Society and Future - Programme

Organisation

On 25 February 2005, the Council of Ministers adopted the research programme “Society and Future”. The programme will have a budget of 14.6 mio. EUR to fund research projects falling into one of the 11 research themes. Two calls are organised: in 2005 and 2007 in order to select research projects. An ex-post evaluation will be organised by the end of the programme.

Projects will typically involve 2 to 3 researchers during a period of 2 to 3 years, which reprensents an average budget of 300.000 to 450.000€. Projects of 4 years can be financed within this programme but will undergo an intermediary evaluation by a panel of external experts who will advice on the continuation of the projects.

The division of the programme into eleven generic themes should not hinder transversal approaches (i.e. covering more than one theme) in the proposals. On the contrary, research teams are encouraged to promote such approaches.
Research teams are also encouraged to collaborate with foreign partners. A share of up to 20% of the cost of personnel and functioning can be dedicated to financing foreign partners in the research network.

The programme aims at increasing the knowledge needed to support the decision-making at the Belgian federal level. This has certain consequences for the organisation of the research work:

Themes falling within the scope of competence of the Regions and/or Communities do not have their place within this programme;
The research themes have to be studied throughout Belgium. Proposals limited (e.g. in their data collection) to one Region or Community or presenting an unjustified disproportion between Regions and/or Communities will be withdraw from the selection procedure;
The research should lead to results that are useful for the preparation of policy decisions. Policy makers in the large sense (which, in a democratic context, refers to all persons, institutions, associations, etc. wishing to participate in the decision making process) should be able to draw relevant knowledge from the research results. This does not mean, however, that the research should lead to tailor-made proposals for a particular person or institution;
The projects should preferably use existing (administrative or non-administrative) data. They should check the availability of the data as well as the length of the procedure for gaining access. If data are not available during the research period as a result of negligence on the part of the researchers, the Belgian State can consider this sufficient grounds for terminating the contract;
If a project requires a type of data collection requiring large budgets (e.g. survey), the preference for this particular type of data collection above all others should be justified in a clear and convincing way;
Primary data collected within the frame of this programme should be made available to other researchers. At the latest, the research team must have communicated the metadata and the conditions of access for other researchers to the Belgian Science Policy Office at the moment the final report is introduced;
All research should have a strong empirical character. Purely theoretical work or construction of models that will not be tested in the area of research will not be accepted;
The gender dimension shall be explicitely taken into account in the research projects.

Steering Committee

The programme “Society and Future” is followed up by a Steering Committee composed of representatives of the federal public institutions. This committee gives an advice on the selection of the themes of the programme and on the submitted proposals.

Selection procedure of the research projects

Projects submitted in this programme are selected by means of a two-step procedure. Firstly, a panel of international experts assesses the intrinsic scientific quality of the proposals and their integration within the research topic(s) of the programme. Proposals that do not satisfy this scientific evaluation will be discarded from the remainder of the selection procedure at this stage.

Secondly, the Steering Committee of the programme gives an advice on the remaining proposals in terms of their support to decision making.
On this basis, a list of proposals is submitted to the Minister of Science Policy.

Functioning of the research projects

Each project funded within the programme “Society and Future” is followed up by a Steering Committee in order to guarantee the general objectives of the programme (high scientific level, citizen’s involvement, support to the decision making). These steering committees are composed of representatives of the academic world (other than the team), of federal authorities (regions and communities are also considered, depending on the topic of the project), of civil organisations. These committees are chaired by a programme manager from the Science Policy Office.

Besides the research activities, all scientific teams are assumed to fulfil the following specific tasks:

organise an international seminar allowing the steering committee to be informed of the state of the art and the international context in which the project is taking place;
submit the final report to the advice of the steering committee and the programme management for publication;
suggest valorisation activities destined to share the end results of the projects outside the steering committee.