The article aims at contributing to understanding the European Research Area (ERA), from the perspective of science policy coordination. It first looks at ERA as an evolution of European science policy, shaped by ideas as to what science policy is and should be, by its own history and by...

How can socio-economic research contribute to the benchmarking of RTD policies in Europe? Does socio-economic research need to become more intuitive and less rigorous, or should benchmarking become more scientific to convince politicians and other stakeholders that it is worthy of a position in...

Greece and Portugal are the weakest European economies. Their accession to the European Community provided a stimulus for policies to improve the competitiveness of their industries, in order to withstand competition within the Single Market. Support through Community regional development...

The current financial crisis has important consequences for small national research systems of the European periphery, where in some cases it leads to reform and significant downsizing of public R&D efforts. This paper develops a normative theoretical framework for guiding decisions concerning...