (CIS). The European Commission (Eurostat) is the instructing party. The first Flemish CIS survey was conducted in 1993. A second and third CIS survey followed in 1997 and in 2001, respectively. In 2005, 2007, and 2009 the fourth, fifth and sixth CIS survey were launched by the Innovation Studies group of the Centre for R&D Monitoring, for the federal and regional authorities, and in close collaboration with the other regions and the federal POD WB through the CFS-Stat. In the Community Innovation Survey (CIS) data concerning innovative behavior and innovative performance of companies is collected. This data is checked extensively for validity and consistency by the Innovation Studies group of the Centre for R&D Monitoring, after which policy-relevant indicators are calculated.